Bet Shean- Bible Geography

First Samuel, chapter 31, First Samuel, chapter 31.

1 Samuel 31 · chapter mention 1 Samuel 31 · chapter mention

It's warm in here tonight, Brian, if you don't mind

grabbing that those maps for me and see if we can balance them

again this week. All right, we're going to talk

about Bet Sheehan. BET Sheehan tonight, and it's

pronounced a few different ways, actually.

Beth Sheehan. It's spelled a few different

ways. I've mentioned this before but

it seems like a lot of the different places there in Israel

don't really care how they spell it as long as you say it about

the same way. So a lot of these different

places. You'll see it spelled one way on

a sign. You'll see it spelled another

way on a map. You'll see it spelled a

different way on the on the brochure that they have for the

place. And is all all kinds of

different spellings. The way the Bible actually

spells it is Beth Sheehan All right.

And we have the, oh, I guess I've got the PowerPoint up here,

don't I? You can turn this down just a

little bit. It feels to me like it's a

little bit loud. Bet she in.

There we go. And so it you'll see it in a

couple different ways. And so there we go.

All right. If you can turn.

Is it possible to turn that this way just a little bit?

Very good. I know it's it's kind of

balanced there. Is it going to fall?

And let's put it there you go, put it on there.

Stand it up a little bit more. I think we need a new, a new

stand. All right, let's, let's review

here before we get into this too much tonight.

If it falls, we know who to blame, right?

All right. What is this area right here

called? The negative.

Right. All right.

That whole triangle and then this top part of it is, what is

it? Wilderness of Zen.

All right, you're rusty down here.

Wilderness of Paran. Very good.

What is this Mediterranean Sea here?

What runs down the Jordan River? What is this, That sea?

All right, what is this valley? I have a valley.

Very good. What's down here?

Red Sea, the Gulf of Aquaba, or a lot, right.

What is this area right here known as Judean Wilderness?

Very good. All right, That Sheehan is, is

up here in this area. Just.

I should have looked at it on the map so I can see it.

Here's Nazareth. And then just just to the, What

would that be? Southeast is Bet Sheehan.

I'm going to show it to you on the map so you can see it up on

here and have it actually pointed out.

But Bet Sheehan, oops, went to the wrong one is actually right

there. All right.

So just just a little to the South of of the Sea of Galilee,

not all all that far from the Mediterranean Sea as well.

So there is Bet Sheehan, All right, that's that's not the

entire thing, but that's the main area.

So did anybody look this up? Did anybody look it up this

afternoon? A plus for brother Ryan.

All right. He's the only one that looked it

up. He did his homework.

And so he's got an idea of what happened there.

A couple things happened there, actually.

But but one main thing that we'll talk about and so you see

the I'm not going to tell you what it is.

What what is that called? Do you remember the mound in the

back? The tell?

Very good. Very good with 1L, right.

And a tell is what? What's a tell?

It's a hill, but basically man made hill, right?

It's yeah, cities and top of cities and top of cities until

it eventually gets built up to to something like that.

Right. Now more than likely when they

started, they started on a little bit of a hill in the 1st

place, but that is the tell at Beth Sheehan.

All right. That's the entire thing.

That's obviously an overview of it.

We're going to show you a lot of these different things.

But what you see up here, the whole mound right there, the

tell is what was there originally and what was there in

the Bible times. All right, everything else

that's built up in front of that is all Roman ruins.

But they were Roman ruins that would have been there at the

time that Jesus was there. And being that he was from

Nazareth, it wouldn't have been all that far from where he

lived. So we'll talk about that as we

get a little bit further into it as well.

So let's get right into it. If you're there in First Samuel

31, that's that's the main part that we're going to look at

tonight. But Beth Sheehan, also known as

Bet Sheehan or BET Sheehan, was a major biblical and secular

city for thousands of years. OK, Now we've dropped down to

earth level. All right.

And what you're looking at is exactly what we were just

looking at from the air. That's the hill, all right.

That's the tell that was originally Beth Sheehan before

we had all that addition, additional things put on there.

That's how it's spelled. Does anybody have any idea what

Bet means? Or Beth in the Bible House

House. House of.

Right. So Bethlehem, but is it House of

bread, Right. So Beth Sheehan.

All right. Beth means house in Hebrew.

Beth Sheehan means House of security or House of rest.

It also means House of the tooth or House of ivory.

So I don't know where they actually came up with the name

from, but it could mean any one of those things.

But that's that's what Beth Sheehan means.

It was actually changed to Psychopolis later on.

And we'll talk about that in just a little bit as well.

But there you go. There's the you like that the

graphic draws your attention to right where it's at there and

best she and but the very top up there is actually the Sea of

Galilee. And I know it's it's kind of

hard to tell. But what you see running all the

way down there is the Jordan River.

And over there on the western side is the Mediterranean Sea.

But it's located in the center of several main crossroads

between the Jordan Valley and the Jezreel Valley.

OK again, there's a lots of different names for it.

Israel is how you'll see it as well.

But that's that's where that valley is at and it's it's kind

of right there in that crossroads.

And if you look at it, okay, see where the star is right below

the star is actually Beth Sheehan.

And by the coloring on the map, you can see that that everything

around it is kind of more of a mountain, mountainous.

And so it's actually where Beth Sheehan is at, is actually down

in a valley. And here we go, we got another

one boom right there. It's about 15 miles South of the

southern tip of the Sea of Galilee and about 35 miles east

of the Mediterranean Sea. So, and I've told you this

several times before, does anybody remember what I said,

that the, the nation of Israel is about the size of what state

in the United States say it Massachusetts, New Jersey or

either all about the same, about the same, but about the same

size as Massachusetts. So you're really not talking

about a big place at all, 15 miles.

I mean, a lot of us live that far from the store, right.

So to go 15 miles is nothing now.

So when you think about being that close to the Sea of

Galilee, you see the Jordan River being a little bit closer,

kind of actually gives you a little bit better picture of of

how much it actually is a valley.

But there you see the Jesreel Valley coming through here at

the Kishon River. Do you remember what happened at

the Kishon River? We haven't gotten there yet, but

we will pretty soon. What happened there?

That's one thing that happened. What else?

Somebody. A lot of somebodies were killed

there. You remember?

That's where Elijah killed all of the prophets of Bail, right

after they after they tried calling down fire from heaven.

That's the Kishon River that runs through there, the Jordan

River. But those valleys come together

right there, all right. And you'll notice.

And I'm going to, I'm going to point this out to you now

because I'm going to, I'm going to bring it up later.

