When in the Bible God speks to people we can find that most of them are at the moment on the desert. Abraham after leaving Ur (the most sofisticated and developed city of his time) lives on desert and that is where he meats 3 travelers and invites them to his tent. It is also where he pleads with God for the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah asking for their salvation if even as few as 5 rightous will be found there.
It is on desert when God speks to Hagar (first time when she runs away from Sarah, second time when Ismael is nearly dying of thirst).
It is on desert while Moses sees burning bush and approaches to have the mission of his life revealed.
Desert, wilderness is the place where God communicates with people so often. Where we are free of the noise, contamination and distraction of the city/ village/ others. When we have left "narrow place" (as Egypt was called) and in this instance it is the narrow place in our minds and souls that prevents us from hearing God (it may be very scary after all for us common people to hear His voice and feel His presence, remember how Hebrews were terrified when Moses told them they are about to hear the voice of God, their Lord?).
Desert has something that shortens distance between us and the Lord, takes us away from our everyday lives, our preoccupations, fears, wants....
We left Jerusalem with our tiny Fiat Panda (the cheapest car available) and started with visiting Tel Guvrin in Judean Lowlands. It is not yet a desert, barely semi-desrt with still enough plants and bushes to give the impression of life but yet with the bringing of this slightly forbidding feeling that we start entering harsh, unforgiving, wild territory that has never been tamed and we need to keep our guard.
Tel Maresha, the highest hill of Tel Guvrin, is the place to which we can find references in the Bible. It was fortified by King Rehoboam of Judah following the campaign to the region of the Egyptian Pharaoh Shishak: “And Rehoboam...built cities for defense in Judah...Gath, and Mareshah, and Ziph” (2 Chron. 11:5-8).
For hundreds of years people were living here, planting olive trees, making olive oil (in caves, giving some kind of protection against scorching sun, there can still be found whole production lines for olive), burying their dead.... It was Hellenistic city during Hashmonean era and after Maccabees rising Hashmonean kings were trying to convert its inhibitants to Judaism. During Roman period the city has been abandoned leaving for us to see their factories, ruins of houses, quarries and graves. Over one of the graves, in Greek, there was written good-bye that even after 2,000 years sounds so powerful.... See for yourselves - below some pictures from Tel Guvrin and the next piece of my impressions on Negev (dealing with THE Negev itself) in next post.
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