The Father of the Jews

The first site of our trip was a place called Tel Be'er Sheva.

"Tel" is a Hebrew word meaning "hill." We would climb many "tels" throughout the trip. This site was the well of Abraham and Abimelech's oath in the book of Genesis. This was our first exposure to repeated themes throughout the trip: tels, ruins, archaeological sites, dug up cities, and cisterns. Towards the end they began to run together. However, it was amazing to look out over the ruins of a city. These huge stones that had been built into a city had been buried for almost two thousand years until one day people began to dig them up. It is hard to imagine how the cities got buried. Our guide pointed out that in the restored walls of the city there is a caulk like white line that shows where what was dug up meets together with what had been restored.
Being from such a comparatively young country it is unbelievable to consider that a city could be buried for almost 2000 years untouched and seeing this face to face makes you feel real insignificant to world history.




At the entrance to the site was a rebuilt altar that looked like what an altar from biblical times would look like. It was a small reminder of the story of Abraham preparing to sacrifice Isaac. That would have taken place about three days walk from this city and the altar would have looked nothing like this. Upon entering we climb the tel and entered the walls into the old city of Be'er Sheva. A look out tower had been built to perch atop and view the remains of the city. Only about 70 families lived in this city before it was destroyed. We looked at some of the remains of their houses.

As mentioned earlier, this city was the site of the well of agreement between Abraham and Abimelech. We saw a few wells on the trip and cisterns at almost every site. A well is dug deep enough to crack into the water layer of the earth's crust. A cistern is built to collect and save rain water and precipitation. The cistern here was impressive. We donned hard hats to descend to the depths of the cistern. It was one of like a gazillion "I've never seen this before" moments of the trip. (This was also the first site where we saw a herd of sheep with a shepherd, and a herd of camels in the distance. First but not close to final.) This site was in a region of land called the Negev Desert. Interestingly, Israel is like two-thirds desert and some books I read said it "intrinsically lacks water." This is astounding to consider because this was the promised land of God. The "land flowing with milk and honey."

Why would God give a land that would lack water? The Israelites complain about this in Numbers 20. They say "God we had water in Egypt. Why would you bring us from there into this land?" At this point in wandering they probably would have been somewhere near here. In Deuteronomy 11 God promises that if they obey Him they will not lack water. He will provide. God knows that if they become too comfortable they might lose their dependence on Him. But God brings them into a land where they will need to trust Him for the most basic needs.

At this site we heard an interesting teaching about the passage of the site. Abraham lies to Abimelech and says that his wife is really his sister because he fears being killed and have his wife stolen. This in spite of God's promise of protection. There is a pattern of distrusting God. In Genesis 21:22 Abimelech responds by showing praise to the Lord even though Abraham failed God. In Genesis 26 Isaac, Abraham's son tells the exact same lie. He fears for his life and says to Abimelech's men that his wife is really his sister. This in spite of the fact that God had just promised to protect him. Sound familiar? Isaac follows in his father's failures. Again Abimelech praises God, but in Genesis 26:28 he responds with the same wording of 21:22 except he uses the covenant name of God to honor God. The name of God was being spread in spite of failures. Good and bad passed on through generations.

When leaving for the trip Tiffany pointed out a book at the airport bookshop called "Walking the Bible." In it the author writes on the first page the truth that Abraham was the first Jew. This hit me like a line drive to the head. Everything I would see on this trip: the land, the peoples, the culture, the behaviors, the traditions, the religion, the entirety of the Jewish people and nation would stem back from Abraham's obedience to follow God into this new land. Good and bad pass themselves on. Decisions last for generations.