And I don't know if I actually have it on a map that you can

really see it, but you notice the Herod Valley running right

through there. And it's not spelled the same

way. It's HAROD, not HEROD.

But the Herod Valley is is significant as well.

And I'll tell you about that in a second.

OK I did point it out but it's located bet she in Beth she in

is located on the Harrod stream provides that area with a lot of

water which almost never did they build a tell that was away

from water. They had to have a source of

water coming in for them to even be able to build city on it.

So obviously it's it's usually going to be by a pretty

significant source of water. But the Harrod Stream is the

same stream that originates at the Harrod Spring.

And the Harrod Spring was where Gideon selected his 300 men.

And we're going to talk about that the next time, next Sunday

night. But that's where that's.

So that was, that was all right up in that same exact area.

But there's the Harrod Valley that runs down through there.

All right. Oh, man, disappointing.

All right. So this is, this is kind of an

overview. All right.

Mountain Gilboa is going to be pretty significant in this in

just a couple minutes. What happened at Mountain

Gilboa? Do you remember?

Killed himself, right? Yeah, That happened on Mount

Gilboa. All right, So Mount Gilboa is

over there at the Hill of Mora. Mora is here.

Mount Tabor. Somebody know what happened at

Mount Tabor? I'm asking you a lot of things

that we're going to get to here pretty soon.

All right. We've been talking about a lot

of things in the southern half of Israel.

We're moving up north, and we're going toward Galilee.

But does anybody know what happened at Tabor?

Deborah Barrick? Does that ring a bell?

That's where they were stationed, if you will, when

that battle took place. But there's Mount Tabor.

And so all of this, this whole bottom half is actually part of

Beth Sheehan, the Harrod Valley area.

But there's the tell with 2L's, there's the tail there.

I didn't, in my defense, I didn't, I didn't type this one

up. All right.

But this is the Paladius St. and we'll, we'll talk about that.

You'll see some of those things. But that's that's actually a

really significant part of the Roman ruins.

There's the tail, but but that's kind of an overview of that

whole area and you can see how the mountains are up there

around it and then you come down into that valley.

So it's the Harrod Valley there. All right.

Now it was in the territory belonging to the tribe of

Manassa, but they didn't conquer it.

And we'll actually see here, this is the map that shows us

the tribes of Israel. And here is the the tribe of

Manassa. All right, that's where it was.

They actually didn't conquer that.

Judges chapter one, you don't have to turn over there.

I'll read it to you. The Bible says neither did

Manassa drive out the inhabitants of Beth Sheehan and

her towns, nor Tanak and her towns, nor the inhabitants of

Door and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Iblium and her

towns, nor the inhabitants of Magetto and her towns.

But the Canaanites would dwell in that land.

Now that's a sad thing, because God gave them that land that was

supposed to be theirs. They were supposed to drive

everybody out, and they didn't. And the fact that they didn't

meant that that was not their land.

The Canaanites were going to dwell in that land.

And a lot of those places that we just mentioned, we're going

to look at later on, not tonight, but at a different

time. But it was controlled by the

Egyptians, the Canaanites, the Philistines.

It belonged to Manassa, though, and and they should have had it.

It should have, it should have been theirs.

Now, a few other things here before we get into this.

There's the ruins of the temple mentioned in First Samuel 31 and

verse #10, it says. And they put his armor in the

House of Ashtaroth and they fastened his body to the wall of

Beth Shan. Now it's another way that you'll

see it. All right, Who are we talking

about here in First Samuel 31? Saul, right.

So Saul and I don't want to get ahead of myself, so I'm not

going to. But first Chronicles 1010, and

and actually first Chronicles 10 verse 10 says.

1 Chronicles 10:10

And they put his armor in the House of their gods and fastened

his head in the temple of Dagon. Now, where do you see Dagon?

Do you remember that? Philistines, right.

What happened to Dagon? Fell down a broken half, right?

That's the same God. So they they, they they took his

head and they fastened it in the temple of Dagon.

That's what we're talking about. So ruins of that temple to

Ashtaroth and Dagon have been discovered on that hill above

the Roman bet Sheehan. So the Roman bet Sheehan is the

bottom. What we're talking about is the

hill at the top. They had a Canaanite temple that

was up there on the top of that, this, this idolatrous stand and

circle with the serpent about 13th century BC, which would be

the time of the judges. All of those things happen.

There's a reconstructive drawing of the Astroth Temple at

Bethshi. And so a lot of a lot of

different things that were happening that were obviously

very ungodly. Now, here's a reconstructive

drawing of the top of that hill, All right.

This is what the city would have looked like on the top of that

hill at the time, pretty much when Saul was killed or or

killed himself, if you will, on Mount Gilboa.

It was a whole city up there, right?

And and really the center was kind of made for the for the

worship of the God. So that would have been the the

temple to Ashtaroth. But you see and and I'll show

you a little a few closer pictures, close up pictures of

that tell and you'll be able to see kind of where all of that

stuff might have actually been have been located.

But this obviously the the the whole city is gone.

There's ruins that are there. I'm going to show you some of

those ruins but the city itself is is no longer there and

actually here's some this is what this is what it looks like

on top of the the Beth she and tell now and really it's just

there's just not much there. I mean it's a it's a lot of

ruins they found some really they they did some extensive

excavation up there. I'll show you a picture from I

think it's like the early 1920s of what the tell actually looked

like before they started doing their excavations and they just

I mean they found they found I think 20 different layers of

civilization on top of that tell but this is what it looks like

now and and of course they've they've pretty much gotten

everything out of there that they feel like they need to to

not really necessarily preserve anything else anymore.

But you can actually see if you look closely you can actually

see some of the some of the remains of the of the

foundations of the houses that were up there and some of those

other things there as well. So this was pretty interesting

one of I didn't. I was not.

I went to the top of it actually, and and I got some

really good pictures of the entire Roman ruins below it.

But a couple of the people that were in our group went to the

other side, which by the way, you can get a picture of how big

this is. I don't know if you can see

these or not, but you see where that little Bush is in the top

corner, Go over just a little bit.

There's two people standing over there on the top.

All right. I know it's very, very hard to

see, but it's sometimes it's hard to get a picture of just

how big or small something is unless you have something else

to compare it to. And if you can't see the people

that'll tell you how big that place actually is.

But a couple of the people in our group, instead of spending

anytime in the Roman ruins, went to the top and walked all the

way around and did a bunch of stuff at the top and they

actually found a Copperhead snake up at the top of that

thing. I was a as a long Copperhead

too. I think they said it was about 5

or 6 feet long and I got a picture of it and got out of

there is what they did. But anyway, very interesting.

