Land of the Bible
Wadi Qelt. As we visit the Wadi Qelt
we'll have cause to think about both
Psalm 23 and Jesus' story of the Good Samaritan
but first you may be wondering where is the wadi Qelt
well its a gash
in the land, that heads up from Jericho to Jerusalem
or that heads down from Jerusalem to Jericho depending on which way you look at it
butwith a side branch to Michmash
its one of those winding
steep-sided wadis that are cut by water into the limestone rocks
up the eastern side of the Judean Hills. Heading out of Jerusalem
to be East on the northern side not far past
the Hebrew University we were in the desert
dry
barren, not far still and we turned off
and arrived here the the Prat spring
the Nahal Prat - Prat Spring
provides a permanent water source for
the Wadi Qelt and here we're surrounded by
green and lush in the middle of the desert
a little oasis, as we move further
down the Wadi Qelt we will be returning
desert-like scenery. As we head
down the wadi it's winter time and there's water
at the bottom and plenty of grass and other growth
lush almost. And a Bedouin encampment, because they want to pasture their flocks with this
lush grass
as we moved down further
near the monastery the wadi he gets steeper and steeper
the water's cut a
narrower and narrower channel at the bottom
this is rugged territory
it's
also as we fly over the modern road from Jerusalem to Jericho
the setting of Jesus' story of the Good Samaritan
and you can see why such territory was dangerous in ancient times
even in modern times the road is precipitous enough
but the ancient track
was much more dangerous
even without the robbers and provided of course in ideal place for the robbers to
ambush
their prey!
Flying past the monastery we get a sense
of just how remote this region is, there are some caves
that were the ancient monastery before the modern one was built.
Down nearer to Jericho the
gash is deeper still, the water collects at the very bottom of
this canyon that we can't get down into in the helicopter
but just look down and imagine
the water flooding down you'll find links to
videos of flash floods in the Judean Desert
which may give you some idea of just how dangerous this kind of territory was
for sheep
so the sight of these flash floods
and the geography of the wadi throws light on many of the phrases in Psalm 23
and will be thinking of that as we make our visit to the wadi
Qelt