Today we headed north. We went by Katsrin and traveled across Jacob's bridge on hwy. 91 over to hwy. 90 and turned north for 3 miles to Hazor.

Hazor was a city with strategic and commercial importance for more than 2000 years. It was over 190 acres in size. It stands at the confluence of the north-south and east-west entrance to Canaan. It has 21 occupation levels and consists of an upper town, and a lower town. The most impressive part of the site for us is the upper town. The lower town is currently closed to visitors. Tel Hazor was occupied from 2600 BC until 300 BC.

The town was the Royal City of Jabin prior to Israelite conquest (Josh.

22:1). The Mari tablets indicate that the Canaanites maintained close relations with Mesopotamia. Solomon (I Kings 9:15) raised a heavy levy to fortify Hazor. Tiglathpileser III of Assyria conquered Hazor in 731 BC.

The site has a remarkable water system, built by Ahab. Also, you can see the gated entrance to the city, outlines of important buildings from several different civilizations, and the foundations of some buildings from Solomon's time. The city was destroyed by several different nations and the ash layers are evident.

There has been a lot of archaeological work done at this site. Ayelet Hashahar, 1 mile away, has a museum with many finds from the site and a model of ancient Hazor. Generally, this is a delightful place to visit, if you don't lean against the glass and set off the alarm. This upsets everyone!

We continued up hwy. 90 to Kiryat Shmona. This is an area largely populated by Israelis of Middle Eastern descent with a few immigrants from the former Soviet Union. We sometimes see this town on the evening news when the katushya rockets are fired from Lebanon. We turned right at the Burger King to head over to Banias (Caesarea Philippi).

Caesarea Philippi was a pagan holy place venerating nature gods for several thousand years. The centerpiece of the site is the cave of Pan. This was the place that Jesus called Peter the "rock" (Matthew 16:13-20). This place is an area of springs and has a majestic beauty at the foot of Mount Hermon, on the slopes of the Golan.

We left Caesarea Philippi after a short devotional and time of prayer.

This site is a sobering experience when you see how sincerely wrong so many centuries of mankind were. Worshipping the creation rather than the creator.

Tel Dan, located in the Dan Nature Reserve, was just a few miles back toward Kiryat Shmona. We parked the van and began our tour of the site.  The Dan Reserve is a place of lush beauty.  A river runs through the reserve.  Majestic Mount Tabor oaks provide shade over wide paths.  We walked most of the hiking trails and slid through a lot of the river.

Dan was the most second important city in northern Israel.  Hazor was the only city larger than Dan.  Abraham pursued Lot's abductors to Dan.  About five centuries later, Joshua conquered Dan (called Laish then).  During the period of the Judges, the tribe of Dan conquered Laish (Judges 18:27) and renamed it Dan.

In the Old Testament, "from Dan to Beer Sheva" is a stereotyped expression that fixes the boundaries of Israel (Judges 20:1, 1 Sam. 3:20). 

We enjoyed a leisurely lunch in the cafeteria at Dan.  The food was good and we reviewed the previous three days.  We all discussed the events that had been most important to us.  Dan is a natural place to relax and talk.

When we finished lunch, we turned south and traveled back towards the Sea of Galilee.  When we stopped at Rosh Pina for coffee, Brian had an incident in McDonald's that was amusing to him and us.  We had been around young people with automatic weapons for several days.  The mall had a lot of people walking around with guns.  Brian had just gotten an ice cream cone and was walking back towards the exit of McDonald's.  A balloon popped.  We found Brian outside the mall.  It did sound like a gun going off.

Kursi was our last stop.  It is located about 3 miles north of Ein Gev.  This site has been revered by Christians since the 5th century AD as the place that the dramatic excorcism of Mark 5:1 and Luke 8:26 took place.  Swine Hill would be an appropriate name for this place. 

We rested before traveling to Tiberias to shop.  The traffic in Tiberias was rough but we got our shopping done. 

Nof Ginosar was a short ride north for our evening meal.  We had a lively and lengthy discussion with Ramiri and Jim and thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Then back to Ein Gev for the night.  Tomorrow, we would travel to Jerusalem.