Warm greetings to all in Yeshua’s name!
December is not normally a time when people, especially tourists, go to Israel, except of course for Christmas week. We had an opportunity some years ago to go right after Thanksgiving, so we went.
We also a few years later had the opportunity to go for the month of December, so we went (it’s far far from that simple but that’s for another time…)
First, a little bit about Bethlehem which is known in Hebrew as House of Bread. Bread comes from a Hebrew verb as explained by one of the great Torah teachers “struggle for existence”. The Hebrew word for ‘war’ is rooted in this. After all, what is war if not a struggle for existence?
In Gen. 3:19 Adam is told at a deeper level that he will eat bread by the struggle for existence; cf. the beginning of the verse.
Bethlehem is well less than a 15-minute bus ride from the very southern end of Jerusalem. We once visited a very large apartment complex being built on top of a huge hill, at the southern end of Jerusalem. It was pointed out to us that the hill on the other side of the valley was the northern outskirts of Bethlehem.
So, you can see Bethlehem from Jerusalem!
Bethlehem is currently under control of the Palestinian Authority. They charge well over $100 per tourist bus that goes into Bethlehem. They make, I was told, an absolute fortune because of the huge number of Christian tour buses going there during what passes for quiet times.
Unfortunately, when the Palestinians start what’s called the Intifada, which the Israelis call the Matzav “Situation”, there’s rioting and terrible terrorist bombings against Israeli civilians. My wife and I have seen the consequences of this first-hand.
Naturally, tourism dries up by as much as 90%. The Palestinian Authority, because many Palestinian jobs or businesses are directly or indirectly dependent on Israeli tourism, which the PA causes to be lost, then go on TV and cry that they have no money.
Like all governments, PA leadership doesn’t hurt for money. They live in huge homes. We saw one of these that is visible from the Ramallah by-pass, the road the Israelis had to build to go around Ramallah, which is no more than 20-30 minutes northeast of Jerusalem. Ramallah is where the PA is headquartered.
The average Palestinian with a job in Israel, is the one who gets hurt…..
Tourism is obviously one of Israel’s biggest industries. (I believe it’s 3rd?). If not it’s definitely one of Israel’s biggest!
If the PA gets its way, they will rename Bes Lechem with an Arabic name.
Typically, what’s shown of Bethlehem during Christmas time is of course the famous Manger Square. The PA has obviously cleaned this up and keeps it so.
People may have a picture in their mind of Bethlehem and Natzeret “Nazareth”, as a sort of Biblical Disney theme park. Little could be further from the truth. Yericho “Jericho” is also Palestinian occupied.
In Yeshua’s time there of course were no “Palestinians” there. Yeshua healed one of his fellow Jews in Yericho Lk. 18:35-43, on his way to Jerusalem. More on the route, and why Yeshua went this way, ahead.
It is the same route his Jewish parents Yoseph (“Add”, Gen. 30:22-24 v.24 “Joseph”) and Miryam (“Bitter”, “Miriam”, Greek “Mariam”; “Mary”, is to hide her Jewish identity. The original Miriam, you’ll recall, was the sister of Aharon and Moshe cf. Ex. 15:20-21; cf. esp. Num. 12), took, in bringing him to Jerusalem Lk. 2.
Both Bethlehem and Nazareth are what I would describe as gritty.
Bethlehem outside of Manger Square, is what I can only describe as a very gritty place. My wife and I were once invited to go to Israel with a tour group of Christian pastors a number of years ago. Naturally one of the stops was Bethlehem.
Generally, when my wife and I went to Israel we rented an apartment in downtown Jerusalem.
Any number of times we wound up renting a car and we also frequently took Israeli buses. Driving in Israel is always an experience!
We of course never gave any thought of going to Bethlehem. Israeli Security Forces really would have wondered why we would be going there. Unlike some American cities which have toll booths, Jerusalem has none; but it has checkpoints coming into the city from any direction except the West.
The soldiers at the checkpoint outside Bethlehem may have thought we were some type of American Palestinian sympathizers. It would not have been safe for us to drive there.
Cars in Israel have two different types of license plates. One for Israelis and a different one identifying a car as being Palestinian. There’s no way we’re going to drive to Bethlehem in a car with an Israeli plate!
In some ways of course Bes Lechem is obviously very different than during the time of the birth of our wonderful Mashiach, and in some ways little has changed…
Virtually everything in Israel is built out of rock or stone. We know a Brother who used to build frame houses out of wood and I was shocked and thought he was kidding when he told me. He said though that well over 90% of what’s in Israel is stone.
By law buildings in Jerusalem have to be built out of what’s known as Jerusalem Stone. It’s a beautiful sort of light beige, often with a light-yellow hue to it. It’s hard to describe the color exactly except to say it’s beautiful!
Bethlehem’s buildings and houses are what I would describe mostly as a drab gray. Again, gritty is the word that comes to mind. Once when we were driving to the Dead Sea area from Jerusalem, I missed the turn to head east. I very quickly realized – even before seeing a sign in Arabic – that we were starting to head into an Arab area.
