June 28, 2025

Location, location, location! Some love the mountains while others love the beach, but in general it’s much more expensive to build or purchase a home near the water. In Bible days, however, you needed a nearby water source in order to survive.

The ancient city of Dan in northern Israel depended on the runoff from snow-capped Mount Hermon which towered overhead. The desert city of Beersheba in the south survived on well water, and the city of Jerusalem (though known previously as both Salem and Jebus) sprang up on a well-defended hilltop just to the west of a deep valley, the Kidron Valley, where the Gihon Spring provided an unending flow of cool drinking water for the people and their crops.

A British officer, engineer and archaeologist named Charles Warren took a particular interest in exploring Jerusalem in 1887, and he unexpectedly unearthed a labyrinth of tunnels and shafts that help to explain the manner in which the city’s early inhabitants (even before the time of King David) accessed the Gihon Spring in the valley below and how they brought its water inside the walls of the city.

The term, Warren’s Shaft, has come to mean both the complete water system that Warren discovered in the City of David as well as the particular 45-foot natural shaft up which he climbed that opened up into a nearly 4000-yeard old tunnel system created most likely by the Canaanites whom David would later defeat before making Jerusalem the capital of his kingdom.

2 Samuel 5:8 records David’s conquest of the city and a specific challenge that the king made to his men, “Whoever climbs up by way of the water shaft and defeats the Jebusites … he shall be chief and captain.” 1 Chronicles 11:6 reports that Joab “went up first and became chief.”

Could the shaft discovered by Warren be the one mentioned in the Bible? Perhaps, but there is no consensus among archaeologists and Bible teachers. In any event the shaft Captain Warren discovered is still visible today inside a massive tunnel system below the City of David, and it’s hard to imagine the bravery and strength it would have required to climb up this shaft in the dark without modern lighting and safety equipment.

–Daniel McCabe

Trivia

What street, only a 10-minute walk from the Old City of Jerusalem, is named for a British novelist whose last novel championed the hope of a Jewish state?

A. Charles Dickens St.

B. George Eliot St.

C. Thomas Hardy St.

D. Henry James St.

(Answer to the Trivia quesiton below)

Life in the Land: Thrice Daily Prayer

Observant Jewish men pray three times a day, every day, morning, afternoon and evening. The rabbis teach that this pattern emulates the prayer life of the patriarchs, for Abraham “went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the LORD” to witness the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19:27); Isaac “went out to meditate in the field in the evening [at sunset]” when he noticed the long-awaited approach of Rebekah, his future bride (Gen. 24:63); and Jacob prayed to God for deliverance from Esau before wrestling “that night” with a Man “until the breaking of day” (Gen. 32:9-11, 22-24).

The rabbis also teach that thrice daily prayer corresponds to the three daily sacrifices offered by the priests in the temple, but although there were only two daily sacrifices as noted in Exodus 29:39 (“one lamb you shall offer in the morning and the other lamb you shall offer at twilight”), the rabbis consider the overnight work in the temple as a natural connection to evening prayer.

For me, however, a better impetus to pray three times per day can be found in the lives of King David and the prophet Daniel. Samuel calls David a man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14), and Daniel is affirmed as uncompromising, righteous and wise (Daniel 1:8; Ezekiel 14:14; 28:3), so when we read in Psalm 55:18 that David vowed to pray “evening and morning and at noon” and that Daniel “knelt down on his knees three times that day and prayed and gave thanks before his God as was his custom since early days,” there can be no better examples to emulate.

–Daniel McCabe

Scripture Study: The Hall of Faith, part 2

“By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain through which he was commended as righteous, for God commended him by accepting his gifts. Through his faith, though he died, Abel still speaks” (Hebrews 11:4).

So just how was Abel exercising faith? Well, by offering an acceptable sacrifice which Cain did not offer, and I’m convinced that the acceptability of Abel’s sacrifice was its blood. Abel offered a bloody sacrifice. “Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins.” Even before the sacrificial system and the Law, I think God communicated this to humanity, demanding the shedding of blood to atone for sin. I think that God probably communicated this in some way to Adam and Eve as well as to Cain and Abel. Thus, Abel by faith looked forward to the forgiveness of his sin based on blood at least to some degree, and so he brought a bloody sacrifice in contrast to Cain.

I think this explains why Abel offered animals and Cain offered vegetables, the produce of the ground. In this way Abel exercised his faith, looking forward to some specific solution that God would provide. Of course, we know this now to be Jesus on the cross, but Abel was simply exercising faith. “God, I trust that what you are having me do is good and right,” and so I think that Abel did understand in some way that forgiveness of sin would be attached to his offering. God accepted his offering and commended Abel for his faith.

Also, by faith, “Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death and he was not found because God had taken him” (v. 5). If we read through the account in Genesis 5:22-24, we don’t glean a lot of information about Enoch. We only know that he was this guy who walked with God and then God took him. Enoch was commended for having pleased God. Enoch was somebody who lived a life of faith and somehow looked forward, so God rewarded him by bringing him straight to glory. What a wonderful experience for Enoch, but he too displayed a faith that looked forward, for as we see from v. 6, “Without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”

I think this is a general truth that we can all cling to and really appreciate in the midst of the many examples in this chapter. We cannot please God without faith because we cannot please God by any amount of good works we might try to do. We know that as Christians it requires faith to please him.

–Adam Keim

History and Geography Series: Ten of My Favorite Places

#5, Caesarea Maritima

August 13, 2022

“At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort, a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God” (Acts 10:1-2).

Caesarea Maritima was a Roman city of immense importance, and its significance in history spans over a millennium. The city’s wonders are too many to describe in detail. Without exaggeration, an entire Shalom Y’all series cannot do it justice.

Herod the Great’s architectural fingerprints are found all over Israel, and Caesarea Maritima is no exception. Search the internet for artists’ renderings of how the ancient city looked. You will be impressed by the harbor. If underwater stone and concrete construction sounds challenging today, think about doing it in Herod’s day.

A visit will take you through an amphitheater, a hippodrome, a Roman city, a collection of ancient carvings and statues, several mosaic tile floors, Herod’s palace, a famous engraving of Pontius Pilate’s name, a Crusader era fortress, a largely intact aqueduct (nearby), and some modern shopping—including delicious gelato!

Caesarea Maritima is of special biblical interest. God directed Peter there to minister to Cornelius (Acts 10:1-11:18). The realization that the Gospel is for the Gentiles, too, was a major turning point in the church’s beginning. Also, Herod Agrippa died in the city (either at the theater or the hippodrome; arguments exist for both locations) upon robbing God’s glory (Acts 12:20-24).

Paul was likely imprisoned at the palace for two years under Felix and Festus (Acts 24-26). Some surmise that Paul may have written some of the “prison epistles” (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon) from there, but Rome is the better candidate for their provenance. However, he could have drawn his sports metaphors from the hippodrome next to the palace.

I have many memories of Caesarea Maritima, and it is one of the first places that I think about fondly when planning a return to Israel. One day I will even play the only 18-hole golf course in the country, right next door.

–Adam Keim

Answer to the Trivia

B. George Eliot Street

(She wrote the impactful novel, Daniel Deronda.)