So let's let's go to First Samuel then and look at First

Samuel 31. And we're just going to read

this whole story because if you've heard it before then

you'll semi know it. But if you reading it again kind

of kind of gives it to us in a little bit different light.

So the Bible says this in first name of 31 and verse #1.

And they now the Philistines fought against Israel and the

men of Israel fled from before the Philistines and fell down

slain in Mount Gilboa. All right, there's Mount Gilboa

over on the top left corner. And the Philistines followed

hard upon Saul, and upon his sons.

And the Philistines slew Jonathan and a Benedab, and Mel

Kishua saw sons, and the battle went sore against Saul, and The

Archers hit him, and he was sore wounded of The Archers.

Then said Saul unto his armor bear draw thy sword, and thrust

me through there with lest these uncircumcised come, and thrust

me through, and abused me. But his armor bear would not,

for he was sore afraid. Therefore Saul took a sword and

fell upon it. Now before we continue on this

is, you know, the Canaanites were one of the ones that were

known for being a very brutal people to their enemies and

catching, capturing a king, especially the king of the

nation of Israel. They hated God.

They hated, you know, because they because the the Israel did

not worship multiple gods the way these other others did.

They saw God do miracles. They knew that that Israel had

come in and we're overtaking all the land of the Canaanites,

right? So when when Saul is very

wounded, he knows he's not going to be able to make it.

He knows he's not going to be able to get very far on his own.

He says kill me because I don't know what they're going to do to

me and I don't. He didn't want to stick around

to find out. So he told his armor bearer

killed me. And his armor bearer said I'm

not. I'm not killing you.

And I don't blame him. I would.

I mean, you're killed the king, you know.

Oh, sure, he told you to kill him, right?

That's that's exactly why he would be afraid of killing the

king. The verse number six.

So Saul died and his three sons and his armor bearer and all his

men that same day together on the men of Israel that were on

the other side of the valley and they that were on the other

side. Jordan.

All right. Now, do you understand what

we're talking about? There's the Jordan Valley.

Beth Sheehan is in the Harrod Valley.

All right. All of those come together.

And there's Mount Gilboa. So picture what we're talking

about here. When the men of Israel that were

on the other side of the valley, and they that were on the other

side, Jordan saw that the men of Israel fled and that Saul and

his sons were dead. They forsook the cities and

fled. And the Philistines came and

dwelt in them. And it came to pass on the

Morrow when the Philistines came to strip the slain that they

found Saul and his three sons fallen in Mount Gilboa.

And they cut off his head, and stripped off his armor, and sent

into the land of the Philistines round about to publish it in the

House of their idols and among the people.

And they put his armor in the House of Ashtaroth, and they

fastened his body to the wall of Beth Shan.

And when the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead heard of that

which the Philistines had done to Saul, all the valiant men

arose and went all night and took the body of Saul and the

bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth Shan and came to J Besh

and burnt them there. And they took their bones and

buried them under a tree at J Besh and fasted 7 days.

Now this is a really interesting story here now this is actually

Mount Gilboa. This is looking at Mount Gilboa

from the hill of Bethshi and where bodies where Saul's body

was taken. Now you saw how tall that hill

was and I'm going to show you a couple of close up pictures with

some people in there. It's a really, really tall hill.

And they have this, this, this massive fortification on the top

of that. For the men of J Besh Gilead to

go and take the bodies of Saul and his sons off of that wall

was a very, very dangerous thing, a very courageous thing,

because they could not stand to see and think about how far.

All right, think about how far you'd be able to see those

bodies hanging on that wall. It was such a disgrace to Saul.

It was such a disgrace to Israel.

And the men of J Besh Gilead said they were not going to

stand for it. And they went and took the

bodies off. Now there's Mount Gilboa on that

far side over there where that arrow was pointing.

And of course, there we're standing at the top of Beth

Sheehan and looking out over all those Roman ruins and everything

else. But you see the distance to

Mount Gilboa. I mean, anybody that was

standing on on Beth Sheehan would have been able to pretty

much see what was happening with the battle.

I mean, I know they would have been tiny specks, but you can

see armies moving and you can see a whole army running away.

You could see all of that happening from where that was.

And it's a decent distance from there.

But that's that's the mountain, Mountain Gilboa where Saul and

all of his sons fell, as the Bible says.

And what a, what a sad thing that was.

Now this is actually the city. And I, if I had to guess, I

would say that so the ancient city of Beth Shan, that's where

we're talking about. That tree up there marks the

spot where Saul's body was hung on the wall.

So you remember that? That drawing.

All right, let's go back to it real quick.

I know it's going to be right here.

All right. So where that little tree is

would have been right about where the gates to that city

was, which is why they would have hung his body there and why

it would have been pretty obvious to anybody looking at

it. And obviously, there's no blood,

there's no DNA evidence. There's nothing that says that

Saul's body was right there, other than the fact that they

would have hung him near the gates to the city.

And obviously if you're looking at that, you can see that right

about in that spot where that tree is, would have been where

they hung the bodies of Saul and his sons.

And where the men of J Besh Gilead would have come and taken

their bodies off of that wall, but that that little entrance

way that you see we've gone all the way up the front and right

about where that's at would have been pretty close to the city

gates we're at. So there's a little bit

different angle of that same place.

But you can see just how big that hill really is and how,

how, how courageous it must have been for those men of J Besh

Gilead to actually go all up there and take their bodies off

the wall. I mean, you know, I mean, I

don't know how Saul was head and shoulders above everybody else.

He wasn't a small guy, right? And to take his body off of that

wall and the bodies of his three sons and carry them away would

have been a pretty big undertaking.

And but they did it. They did it.

So we have a few things that that happened in the history of

Beth Sheehan. So David, when he rained from

10:10 to 970 BC, he conquered Beth Sheehan that became part of

Israel's territories. And so they they had it for a

time. And by the way, one of the one

of the things that that Bible critics have loved to hold on to

is that there's no evidence in the archaeological record for

King David. I mean as as as well known as

David is in the Bible, no evidence in the archaeological

record for King David. Well, in the last 10 years and

maybe even less, they have, they have found some some very

astonishing archaeological evidence for King David,

including where his palace is and including a lot of the other

things around that they they they're starting to find more

and more things that have King David's name mentioned in it.

And so all of these Bible critics that have said for so

long that no, there's that, you know, the King David is just a

made-up story. You know, it's it's just an

Israel folklore, whatever they want to call it.