The street got narrower and it was kind of dirty and all of a sudden I’m looking at drab gray gritty buildings. I immediately turned around and headed back and caught the road East towards what’s called in Hebrew the Salt Sea, about 18 miles east and very steep!
Yeshua’s family with a group of Jewish pilgrims from Natzeret, on their way to Jerusalem, cf. Lk.2, would have come up this way after passing through Yericho (“Jericho”). Yericho is about a mile or so northwest of the northwest corner of the Salt Sea.
You ascend from below sea level to about 2,500 feet above in only about 17 or 18 miles or so; again, extraordinarily steep! Heading east and down from Jerusalem there is a sign when you get down to sea level. You still have almost another 1,200 feet below sea level to go to get to the northwest corner of the Salt Sea.
Yeshua’s Jewish parents, and as Yeshua would do later, would go from the southern end of the Kinneret (Hebrew for the Sea of Galilee; because the sea is shaped like the “kinnor”, the small harp King David carried with him, and composed his “Shine forth songs of praise” (“Psalms”) on).
This is because it was much much physically easier to travel south to Jerusalem on the west side of the Jordan River Valley, than to try to go in a straight line the 85 miles from Nazeret to Jerusalem – or Bethlehem – over the beautifully rugged hills and then also have to ascend up from very deep valleys!
Jewish pilgrims then typically came up and ascended to the to the Mount of Olives! They sang “Shine Forth Songs Of Praise” (“Psalms”), Ps.120-134.
A story about Bes Lechem today, then I’ll explain how it relates to the birth of Yeshua.
First one quick thing I’d be remiss not to point out!
When we read in Luke of Yeshua’s parents going from their home in the Galil, Galilee, to Bethlehem or Jerusalem in Lk. 2, we may not realize just how Torah and very spiritual committed to the LORD, they were.
To do this on foot even going most of the way from the very southern end of the Sea of Galilee to Yericho along the generally level Jordan River Valley, was still very very physically demanding!
You’re talking over a hundred miles – on foot (!) – over 100 miles in 1st-century Israel.
The bus took us to a large olive wood factory in Bethlehem. It made all sorts of olive wood for tourists; olive wood crosses of all sizes, small camels of olive wood, even manger scenes!
We had heard a rumor that Yasser Arafat would be passing by the front of the olive wood factory on his way to a function of some sort in Bethlehem.
One of the pastor’s wives pointed to the stop light to our left, at the corner and said, “I hope the light is red when Arafat comes through. I’m going to take my Bible and hold it up to him and tell him I’ve got the title deed of this land to Israel right here”! A few others in the group nodded and said, “Let’s do that!”.
For the first time I saw our guide panic; “everyone get to the bus – NOW – RIGHT NOW”! She turned and whispered to me, “I hope none of the Arabs nearby waiting to catch a glimpse of Arafat understand English.” She very quickly shepherded the group to the bus!
Suddenly over our left shoulder we heard a whooshing sound followed by several large Mercedes that absolutely flew buy at a speed I’ve never seen on a city on a city street! The light was red, but they flew right through it. I turned to my right hoping to perhaps get a glimpse of Arafat, but not only were the cars going too fast, all their side windows were tinted.
Was Arafat really in of those sedans? I’ll never know.
The guide announced that since apparently the Manger Square area was closed off – perhaps giving credence to the rumor about Arafat coming. The guide said we would spend the time instead having the group see, as she described it, “the part of Bethlehem you don’t see on TV”.
The bus rolled out of the parking lot and began traveling through the streets of Bethlehem. We noticed that a large brown Mercedes sedan was leading the bus. Our guide told us, “That’s the son of the owner of the Olivewood Factory”. We’re going through parts of Bethlehem that Christian tour buses don’t go. When the Arabs see that car leading the bus, they’ll know not to stone it….
That’s the reality you don’t see on the news. That’s the real reality of Bethlehem today. It is no Disney Biblical theme park. Bethlehem is not part of a myth or a story any more than the birth of Yeshua is a story.
It is the story of “…Kai O Logos sarx egeneto“… “and in connectedness the specific subject named the Divine wisdom, will, protection, teaching, flesh became” Yochanon (“John”) 1:14.
That flesh was no myth, nor could it be generic. One of the things that separates the real reality of the birth of Yeshua from ancient pagan myths, is that that flesh was Jewish and Hebrew and Aramaic speaking.
As Bes Lechem is called David’s city in Lk. 2:4, so just as real a real reality is the connectedness of Yeshua and David cf. Lk. 1:30-34, esp. Rev. 5:5, 22:16, etc.
The World often sees this time of year as a “holiday season”. Those of us who are blessed to be in union with Yeshua, no it is infinitely infinitely more than that.
Regarding the World, Yeshua made atonement “…olou tou kosmou“, Yochanon’s totally Hebraically expressed “…of the whole of the World”, and in a form expressing this in specifically and absolute sense!
One day, and as we say in Hebrew, may it be speedily in our days, the World WILL know the ultimate real reality of Yeshua!
So may we be strengthened and be encouraged to call to mind with affection leading to action, that the birth of Yeshua is the beginning of the time when the Father makes all things possible through the real reality of the Jewish birth of His Son Yeshua.
All the very best to you and yours in Yeshua’s name!
Jacob
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