Among the many testimonials from followers of Jesus who have visited Israel, the common statements usually include: “It made the Bible come to life” or “It changed the way I read the Bible.” In 2017, God blessed me with the experience of a lifetime in being selected to be part of a mission team for our church to travel to Israel and Jordan. Without question, both testimonial statements are true. The Bible did jump to life. Walking where Jesus and His followers walked was surreal, almost supernatural. When the sounds and smells are combined with the sights and touches, the senses are overwhelmed in the most joyous of ways. The experience has indeed changed the way I read and understand the Bible and has forever changed me.
Equally strong to the pull to return there is the desire to bring the experience to others. The reality of traveling to tour the Holy Land is an expense typically ranging between $4000 – $7,000 per person which is significantly higher than the fundraising we needed for missions. The cost alone will likely prevent being able to return with my family, but with God, all things are possible so I’m not without hope. Nonetheless, I believe when Jesus reigns from Jerusalem during the Millennial Kingdom, we will get to see that glorious land (Micah 4:1-2; Zechariah 14:16-17). In the interim, how can the experience be shared with others? That’s a question I have been troubled with since returning from that trip.
A light bulb moment occurred while volunteering with a local Jewish missions organization. After several years of volunteering, I was asked to lead tours at their Everlasting Nation Museum, which is open to the public and is free. What a hidden gem that museum is! Now, you don’t even have to travel there to see it. They provide a full virtual 3D tour on their website. Sadly though, with the recent addition of the audio files to the virtual tour, there is little need for in-person guided tours unless specifically requested. Leading tours there provided a taste of being in the Holy Land, making each visit and tour a blessing.
One of the museum exhibits features a model of the tabernacle and replicas of articles related to the First (Solomon’s) and Second (Herod’s) Temples. I always spend a lot of time at this particular exhibit because of a framed drawing on the wall which is where my lightbulb moment happened. The colored sketch is of the Second Temple and surrounding landscape around the time of Jesus. Without a foundational orientation, a current aerial view (which you will link to shortly), although amazing and beautiful, is difficult to discern specific biblical landmarks due to destruction of the temple by the Romans, architectural changes, new construction, and archeological digs. Pointing out various places on this drawing provides that foundational orientation to help connect the dots, bringing the Bible to life by linking names of sites to their specific locations.
I’m going to attempt to do the same with this post. Our journey starts with the framed drawing from the museum shown below. I added some labels to serve as reference points as you read on. Interspersed will be photos from the 2017 trip to appreciate the vast differences from modern-day Jerusalem.
Centered in the drawing is the Temple Mount, an elevated, walled compound in the Old City of Jerusalem where the First and Second Temples stood on Mount Moriah. It is the holiest site in Judaism. Today, it supports the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, making it the third holiest site for Muslims. Compare this landscape from this time period with a picture of modern day Jerusalem, that has a comparable orientation as the drawing. I do not have the rights to the linked picture to be able to embed it in the post, so you may want to save it so that you can easily refer back to it.
The west wall of the Temple Mount was erected by Herod the Great during the expansion of the Second Temple. A retaining wall, 105 feet high of which 62 feet are above the ground, the large stones at the base are believed to have been added by Herod. The middle medium-sized stones were added in the Umayyad era and the top stones were placed during the Ottoman period. To the left of the large bridge that connects to the west wall on the drawing is a small sectioned off area (between the red brackets) referred to also as the “Western Wall” or “Wailing Wall.” The wall is considered to be the holiest place accessible to the Jewish people for pilgrimage and prayers since they are not allowed to pray on the Temple Mount which is currently under control of the Jordanian Waqf. For many years, people from all over the world have prayed and placed prayers into the cracks in the wall. When the wall is full of prayers, the papers are removed and buried.
Today, there is a partition at the Western Wall that separates the men from the women as seen in the lower middle portion of the photo below.
Lying on the ground below the Temple Mount are stones from the walls that were hurled down by Roman Legion soldiers after the destruction of the Temple on the 9th of Av, 70 AD.
The Southern Wall is part of Herod’s southern extension of the Temple Mount. The steps seen in the drawing were excavated in the 1960s and are the steps that Jesus and others climbed to access the Temple. The Temple itself has since been destroyed along with the Porticos and the Temple Courts, where Jesus as a child was found teaching by Mary and Joseph when they lost Him while traveling back home from Jerusalem after a pilgrimage (Luke 2: 41-49). The southern steps can still be climbed today and provide a beautiful view of the Mount of Olives, the steep hill to the right across the Kidron Valley, if you are walking up the southern steps towards the Temple Mount. The City of David (another term for the Jerusalem of ancient times) extends directly out from the steps in an area shaped similarly to the state of Florida. It was located on a narrow ridge south of the present-day Old City bordered by the deep Kidron Valley to the East, where the Gihon Spring, the city’s main water source, is located.