They're finding more and more evidence for King David actually

being a real person and a real king and being as powerful as

the Bible says that he is. But David rain there and he

conquered Beth Sheehan then in 732 BC.

What happened in 786 BC, you remember?

So this is 732, obviously, we're counting down 786 BC was what?

I'm sorry, not 780-6586 BC, 586 BC, right?

Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians.

The temple was destroyed, right? And obviously it was rebuilt and

it was destroyed again in 70 AD. But here we are, we're counting

down toward that time. So in 732, the Assyrian king

take take a laugh Pleaser destroyed Beth Sheehan after

defeating the northern Kingdom of Israel.

Remember you have a northern Kingdom and you had a southern

Kingdom. They they split right, the

divided Kingdom, the north and the South.

Which one followed God mostly Judah, which was the South,

right? The two tribes, only two tribes

that actually followed him, 10 tribes in the north that went

off after other gods and everything else and really

didn't want anything to do with God.

And then you had the the two tribes in the South and they

lasted for just a little bit longer but that's that's right

around the time when Israel was destroyed.

Now in the 4th century BC, Hellenistic or the Greek new

settlers established a steady state in Beth Shian and during

that period that's when the city was named Psychopolis and and on

and technically the city is still called Psychopolis today,

even though it's not really you know nobody lives there but then

in 63 BC, so now we're now we're getting closer to the time of

Christ, right, 63 BC. So we're only we're just a few

decades really away from when Christ is coming.

But in 63 BC, the city was conquered by the Romans and

became one of the cities of the Decapilis.

Now that's an interesting thing as well.

Let's, let's go look at Mark chapter 5.

Mark 5 · chapter mention

Turn over to Mark chapter 5, and let me let me give you this.

Mark 5 · chapter mention

I'll show you, I'll show you this little map here.

But Beth Sheehan became an important city when Rome ruled

Israel, and it was the capital of the Decapilis in Jesus's day.

Mark chapter 5 and verse #20. And he departed and began to

Mark 5 · chapter mention

publish in the capitalist how great things Jesus had done for

him, and all men did marvel. Now the capitalist is the name

that was given in the Bible by the ancient writers to a region

in Palestine. That was that that that was

lying to the to the South of the Sea of Galilee.

And it took its name from the confederation of the 10 cities,

Deca right, The capitalist, the confederation of the 10 cities

that dominated its extent. So the de capitalist in the New

Testament, it's actually referred to in the New Testament

3 different times. One of them we just read in Mark

Mark 5 · chapter mention

chapter 5 and verse 20, but it's also mentioned in Matthew 4 and

in Mark Chapter 7, the de capitalist.

Mark 7 · chapter mention

And and maybe you know about it, maybe you've maybe you remember

reading it, maybe you don't. But this Beth Sheehan was the

capital of the de capitalist. It was a very, very important

city. And obviously the fact that it's

still there after all of these years just kind of goes to show

you how big it actually was. That's a reconstructive drawing

of the Roman city, the Roman city of Beth Sheehan, All right.

It's an old, the old Philistine Canaanite city is on the hill in

the background. And you can kind of see that

that would have been where the gods were and everything by that

time. It was obviously well past

destroyed. I mean, when it was actually

when Saul was there would have been about 1000 BC.

So by the time Rome took it over, we're talking almost 1000

years later. So the the, the city as we know

Beth Sheehan in the Bible was not the Beth Sheehan of the

Bible by that point. It still was.

But but you know, not a lot of things that we have in the Bible

after that after King David took it and David didn't really do

anything with with Beth Sheehan. But there's a reconstructive

drawing and you're going to see some of these.

Try to try to put that away in your memory a little bit if you

can. This is actually what we see at

Beth Sheehan. There's a reconstructive model

of Beth Sheehan. And it's actually, I think it's,

I don't know if it's bronze or what it's made out of, but they

actually have this this really big, this really big model there

at Beth Sheehan. And so where the arrow is,

that's the original city that's on the hill in the background

and oh man, I ruined it. There we go.

All right, So there's there's a reconstructive model of it, just

from a little bit different angle.

I'm going to point some of these things out to you.

You'll see them a little bit closer up, but but just kind of

keep an eye on, keep this in the back of your mind.

So there's the, the, this is the Roman amphitheater.

This is the Roman theater, OK. There's a way that you can tell

the difference between an amphitheater and a theater.

What's the difference? Yeah, an amphitheater goes all

the way around. The theater does not, right.

So the amphitheater is on the is over here and honestly you you

have to drive to get to that. And I mean it's it's a decent

walk, but drive driving in and the entrance and all that stuff.

Then you come to the theater and then you have the Cardo Maximus,

which we're going to show you in just a little bit and then you

have that big hill. So that's a reconstructive

drawing of it that that area right there is pretty much what

you see when you're. And so.

So if you were to follow this street down there's your hill

all right the the far left side is the hill that was the

original Canaanite city of the capitalist and all of that

stuff. All right.

So we'll continue on with this and let me let me show you this

as well. I'm going to zoom in and and

give you a little bit more of this but there's the tell Valley

Street runs through there. Palatius Street is actually the

Cardinal Maximus and it's, it's all of this has been

reconstructed. When they found Beth Sheehan,

there was one pillar standing. Now there's there's hundreds of

maybe not hundreds but a lot of pillars that are standing.

Now all of the pillars that they've used for the

reconstruction have been found there at Beth Sheehan.

So they are, they are pillars that were there.

I mean, it's like taking this massive, you know, tons and tons

and tons and tons of pieces of puzzle and putting them all

together, which is what they've done because there was an

earthquake that destroyed this. And I'll show you some of the

pictures of that. It's still very, very evident

that there was an earthquake there that destroyed everything.

But down in the kind of the bottom corner, you see the

theater, Pilatia Street is the Cardinal Maximus.

I'm going to show you Sylvanus St. because that's actually

where a lot of the shops and, you know, all of that stuff was.

And and that's a lot of that is reconstructed as well.

So if you're standing on the top of that tail and and if you're

standing with the tail behind you, Mount Gilboa is is over

here on this side. All right.

Just to kind of try to put it into perspective for you a

little bit. Now here's what the hill

Israel's done an excellent job of of uncovering and preserving

those ruins. And I mean it it's such they've

done such a good job of that and and reconstructing a lot of the

things. So Sylvanus Street is the one

that runs this way. Palladia Street or the Cardo

Maximus is the one that runs this way.

