The Life of Jesus in Harmony |
Index
Israel
The land of Israel in Jesus' day was situated at the western end of the
fertile crescent with the great
Mediterranean Sea as its western boundary, the
Jordan River as the eastern, the northern being Lebanon and Hermon, and the
southern boundary was the hills of
Judea which slope down into the great Negev and the desert.
Israel's length (from Dan to Beersheba) was
about 160 miles and its average width was about 50 miles. It was a mountainous land
and to be familiar with it a person had to often "lift up his eyes to the
mountains." It was a land with extraordinary contrasts of climate, from the cool
airs of
Jerusalem to the tropical heats of
Jericho, "the city of palms," only 14 miles away. It was also a very colorful land
with strikingly bright clouds and its famous rich blue waters of the Sea of
Galilee, as well as the vivid green of the Jordan valley and the gleaming snows of
Mount Hermon. The flatland along the shores of the Mediterranean formed a highway
down into Egypt along which had marched many conquerors.