Ein Gedi means ‘goat’ and ‘spring’. A few minutes into this place and you’ll know why. ..There’s a bunch of goats running wild and there’s a nice spring. It’s located in an east/west valley where the spring flows into the Dead Sea.
Actually.. due to the mountains in Israel, *everything* in Israel is either in a valley or on a mountain. I kinda/sorta knew that from looking at a topographical map, but I had no idea the mountains were so high and so close.
There’s only a few ‘plains’ there – or so it seemed. I used to think that song about “He owns the cattle on a thousand hills” meant “the whole world”. Now I think it just means Israel.
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At each location we went to, if it had any Biblical significance, Dr. Dave would break out his Bible and read a couple of relevant passages. Here, he read about how David hid from Saul and how, here at Ein Gedi, David cut Saul’s robe while Saul was relieving himself resting. 1 Sam 24:3.Here’s Dave and Margie. Hard to believe they’re somewheres around 70 years old. I can only hope to be in their shape by the time I’m 50! |
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The goats. |
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The entrance to the park had some cool palm trees. |
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These caves were high up the cliff, about 80′ above the valley floor. I’ve no idea how Saul got to the cave to ‘relieve’ himself. Dr. Dave guesses that he probably used a different cave located further west. I’m thinking someone had to repel down the face of the cliff to get to these caves. |
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(For more on this, be sure to see the movie clip section) |
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The spring. |
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Cool spring! |
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Lots of pretty flowers in Israel, both wild and not. I think this was a fig tree, actually. |