And I'll show you a little bit closer up of those in just a

minute. That's what the hill actually

looked like in 1922 before the archaeological work began.

I mean, think about, I mean, you see, you can see how much dirt

is stacked on top of all right. And I can't say 100% for sure,

but somewhere right in this area right here is about where the

top of that tail is today. So I mean, think about the work

that it took them to get just to the layers where they're at now.

And then there's layers and layers and layers underneath

that as well. So pretty amazing thing.

But the biblical tell of Beth Sheehan has around 20 layers of

civilization that have been discovered.

And what they do in a lot of these places, actually, because

if you'll uncover a layer of civilization to get to the

bottom layer, essentially you destroy the layer that's above

it, right? You can't keep all 20 layers.

So what they'll do a lot of times is they'll take a piece of

pie essentially and take one whole slice out so you can see

all the different layers of civilization and they'll try to

get in there and get as much of it as they can out there.

But there's probably, you know, I wouldn't say billions but

probably millions and millions and millions of dollars worth of

artifacts that are that are buried in these hills that they

just can't get to without destroying everything.

So and and probably lots of archaeological evidence too that

they can't get to without destroying everything.

So it's a it's it's kind of, I guess maybe you could say like a

catch 22, you know, how do you know when to stop and and how do

you know if there's a layer underneath of it that's more

valuable than the layer that's above it?

And but in Beth Sheehan there, they found about 20 layers of

civilization. Now this is an interesting thing

as well. Beth Sheehan was not far from

Nazareth. And it's very likely that Jesus

as a young man, worked there in Beth Sheehan with his father.

It's not. He was a Carpenter and the

Romans were the ones that ruled the world.

And Beth Sheehan was a big city, a big Roman city, right.

You know at Nazareth was very very small.

I'm going to show you all pictures of Nazareth and

everything else. Do you remember how many people

I said were about were in Nazareth about 400 people.

Nazareth was a small place right.

So to be able to go and do your work in a big Roman city that

was bustling and and and had people doing stuff.

It was not far for Jesus to walk from Beth Sheehan to Nazareth

that was only a few miles. So very undoubtedly Christ

ministered here. He walked by it on a regular

basis and and what have you know it's it's just so interesting to

think that Jesus was probably there that he walked down the

Cardo Maximus. I don't know did he go up to the

top of Beth Sheehan when he was a kid when you know his dad

would go do some work there and he was visiting and go go play

on the hill. You know who knows.

I don't know what happened but it's it's interesting to think

about it because very likely Jesus would have been there and

would have done some work there with his father Beth Sheehan.

That's Beth Sheehan today with the Roman ruins exposed in the

foreground, the Canaanite city up there on the hill.

And you can kind of see that that's a pretty good picture

actually of of what's exposed on the top of the of the on the top

of the hill today. But this is the Roman city.

It's on the plane, the Canaanite Palestine, Philistine city,

sorry, was up there on the hill. And again world class

archaeological digs that they've done there, Beth Beth Sheehan

and Ancessory and Meritima, which I'm going to show you a

bunch of pictures from Cesory and Meritima as well.

Some of the most extensive archaeological discoveries in

both of those places that really have uncovered exactly what life

would have been like really during the time of Christ.

But then obviously following after that and even into the 1st

century with this churches and and everything else but this was

this is, this is, this is an unparalleled look at Roman

culture during the time of Christ.

And to to actually be able to see Beth Sheehan in the way that

it is. Now, obviously it has biblical

value because Beth Sheehan is mentioned in the Bible.

But even more than that just would have been there and he

would have been around that. And that's that's the culture,

the Roman culture that he would have grown up around.

Now obviously he was Jewish and he would have been Jewish, you

know, had had Jewish culture that was the religious side of

things. The Romans were the ones that

ended up allowing Jesus to be crucified, right.

The Romans were the ones who crucified him.

And so the fact that all roads lead to Rome made it possible

that the gospel was very easily able to be spread from where

Jesus was at there. And you know, just the fact that

Rome ruled the entire world, the known world at that time, made

it possible for the gospel to be able to get out in a language

that people understood. And and I mean there was there,

there was no better time in history for Jesus to have come.

And obviously that's looking at it from human standpoint.

He's God, he knows. But if you look at it from human

standpoint, the way the Romans ruled the world, there was no

better time in history that Jesus could have come than when

he did. And actually, so let me back up

and just show you this is the entire Roman ruins are most of

the Roman ruins that are exposed that you can actually get to

with that hill in the background there.

And there's the Cardinal Maximus.

The Cardinal Maximus would have been the bustling busy middle

St., where everything was at and where where a lot of the the

work was done, if you will, of of buying and selling and all of

that stuff. And so there's there's a picture

of it as well. Like I said, none of those

pillars were left standing. All of those have been

reconstructed, but they've all been reconstructed from what was

there. And so I mean, could you imagine

putting a putting a puzzle together that's that heavy,

right? I mean you get it all the way up

there and you're like stink. That's the wrong one, take it

back down, the bottom piece is wrong, you know.

Right. But that's the way they do it.

And there's I mean this it's it's hard to see.

I'm gonna. I'm gonna show you some pictures

with people in it. Actually there is a person in

that one this there's a person standing right here.

I don't know if you can see him but it just it's just it's it's

very very very big compared to what you what you know what you

might be thinking and pretty interesting there.

There's the Cardinal Maximus. And all of that would have been

for the most part covered. And I showed you the drawing of

that of the reconstructive drawing and then the

reconstructed model of that as well.

But pretty interesting as well. Okay.

There's there's people on the street there that was our group

and that and that just kind of gives you a picture of how tall

these things actually are. There's a person kind of

standing a little bit farther back and you can see how tall

the pillars are. Very, very impressive.

This is at the end of the street.

There's the the tail in the background.

But art streets they they had you know they were very much

more sophisticated than we give them credit for a lot of times.

We think we're the smartest generation that's ever lived and

we've got some pretty good technology but they had some

great technology as well. That's why that's the original

Roman roads are still there in a lot of places.

That's one thing that they did very well at.

But they had those arch roads let the water run off and

drainage and everything else and they actually had drainage even

running down the middle of the street and everything else.

So, but but you can just get a picture of how big that place

really is that that might be a better picture of the of the

size of it as well. There you go.

There's a picture of it from the top.

I don't know. Well, there's a person standing

all the way in the back corner. It's just a little dot.

You probably can't see it unless you're up here but in the

background. And I'm going to show you this

in just a second. But in the background is the

Roman theater. All right.

