The City of David, Both of Them (5-29 Recap)

Today we visited both Cities of David. His hometown, Bethlehem, and his capital, Jerusalem. First we visited his capital. Ancient Jerusalem was built on a hill between two valleys. The Jebusites chose that particular hill, because of  a spring nearby. As Jerusalem developed, that spring became outside of the city’s protection, so King Hezekiah built a tunnel to connect the spring to the city. I went through his tunnel today. I really liked the tunnel, despite the fact that some of it was really small. After that we drove to Bethlehem, and visited a shop there. They sold jewelry and olive wood things, many of them were expensive. One carved scene was $140,000! We saw the Church of the Nativity where (traditionally) Jesus was born, and we saw where the shepherd’s fields were. In the afternoon, the plan was to visit Hebron. But that changed when we weren’t allowed to go there for safety reasons. So we saw King Herod’s mountain and on our way back to the hotel, our bus stopped at the new American Embassy in Jerusalem. I’d wanted to do that, so I was really happy that we stopped. 

Hezekiah’s Tunnel

The hills outside Bethlehem, similar to the one the shepherds were on.