(Jordan) Amman, Medeba, Mt. Nebo

November 4 (9:39p.m.)

We began today in Amman with a really nice breakfast at the hotel and a little later start of 8a.m.  We toured The Citadel ruins and museum. The Citadel is the name for the fortified city that was the capital of the Ammonites. It is called Rabbah in Old Testament times. The city sat high on a hill with valleys on three sides and high fortified wall surrounding it. Israel defeated the Ammonites  here when David was king. It was in Rabbah that David had Uriah killed by ordering the army to pull back from Uriah when the fighting was the fiercest (II Samuel 11) so he would be killed.  The archers shot from the top of the wall and Uriah was killed. David did this in order to marry Uriah's  wife, Bathsheba. Because of Rabbah's positioning, there is only one place where the city can be attacked. There are archer's boxes present in the city  wall at that location. That means Uriah was killed right below where we stood and the archers would have been exactly where we were standing. We left the big, bustling city of Amman which is growing extremely fast and is a study in contradiction,  There were many places with very big expensive homes and there would be a Bedouim tent right in front of the home with all his goats, sheep and family. We left Amman and headed for Medeba. We viewed the Medeba Map at The Church of Saint George. The map was found in 1896 when the site was being prepared to build a new building. The mosaic contains 2.8 million tiles and was designed to direct travelers who were making a pilgrimage to  the Holy sites Palestine and the Nile Delta. It dates to 566 AD. We had lunch at a local restaurant which serves the entire table with shared bowls of food. They also have water pipes and shisha  (flavored tobacco)  you can order. There was a group of young Muslim  women sitting around, talking and sharing the water pipe. It was a very odd sight. Last stop of the day was Mount Nebo. It was here that God allowed Moses to see the promised land. Even though Moses would not get to enter the land, he was able to view it from a far place. But, as surely as he was able to see it from afar, it was there; out in the distance, real. We need to remember that each of us has that same promise of a land  full of good things from God. It is real and just out  there waiting for us.  All we need to do is to look out and claim it. It was a really special experience for all our group to see the same view as Moses did so long ago. Time to return to Israel and this time, we went to the King Hussein border crossing and went through border control. Guess who was chosen for s random search of their person by the guards? That's right, me, and on top of that, she was training a new agent. I felt like a whirling Dervish before they got through spinning me around, checking me from every angle. Then back to Jerusalem and the Gloria Hotel. I have packed up my suitcase and look forward to coming home tomorrow. I will wrap up this blog with a final entry after I get home.

             
                         Fiona demonstrating  how and from where the archers fired on Uriah

Lunch at  a Jordanian restaurant

Atop Mt. Nebo where Moses viewed the Promised Land