And then in the foreground right here and I'm going to point

point this to you, they they've been doing a lot more excavation

on that in recent years and that's actually the temple, the

the the temple that they used to worship there in the, I mean

it's it was right there in the main center where everything

happened. And again that's what they

that's what they did. So Mount Gilboa, it's just out

of sight, but it would have been right over there behind us.

And and so a lot of what they've done with some of these places

to preserve them and to keep them from disintegrating any

further A lot of these areas right here you see the the roofs

on those, they've put those on there because inside there's a

lot of mosaic flooring and things like that and it's all

exposed to the weather. And if you just leave it exposed

to the weather, it just disintegrates and and goes away.

And so to keep that from happening some of those places

and that's why I say that Israel has done a world class job in

the archaeology in this place. There's no, there's almost no

better place that you could go unless you get into Greece and

you know some of those areas and Rome obviously to see Roman

ruins. Then if you're going to see

Roman ruins in Israel here and Cesare and Maritima.

But I would say here is even better preserved than than what

they've done in Cesare and Maritima.

But but just amazing the work that they've done.

And I apologize this video is kind of fast but this will give

you a bit an overview of what everything looks like and how

big it actually is. There's people walking all over

the place down there. They're just so small you really

can't see them. This is the top of the hill

where the Canaanite city would have been.

And right here then is where they would have kind of taken

their slice out. You see that to be able to see

and expose all of the civilizations that are

underneath and actually kind of where we're walking down those

stairs is, you know, it was a perfect place for them to put

the stairs because that's kind of where their slice was taken

out for them to do all these excavations and figure out that

there was actually 20 different civilizations that were on that

hill. Mount Gilboa is right there,

just just to the right. It's right there.

And now it's gone. But that's Mount Gilboa.

There it is again. Take that back.

That's Mount Gilboa, the one on the far side over there.

But you can get a picture of just how big and how massive

this city would have been. And no wonder it was the capital

of the Decapilis, right. There we go.

Now, Roman Beth Sheehan was dedicated to Taiki, who was the

goddess of good fortune. Now this is pretty interesting

as well. Obviously a lot of those places,

most of them did not. Most of them did not believe in

God as the one true God and and even Paul, right Paul delivered

his sermon on Mars Hill to the unknown God.

They they wanted to make sure they covered all of them and so

they they just had an idol to the unknown God right?

An inscription to make sure they covered them all.

But Roman Beth Sheehan was dedicated to Tyke who is the

goddess of good fortune. There's a mosaic from a floor in

Beth Sheehan and actually that's just a reconstruction of it.

They they knew what it looked like from from drawings and and

pictures and things like that. But the original was actually

stolen. How you steal a floor, I don't

know. But that's that's a

reconstruction of it. And so they've got that in

there, that's the mosaic and backed out even more.

That's actually what it looked like.

So where I where I pointed out to you those little those little

coverings that are over those little rooms that would have

been that's in one of those rooms and that's what the

flooring would have looked like. So I think, I think everything

around that centerpiece is actually original.

The centerpiece in the middle was stolen somewhere along the

line and they so they had to they had to redo it.

But lots of different other and I'm just taking a step back real

quick but lots of different other mosaics that are just, I

mean as, as plain as can be and and beautiful beautiful mosaics

of what they did. You know what they had going on

and different things like that. Lots of them that are still

left. And most of those not

reconstructed their original There's a mosaic of a river

scene from a Roman home that was identified as belonging to

Leontis. I I don't know who that is, but

the fact that they're able to figure out that these belong to

certain people, but but to go back then Taiki was one of the

mother goddesses and this is actually very interesting

because she had a male child. Does that sound similar to

anything that that we know about And of course then that was the

devil's attempt to rob Jesus of his uniqueness.

Oh Jesus that you know a mother with a with a child who was a

God and everything else. That's not that's not uncommon.

Right. And so the the interesting thing

though is that's that's really exactly what mother goddess

worship was the basis for Rome's Madonna if you will Tyke and

Mary. I mean, they're the they're,

they're very, very similar. And obviously Rome, Roman

Catholicism did not come around until the really the late three

hundreds, the four hundreds. Who Who was the father of Roman

Catholicism? You know, Constantine, right?

He converted to Christianity, made Christianity the official

religion in the late three hundreds.

What do we know from 500 to 1500 AD?

It's the Dark Ages, right? I mean that is when the Catholic

Church had a stranglehold on everything.

So it didn't take long for that to happen.

But this Taiki was here well before Mary came along and and

you know the Catholic Church and all of that stuff.

Here's the ruins of the temple. I pointed those out to you.

But this is some of the close up ruins of the temple there at

Beth Sheehan. There's not much of it left and

but that would have been the the the Roman ruins of the temple to

Taiki and the the goddess with a with a son that's Dionysus he

was he was well known as well and just some of these different

I mean you can you can just see how ornate and how lavish

everything was there just the fact that you know these were on

the tops of columns and things like that in in that area and

very very much you know that's you know the the Taiki was the

goddess of good fortune right. I mean, it was all about money

and wealth and and and just lavish, you know, opulence and

everything else. That's what Rome was all about,

especially at Beth Sheehan. But there's some idols of bail

that they found at Beth Sheehan. You hear about bail all the

time. There's lots of different

depictions of bail. Sometimes you'll see him as a as

a bull, but when you see bail as a human, this is this about what

he looks like. I mean those would have been

individual like gods that somebody had in their house that

they would have worshiped, you know, the big bull and

everything else that they worshiped at, you know, in their

temples. And all of those things would

have been much, much bigger than that.

And and as to my knowledge, I don't think there's any of those

that that still exist, but a lot of these would have been small

personal idols. Remember the story of Laban,

Right. And he couldn't find his idols.

Where's my idols? Well, there's, I mean they're

they're small. They're not.

They're not these big, massive, you know, everybody's carrying

around a big Buddha statue and Rebecca's sitting on it, and

it's obvious that there's some big thing underneath of her,

right? It's not that.

I mean, they were small. They were pretty small for the

most part. And so there's the Hippodrome

that's actually part of that whole model that they've done,

that they had. But they did chariot races,

other sporting events There. I pointed this out to you as

well. But there, everything in the

background is what we were just looking at.

There's the the tell, and then there's the theater, which we'll

talk about in a minute. All of that Cardinal Maximus and

everything else is all right there in that little section in

the top center. So it just goes to show you how

big this place really was when Rome was rolling, right?

And there's the Hippodrome. And and I'll show you there's

some ruins of that Hippodrome I mean but the fact that that that

place as small as that looks on there that chariot races they

had all kinds of different things.

