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  • Land of the Bible

  • Wadi Qelt. As we visit the Wadi Qelt

  • we'll have cause to think about both

  • Psalm 23 and Jesus' story of the Good Samaritan

  • but first you may be wondering where is the wadi Qelt

  • well its a gash

  • in the land, that heads up from Jericho to Jerusalem

  • or that heads down from Jerusalem to Jericho depending on which way you look at it

  • butwith a side branch to Michmash

  • its one of those winding

  • steep-sided wadis that are cut by water into the limestone rocks

  • up the eastern side of the Judean Hills. Heading out of Jerusalem

  • to be East on the northern side not far past

  • the Hebrew University we were in the desert

  • dry

  • barren, not far still and we turned off

  • and arrived here the the Prat spring

  • the Nahal Prat - Prat Spring

  • provides a permanent water source for

  • the Wadi Qelt and here we're surrounded by

  • green and lush in the middle of the desert

  • a little oasis, as we move further

  • down the Wadi Qelt we will be returning

  • desert-like scenery. As we head

  • down the wadi it's winter time and there's water

  • at the bottom and plenty of grass and other growth

  • lush almost. And a Bedouin encampment, because they want to pasture their flocks with this

  • lush grass

  • as we moved down further

  • near the monastery the wadi he gets steeper and steeper

  • the water's cut a

  • narrower and narrower channel at the bottom

  • this is rugged territory

  • it's

  • also as we fly over the modern road from Jerusalem to Jericho

  • the setting of Jesus' story of the Good Samaritan

  • and you can see why such territory was dangerous in ancient times

  • even in modern times the road is precipitous enough

  • but the ancient track

  • was much more dangerous

  • even without the robbers and provided of course in ideal place for the robbers to

  • ambush

  • their prey!

  • Flying past the monastery we get a sense

  • of just how remote this region is, there are some caves

  • that were the ancient monastery before the modern one was built.

  • Down nearer to Jericho the

  • gash is deeper still, the water collects at the very bottom of

  • this canyon that we can't get down into in the helicopter

  • but just look down and imagine

  • the water flooding down you'll find links to

  • videos of flash floods in the Judean Desert

  • which may give you some idea of just how dangerous this kind of territory was

  • for sheep

  • so the sight of these flash floods

  • and the geography of the wadi throws light on many of the phrases in Psalm 23

  • and will be thinking of that as we make our visit to the wadi

  • Qelt

Land of the Bible

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