2 Kings 25; Jeremiah 40-44 Sometime after the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and exiled the upper echelons of Judean society to Babylon, they appointed a Judean named Gedaliah as governor over those who remained in the land. At Mizpah Gedaliah encouraged those who remained to embrace Babylonian rule and reestablish their lives in the land, cultivating […]
Category Archives: Babylonian Period
The Tribe of Benjamin
The tribe of Benjamin was descended from the youngest son of Jacob (Genesis 35:16-26) and occupied one of the smallest allotments in the Promised Land (Joshua 15-16; 18:11-13), yet it proved to be a people of great consequence throughout the history of Israel. Benjamin’s allotment in the Promised Land fell between Ephraim to the north […]
Galilee throughout Bible Times
Throughout Bible times, nature and history combined to make the region of Galilee in northern Israel a land of great diversity. Galilee’s mountainous terrain is covered with lush vegetation made possible by the region’s abundant rainfall. Upper Galilee, which was occupied by the tribe of Naphtali, is home to the highest mountains in Israel west […]
The Negev
At first glance, the region often referred to in Scripture as the Negev could easily be written off as merely a land of sparcity–both in rainfall and in population. Yet this land that seems of little value proved to be of great worth to Israel and its leaders over time as it protected the southern […]
Ararat
Many readers of the Bible are aware that Ararat is the location where Noah’s ark came to rest (Genesis 8:4), yet few would recognize it on a map, and fewer still would be able to recount much else about this noteworthy place. The land of Ararat (also called Urartu) was indeed mountainous, so it is […]