They're just goes to show you how big and how massive this

place really was. There's there's what it looks

like from the air. That's a bus sitting in the in

the on the little road right there just to kind of give you a

picture of how big it is. See that there's there's some

pictures of it from the inside just to kind of give you an idea

But then they also had a 4000 seat theater that was that was a

massive, massive theater for especially for that day but a

4000 seat theater that was used for speeches, trials, plays,

gladiatorial contest mostly. Mostly it was used for the

speeches in the in the trials, the plays and that kind of

stuff. But there's a pretty good

picture of the whole thing from the air.

But they've, they've done a masterful job again of

reconstructing this entire thing.

So this is the, this is the theater right here.

Obviously in the background you have the tell and where you see

all those columns and everything else is where we were at when we

were looking at the Cardo Maximus.

And there's people on there and they just look like little dots.

I mean this, this place is very, very big and again, very opulent

and that's that's what they were going for.

That's what they wanted. A part of the stage has been

rebuilt and and actually they still do, they still do concerts

and things like that there, you know, so people can actually

kind of get the feel of what maybe it would have been like

during that time. But that acted as a sounding

board to project the voices toward the audience.

And if you remember looking at the picture, it was, it was as

tall as those columns. That's how big the back of it

was. So it would very easily have

acted as a sounding board. Everything would have bounced

off and the people would have been very easily able to hear

they didn't have microphones and all this stuff back then, right.

But the way they designed these things was just the acoustically

perfect, basically. And so that that would have been

one of the entrances in there. Now here's an interesting thing,

you see this little the little side right there, the little

room. Now, now this is, this is

something that is semicontroversial.

Some people say it's real. Some people say, Nah, it didn't

really happen. But either way our guide said it

was true and and you know, of course he was he was the expert,

but he but, but it's called a vomitorium.

And what these what these guys would do, these Romans were so

gluttonous that they would fill themselves so full of food that

by the time they would, you know, and they would and they

would just keep eating and eating and eating and eating

until they could not shove anything else in.

And on their way into the theater, they would stop inside

that room and vomit. It was a vomitorium.

And then they would go sit down and watch the theater, you know,

and they would do that. They would they would do that

beforehand because you have these gladiatorial contests

where people are getting killed and stabbed and blood everywhere

and animals tearing people apart and all of that kind of stuff.

I mean, you know, so they had a vomit orium where they could

step out if they needed to and go and throw up, but they would

eat so much food that they just could not actually fit anything

else in there. And then they would vomit all of

it. They had a vomit oriums, I mean,

tells you the kind of people that they were.

But there there's a picture of we're standing on the stage here

looking at this auditor at this theater, and it would have been

a couple stories higher than that as well, with extra seating

above that and everything else, enough to fit 4000 people.

But this is pretty interesting. The flat performance area was

called the orchestra, and orchestra literally means

dancing place. That would have all been done

down there. Here's another couple

interesting. There's a there's kind of a

picture of the whole thing and really kind of brings it all all

together in one place. Different different arches and

all of that kind of stuff. You can see where it would have

had different stories and everything else.

Just a beautiful, beautiful, very, very big place.

But the place where the people sat was called the Theatron, the

seeing place or the auditorium, which would be the hearing

place, all right. And we have auditoriums now,

right. And that's what they're for.

They're for hearing. Obviously the hearing place now,

this is this is pretty interesting as well, more the

seating. And again, so this would have

been the seating would have been probably another layer or two

above that, enough for 4000 people there.

But a person received their seat based on their social status.

And the closer the seat, the more noble the person was that

was sitting there. And so for very important

people, the name might be inscribed into the stone.

They've found names inscribed in stones on some of the closer up

seats with people whose names they recognize, which means they

were somebody, if you will, in history and they had their own

seat. So the closer you got to sit,

the more important you were. And there's some evidence of

that right there. Everybody else got to sit in the

bleachers. They got to sit in the those

comfortable stone seats right there.

So there's Beth Sheehan. They had a large, large room in

bath houses as well. That's part of that same model,

that whole massive complex that I showed you earlier.

There's some more of it. This is pretty neat.

They had hot, warm and cold water rooms.

So the hot room was a Calderium, the warm room was a tepidarium,

and the cold room was a frigidarium.

And yeah, could you imagine what that must have been like?

But this is pretty neat and you wanna talk about technology,

especially in a day when we don't think a whole lot about

them having technology. But the heating system was

called a hypo cost and it was used to heat those public bath

houses as well as the palaces. You know, these kings were not

sitting in there in their chambers freezing to death at

night. You know, they had obviously had

plenty of servants that were able to do those things, but

Harrod had those at all of his palaces.

And and again, Harrod, I I don't, I can't say for sure that

Harrod designed these things, but Harrod was very, very well

known for his design and his ability to come up with this

kind of stuff. Harrod had him in all of his

palaces. This is actually a reconstructed

version of it, but I'll show you a little diagram.

That's what it actually looked like before they started doing

the reconstruction. That those are actual.

That was what was there that was.

That's what they found when they started doing their

archaeological digs. But this is what it looks like.

So the hot air is from a furnace that was stoked by slaves.

It was drawn into those open spaces under the floor.

And here we think we're smart because we have heated floors,

right? And oh, you got your fancy

houses. The fanciest houses have heated

floors in them. Well, guess what?

They had this 2000 years ago in Rome.

I mean, maybe not the exact same type, but that's what it was.

So these little small columns wouldn't be made out of tiles or

cement. They would hold the floor up.

But then all of that hot air would come in from that furnace

and that whole thing would be nothing but a hot air chamber.

And then of course, heat rises, comes up through that floor and

the room stays warm. That was that's how they would

keep a room warm. That's how they would heat the

water in these hot area, you know, hot air areas and or

sorry, hot water areas. But that's how they do it.

These small columns made out of those tiles of cement so they're

part of the thick floor can be seen above the hot air space.

Below there's the tile floor that's above it.

There's the hot air spaces underneath the vent.

And of course, all those are reconstructed to just kind of

give you an idea of what it looks like.

This is, again, it's a, it's a partial reconstruction, but this

is Harrods Palace at Masada. I mean that was the 1:00 we we

looked at that, but that's the one that was on the top of that,

that giant hill, you know, and where all those Jewish soldiers

and and people died. But this is a kind of a a model

of it there, if you will. But heat was drawn up through

the walls and the gases were exhausted through pipes or

hollow bricks. I mean talk about technology,

it's amazing what they had back then and and you know what we

think. But then adding a pool of water

in a hot room created a song or a steam bath.

