Old Testament Walk Throughout Jerusalem

Yesterday we went on another trip into Jerusalem called our "Old Testament Walk" even though we actually saw quite a few New Testament sites. We started out in the Old City part of Jerusalem again but eventually throughout the day we made our way outside of the walls of the Old City into a few other parts of Jerusalem. The first site we visited was the remnants of one of Hezekiah's walls. This wall has also been called the "broad wall" because of how wide it is, which you can kind of see in the picture. It was estimated to be about 8 meters high and somewhere between 4-5 meters thick. The reason Hezekiah needed a wall so big was because the Assyrians were on their way to siege Jerusalem, but ultimately the wall isn't what gave Hezekiah success but rather due to his faith in the Lord, the Lord conquered the Assyrians. And the Lord prevented Sennacherib (the Assyrian king at the time) from conquering Jerusalem, this can be found in Isaiah 37.

After that we walked through the Old City a little bit more until we arrived at our next site. This site is one of the proposed sites of where The Lord's Supper took place with Jesus and His disciples. The meal that they were celebrating that night was the Passover meal. It was

 interesting to find out how much this changes your understanding of the text when you remember to keep in the context that this meal was the Passover meal. The Passover meal was to celebrate one of the most important events to ever occur in Israel's history, the Exodus. Through the Exodus the Israelites began to find the identity of who they were as God's chosen people and so at the Passover meal it was a time of reflection back on who they are. And when Jesus made the statement "do this is remembrance of me" it was a huge statement not just some simple statement that we see it as today. This meal was from then on to be centered around Jesus Christ. While there we read Luke 22:7-23.

After this we walked until we ended up at a cemetery, which surprisingly contained the grave of Oskar Schindler (some of you may recognize the name from the movie Schindler's List). This German saved around 1200 Jews during the holocaust. 

Even though that was cool to see it wasn't the whole reason why we went to the cemetery. We went farther into the cemetery until we arrived at the outer wall which overlooked the Hinnom Valley that surrounds part of Jerusalem. We find this valley mentioned in Jeremiah 7:30-34 as a place where high places were built to false gods and people were sacrificing children even though the Lord did not command this and as a result the Lord proclaimed judgment on this place and that it would eventually be known as the "Valley of Slaughter" because dead bodies would be placed there out in the open where the birds of the air could eat them.

Next we saw some ruins from part of one of Herod's walls that surrounded the temple mount. The ruins we saw were many large stones that used to be part of the wall surrounding the temple mount but during the destruction of the temple by the Romans in 70 A.D. these stones were pushed over and fell to the ground. 

After that we headed to a 

place near the Gihon Spring known as Hezekiah's tunnel. This tunnel stretches 1500 feet underground from the Gihon Spring to the pool of Siloam. The tunnel built by men during Hezekiah's time was used as a way to allow water into the city and was especially useful during times of siege. We then got to actually go down and walk through Hezekiah's tunnel all the way from the Gihon Spring to the pool of Siloam. It was amazing! The tunnel was just wider then shoulder length and most of the time I was bending over because the ceiling wasn't very high. Oh and the best part was that water still flows through there and at one point the water was up passed my knees but that was just for a short bit and the rest of the time it was around ankle deep maybe a little higher. And when you turned off your flashlights it was pitch black in there, there was no lighting or anything. It was really cool to experience that and a lot of fun at the same time. After making it out of the tunnel we got to go into the pool of Siloam. The pool of Siloam is mentioned in John 9 in the account of Jesus healing the blind man and the pool is the place where Jesus tells the blind man to go and wash and is where is eyesight was restored. What an amazing picture of Jesus Christ's compassion!