Wadi Qelt

We took a field trip with the students Monday to the Wadi Qelt, a unique spring-fed desert ravine which runs from west to east, draining a significant part of the northern Judean wilderness.

It's hard to imagine having to live like this and trying to sell enough wares to survive.

Our bus dropped us off and we took a relatively short walk to a look out place. As we walked along this dry, barren path Garth said, "This is the last place on earth I could ever imagine people walking and the last place you would ever expect to find water!" We were fortunate that the day was cooler than usual so the walk was much easier. Drs. Skinner and Allred were leading our group.

 

The higher we got the more we could see of the surrounding hills. Photos do not do justice to such an immense area of desolate hills. The view was absolutely breathtaking! One student commented he felt this was the most beautiful site he had seen since his arrived in Israel.

The road you see is route we took on the bus.

The gorge of the Wadi Qelt is a spring-fed desert ravine in the center and the "Ascent of Adummim" which followed the ridge is located along the south side of the Wadi. This is the same area where in I Kings, 17:1-6 it talks about how the ravens fed Elijah bread and flesh in the morning and night. . . "And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning and bread and flesh in the evening and he drank of the brooke." Look closely and you will see the aqua duct built by the Romans (Herod) along the right side that looks like a snake and on the left side is the trail.

When the Syrian Greeks took control of the region of the Wadi Qelt, they wanted to wipe out Judiasm so they built an aqua duct from Jerusalem to Herod's palace which was located at the end of the Wadi Qelt. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was where the Good Samaritan parable happened. At that time Jews were only loyal to other Jews and there was no obligation for any Jew to help anyone who was not a Jew. The Samaritans lived north of Jerusalem and were despised by the Jews. On His way to the Mount of Olives, Jesus (Luke 10:30) was asked the question, "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus responded by telling the story of the Good Samaritan and said, "Go and do likewise." This is known as the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

The “Ascent of Adummim” was the main route from Jericho to Jerusalem in antiquity and the route Jesus would have walked. This was also the place where Jesus fasted 40 days and 40 nights and he was "afterward hungered." (Matt. 4 -2-4) The devil said to him, "If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread." Jesus answered, "Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."

Among the biblical events which likely occurred on this route were David’s flight from Absalom (2 Sam 15-16), Zedekiah’s flight from the Babylonians (2 Kgs 25:4), the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), and Jesus’ travels from Jericho to Jerusalem (Luke 19:28). If you were to walk the path, a distance of 15 miles and due to the difficulty of the terrain, it would take about 6 hours. Jeff and Joyce from the JC walked it and said they would never do it again! From the top, the elevation was about 3,400 feet.

We looked down and could see this lovely monastery. This Greek Orthodox monastery was built in the late 5th century AD by John of Thebes. He became a hermit and moved here from Egypt in AD 480. The monastery was named St. George after the most famous monk who lived at the site – Gorgias of Coziba. Destroyed in 614 by the Persians, the monastery was rebuilt in the Crusader Period. It fell into disuse after the expulsion of the Crusaders. In 1878, a Greek monk, Kalinikos, settled here and restored the monastery, finishing it in 1901. Set in a beautiful landscape, the monastery sits well within the Wadi and the only way to get there is either on foot or by donkey. In 1998, when our daughter, Keri, was studying at the Jerusalem Center, she and other students walked down to the monastery and went inside.

Before the monastery was built, the monks lived in the caves in the sides of the mountain. It was built because of its association of Elijah who was fed by ravens and the Good Samaritan parable. It is a Greek Orthodox monastery and 14 monks currently live there.

Jesus traveled this route many times. He likely came this way most of the times that he journeyed to Jerusalem from Jericho. Scripture records at least two trips by way of Jericho but he probably went this way dozens of times in his life. It’s a reasonable conclusion that Jesus’ parents had to walk back up this route to Jerusalem after realizing that their twelve-year-old son was missing from their caravan (Luke 2:41-50). Never in our wildest dreams would we ever have imagined that the road to Jericho would have been like this and located in such an inaccessible canyon.