So you had your hot water and that's how they would, that's

how they would heat their their baths.

And of course being the king or especially being somebody that's

wealthy, you had plenty of people that would go heat that

water for you. And you know, of course they had

these giant bath houses and everything else and you know

public bath houses and everything else, but that's

that's how they would do it. So Sheehan had multiple, had had

multiple seat public toilets and they, the toilet surrounded a

courtyard that was paved with mosaics.

Beautiful place if you want to, you know, if you want to go

where everybody else is. But actually that's what it

looked like. All of those are toilets all,

all around the outside of the edge of that building.

And not, not my idea of what I'd want to do, but that's that was

a public toilet there. And this is actually the

drainage system for those public toilets.

And I was right outside that. So all those toilets would have

been in there and and that's where everything would have

drained out. So more, more power to them, I

guess. But they also found the remains

of a glass factory that were there, uncovered intact.

And the bottles and the wine glasses were stocked and ready

for sale when the earthquake hit, which I'll I'll tell you

about just a second as we kind of bring it to a close here.

They had window panes that were ready for sale.

I mean you don't think about that but I mean they had they

had they had technology and I really think and and I anyway I

just said it but from 500 to 1500 was the dark ages.

It was not just the dark ages for religion.

It was the dark ages for everything.

Everything, everything went hundreds of years backwards.

When when the Catholic Church took over people had no

motivation for anything. People didn't know how to do a

lot of things other than be servants and, you know, and just

just work their farms and whatever else.

And you had your really high upper class and you had your

really low class and there was very little middle class.

And that's why the Renaissance was the rebirth and learning.

I mean, people had to learn how to read and write and do all

those other things again, right? It was the Dark Ages.

And so a lot of this technology, if you will, I think was kind of

lost for a lot of that time, which is why a lot of times in

our mind, we think they were stupid.

They didn't know anything. They were very advanced,

especially the Romans with a lot of the things that they did.

And I and I think even even a lot of things that have been

designed recently have kind of been designed off of at least

semi patterned after Roman designs and things like that

too. Not not a lot, but there's some

funerary busts of of likenesses of the dead that were found in

Roman tombs of Beth Sheehan. And then as I've mentioned a

couple times, in 749, an earthquake destroyed the city

and it was, it was not rebuilt. It says BC, it was not BC, it

was ad but evidence of the earthquake.

You can see it everywhere and again.

So all of those columns that you saw that were standing were all

taken pieces like this reconstructed and stood back up

based on what they think it would have looked like based on,

you know, where they fell and everything else.

I mean, it was not, you know, an earthquake hits and knocks

everything over. They can't just go out there and

stand it all back up in a day. So they essentially just

abandoned the city. It wasn't worth it for them to

do that rebuilding. So you can see evidence of it

everywhere, all these massive, massive columns that are just

laying down there and pretty much, pretty much.

So there's the Cardinal Maximus in the back in the background

there. A lot of these are are just the

the remnants of what's left of the very ornately carved stone

that would have been at the top of a lot of these pillars.

And as we close here it's just a few pictures here that's that's

again, that was a very, very wicked place and that center was

for prostitution and all kinds of other things.

And that was in the dead center of the city.

That's where a lot of those mosaics were at.

And you can see the little roofs on there and things and of

course they would have had roofs back then they don't now but

they've put that on there to preserve it.

And what we're what you're seeing right here in the

foreground is actually the Cardal Maximus.

I mean, that's right there on the Main Street and just a

wicked, wicked place. But that's what the whole Roman

culture, if you will, was all about.

Wickedness, money, power, wealth, opulence.

That's why they love their theater and their hippodromes

and their games and all of that other stuff.

But there's just some of the ruins that are left.

Now, this is Sylvanus Street. I mentioned that if you look in

the background to the right, you can see the other pillars behind

it. That's actually the Cardinal

Maximus. So you come down to the end and

you turn this way and you can see how they've kind of

reconstructed some of this. But that would have all been

like shops and places where you could buy and sell and all of

those things. And so that again, they've done

the same type of thing with the reconstruction there.

There's some people in there that'll kind of give you an idea

maybe of how big a lot of this stuff was.

A lot of these things actually had basements underneath them

and so they would had a room above.

You could have gone down underneath and that's where a

lot of the parties and things like that would have happened

because of the, you know, the temperature and and just, you

know, the men love darkness rather than light because their

deeds are evil. There's Sylvania St. as well.

That's that's kind of the other end.

If you look down at the far corner, that's what we were just

looking at to see where all the shops and everything were, but

just a massive, massive, massive place, columns laying down all

over the place because of that earthquake and there we go.

So, so this just, that's the last one and just kind of give

you an idea again of what everything looks like.

Palladia Street is the Cardo Maximus Savannah St. is where we

turned and what we were just looking at.

There's the what the bath house is over there and again they've

got that all completely covered to to protect what's left.

Valley Street runs out because that's the way out of the city

there. The theater, you can see that in

the front, the Hippodrome would have been, you know probably a

whole slide again over. And then at the other end of

that and then there's the tell Beth Sheehan.

And so it's not mentioned a ton of times in the Bible, but one

of the, one of the one of the more prominent stories that we

have is Beth Sheehan is very, very prominent in that story

with Saul and his son's being hung on that wall.

The men of J Bish Gillian and God blessed them for that, by

the way. But the men of J Bsh Gillia that

went in there and took the bodies of Saul and his sons off

the wall and said, you're not going to let.

We're not going to leave. You're not going to have my king

hanging on that wall. And they went and got it.

Yes. You know, I didn't.

I haven't. I didn't look it up.

Yeah. Yeah.

It does say they traveled all night.

I don't know. I could make up something and

tell you, but I don't know. I'll look it on the map.

I'll see if I can find it on there.

And we'll look at that. But yeah, I I don't know the

answer to that question, but it's a good one.

All right, Very good. Let's pray.

And then we'll sing our song. And then we'll be done.

Father, we love you. Give me thank you for your

goodness to us. Thank you for an opportunity.

We have to look into these things and see how exciting the

Bible really can be and and how much the Bible can come alive.

And I pray that you'd help, that this would be a help to us as we

study and read your Word. I pray that you give us a

greater hunger for your word and God.

I pray that these things would help us as we study the Bible to

give us greater insight into just exactly what you wanted us

to know and what you wanted us to see as we read it.

Thank you again for all that you do for us.

In Jesus name. Amen.

Gwen. Stan.

We'll close in our song. This could be the day that.