The Central Highlands
The Central Highlands
The central mountain range of Palestine begins in Galilee, whose hills and valleys were the background of Jesus’ boyhood and of much of his public ministry. The peaks of Upper Galilee rise to just over 3,000 feet, and from the hills above Nazareth in Lower Galilee, although not much higher than 1,500 feet, the Mediterranean Sea is visible on a clear day only seventeen miles to the northwest.
South of Nazareth the ground slopes gently down to a broad alluvial plain, which runs in a southeasterly direction from the Mediterranean north of Mount Carmel to the River Jordan. Its western part is known as the Plain of Esdraelon; the eastern part is the narrower Valley of Jezreel, which lies between the formerly volcanic Hill of Moreh and the limestone Mount Gilboa. It was on the slopes of these two mountains that the Philistines and the Israelites encamped, facing each other across the valley, before the final battle in which King Saul died:
Now the Philistines fought against Israel; the Israelites fled before them, and many fell slain on Mount Gilboa…. David took up this lament concerning Saul and his son Jonathan …: “Your glory, O Israel, lies slain on your heights. How the mighty have fallen! … O mountains of Gilboa, may you have neither dew nor rain, nor fields that yield offerings of grain. For there the shield of the mighty was defiled, the shield of Saul—no longer rubbed with oil.” (1 Sam. 31:1; 2 Sam. 1:17, 19, 21)
At the southern edge of the middle of the plain of Esdraelon, on a prominent site at the foot of the Carmel range, lies the fortress town of Megiddo. For centuries it has guarded the entrance to the main pass through the mountains to the south. It was one of the cities which King Solomon rebuilt and fortified to accommodate his horses and chariots (1 Kings 9:15, 19). Here also two kings of Judah died, Ahaziah who was shot by Jehu (2 Kings 9:27), and Josiah who was killed while attempting to stop Pharaoh Neco of Egypt from going to the help of the Assyrians (2 Chron. 35:20–24; cf. 2 Kings 23:28–30).
South of the plain of Esdraelon lies the hill country of Manasseh and Ephraim, well covered with vineyards on their west-facing slopes, and still farther south the hill country of Judah. These two mountainous regions were the focal point of Israel’s history during the period of the divided monarchy. For the capital of the northern kingdom was Samaria (in the land of Manasseh-Ephraim) and the capital of the southern kingdom was Jerusalem (in the land of Judah).
Jerusalem is built on a mountain surrounded by mountains. God’s “holy mountain … beautiful in its loftiness,” the psalmist could sing, “the joy of the whole earth.”Again, “as the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the LORD surrounds his people” (Pss. 48:1–2; 125:2). The Mount of Olives lies immediately to the east of Jerusalem, across the Kidron valley, and from this summit the road runs east through the most barren land imaginable, dropping more than 3,000 feet to Jericho and on to the Dead Sea. It was while making this two-day journey on foot that the traveler in Christ’s parable was attacked by brigands and rescued by the Good Samaritan.
The whole area between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea is known as the Wilderness of Judea, and it was somewhere in this scene of desolation that Jesus spent forty days following his baptism, fasting and being tempted by the devil.