Continuing around the Temple Mount is the Eastern Wall, which contains the famous Eastern Gate (also called Golden Gate and Mercy Gate). Located in the center of the wall, the Eastern Gate (red brackets on the drawing) is one of the 8 gates built into the walls that surround the Temple Mount. It is the only entrance from the east and provides the most direct access to the Temple Mount. This gate plays a central role in Scripture and Prophecy. The gate was completely sealed shut (Muslims in 810 AD), reopened (Crusaders in 1102 AD), and then sealed permanently (Ottoman Sultan Suleiman in 1541 AD) and has stayed that way. The Muslims believed that sealing the gate would prevent the Jewish Messiah from gaining entrance to the Temple as prophesied (Zechariah 14:4). How interesting that the Muslims were fulfilling prophesy (Ezekiel 44:1-3) by sealing the Eastern Gate. They also placed a cemetery outside the gate and across parts of the Kidron Valley, knowing that prophecy states that the Messiah will come down from the Mount of Olives, pass through the Kidron Valley and enter the Temple Mount through the Eastern Gate. Recognizing that a Jew would not defile himself and become unclean by being near dead bodies, the Muslims added this so-called ‘extra layer’ of protection to prevent the Messiah from entering through the gate. I wonder if they considered that whatever Jesus touches, becomes clean (Mark 1:25-26; 40-42; Mark 5: 35-42; John 11:38-40; 1 John 1:7)?
The Kidron valley, between the Temple Mount and the Mount of Olives, is referenced numerous times in the Old (1 Kings 15:13; 2 Chronicles 29:16, 2 Samuel 15:23) and New Testaments (John 18:1). Jesus likely crossed the Kidron valley (often referred to as the brook Kidron or Cedron) many times in His travels. The Valley, which has a sad history of idolatry and condemnation, will one day be renewed (Jeremiah 31:38-40).
Last of the walls is the Northern Wall which is actually a series of buildings constructed along the northern aspect of the Temple Mount. On the north west corner of the drawing is the Antonia Fortress, military barracks which housed part of the Roman garrison stationed in Jerusalem. Below is a photo of one of the many gates in the north wall and is a common entrance to the Temple Mount from the Arab Quarter.
The Garden of Gethsemane, located towards the bottom of the slope of the Mount of Olives, just above the Kidron Valley, is believed to be the site where Jesus prayed hours before His crucifixion. The garden is filled with ancient olive trees estimated to be between one and two thousand years old. Although I like to think that some of these trees may have been graced by the presence of Jesus when He prayed there, it is unlikely given that the Romans utterly destroyed the area.
Gethsemane is translated from the Greek to mean “an oil press.” This is a fitting description of the pressing agony that Jesus endured; agonized and “pressed” to the point of shedding blood tears, knowing what lay ahead as He prepared to drink the cup that the Father prepared.
West and towards the northern end of the Temple Mount, outside the city gates is Golgotha. In the photo above showing the Dome of the Rock and the Northern Wall, Golgotha would be off in the distance beyond the part of the Dome of the Rock seen in the photo. Many believe the hill of Golgotha to be the place where Jesus was crucified. It is also believed that the Garden Tomb is located within that same hill.
The Mount of Olives has been referred to several times. Situated to the east of the Temple Mount, separated by the Kidron Valley, it is the location where Jesus will set foot at His second coming. For centuries, it has been one of the main burial grounds for the city. Jewish persons pay in excess of $200,000 to be buried there, wanting a ring-side seat for when the Jewish Messiah comes (not recognizing that He has already come and will come again).
With the four walls and some of the related landmarks visited, the last thing I would like for you to study on the drawing is the orientation of the Second Temple on the Temple Mount. Notice that it was situated from east to west. Although we do not know for certain the exact placement of the Second Temple on the Temple Mount, Scripture does inform us that the temple was aligned from east to west. Whether the Tabernacle in the wilderness, the First, or the Second Temple, the priests faced the shekinah glory of God with their backs to the east against the sun, due to man’s idolatry of sun worship (Ezekiel 8:16).
The details/complexities of the Temple itself is something I hope to cover in a future post. For now, with our journey winding down, if your legs will carry you a few more steps (we likely traveled well over 30,000 steps in this post), go back to the picture we linked to previously of modern-day Jerusalem. That view does not show everything we have covered, but see if you can locate the following landmarks: Temple Mount, Northern Wall, Western (Wailing) Wall, Southern wall (look to the right of the Al-Aqsa Mosque), Eastern Wall and Golden Gate. Also, can you locate the Kidron Valley and where the Mount of Olives would be? If you can, than you have a great jump start in understanding the layout of the Temple Mount complex and surrounding landscape in Old City Jerusalem. If you haven’t quite got it down yet, no worries, I believe the Spirit will guide you as He as done for me when I first started studying the land. I’ve greatly enjoyed our journey together; I pray yours will continue as you study and bring the Bible to life by connecting names to locations. Now let’s go eat some ka-bobs with rice and hummus!
