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Listen to the Land (Historical Geography) - Lesson 10

Jerusalem in the First Century

By the beginning of the first century, Jerusalem was the site of a magnificent Jewish temple built by Herod the great. He also built an impressive palace and a Roman fort which overlooked the temple. The events leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus take on added layers of meaning when you understand how the geography of the events reminded people of Messianic prophecies.

Cyndi Parker
Listen to the Land (Historical Geography)
Lesson 10
Watching Now
Jerusalem in the First Century

I. Herod the Great

A. The temple

B. Herod's palace

II. Context of First Century Jerusalem

A. Wealthy people

B. Public miqveh near the temple

C. Antonia Fortress

III. Passion Narrative


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Transcript
  • The Historical Geography of the Land of the Bible is a course that aims to explore the secrets of the land of the Bible by learning how to pay attention to details like rocks, water, and roads, and how they have a dramatic impact on the people living in that context and will change our theology.

  • The land influences the people that are living on it by affecting their stories. Learning to listen to the land helps you understand the details that are hiding in the background so that when you read the Bible, it’s like you see the narrative in living color and 3 dimensions.

  • Major rivers in the Ancient Near East provided the resources necessary for empires like Egypt, Assyria, Babylon and Persia to grow and flourish. Israel is on a couple of the major trade routes that connects these cultures. The location of mountains, hills and valleys in Israel affects the lifestyle and travel patterns of the people who live there and the people travelling through.

  • Wind patterns and the shape of the land determine where more rain falls. Finding and managing sources of water is a critical aspect of survival. The feasts coincide with the agricultural calendar. Biblical passages containing references to water and the feasts had profound meaning to the original audience.

  • Of the granite, sandstone and limestone layers of rock, the limestone layer is what controls much of the lifestyle of the people. The layers of limestone that are common throughout Israel and the surrounding areas are Cenomanian, Senonian and Eocene. It is a good land because there are enough resources to survive and thrive, but it is not an easy land. It has been referred to by different names throughout the years and the political boundaries have been fluid.

  • Bashan is in the north and has enough rainfall and arable soil to support crops and large animals like cattle. The Dome of Gilead provides connection points for international and local travel. Ammon and Moab are neighbors and descendants of Lot’s daughters. Edom is south and are descendants of Esau.

  • The people that migrated to live in the coastal plain were known as the Philistines. Because of the location and terrain, the roads were sources of international travel and trade. Cities were built for commerce and control. The Negev was an important area to control for travel.

  • The Rift Valley is valuable because of its location and resources. Bitumen and Balsam were sought after. It was a popular trade route but it was important to know where to get water. Jericho was at crossroads and was near some major springs. Connecting events in biblical history to the event and location of the baptism of Jesus adds weight and significance to it.

  • The hill country of Judah has enough rain to grow grapes and other crops. Hebron was first given to Caleb and then was the city that David ruled from when he first became king. It was a connecting point for local roads. Bethlehem and Tekoa are also cities in this area.

  • Jerusalem is framed by the hills and valleys that are near it. The Sorek Wadi System is to the west and the Mount of Olives is to the east. David built a palace and Solomon later built a temple. Jerusalem was important in Jewish history and also has a place in eschatology.

  • By the beginning of the first century, Jerusalem was the site of a magnificent Jewish temple built by Herod the great. He also built an impressive palace and a Roman fort which overlooked the temple. The events leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus take on added layers of meaning when you understand how the geography of the events reminded people of Messianic prophecies.

  • Benjamin has the smallest tribal allotment but it is one of the most significant areas in the nation of Israel. The geographical features, the cities located there and the roads that run through it make it a region of national and international importance.

  • The Shephelah is between the hill country and the coastal plain and has unique geographical features. When you know the location of the roads, valleys and cities in this area, you can see their significance in the stories. When you understand where Micah and Isaiah came from and their historical context, you can understand why there is a difference in their message and tone.

  • The rocks and roads will give you valuable information about the Sharon Plain and Mt. Carmel. The international road took different paths around Mt. Carmel depending on your final destination. The harbor and palace that Herod built in Caesarea were impressive.

  • The hill country of Joseph has abundant resources and nearby roads for commerce. Shiloh was a religious center and the place where Joshua met with representatives from each tribe to determine their tribal allotment. The women of Shiloh also were instrumental in saving the tribe of Benjamin. Shechem was important as far back as Abraham. Every time people would see Mt. Gerizim and Mt. Ebal, it was a reminder of the blessings and curses of their covenant with God.

  • Who was Omri, and why was he significant in making Samaria an important city? When the people of Judah returned from Persia, there was a conflict with the people of Samaria. The animosity that was still present during the ministry of Jesus set the stage for an encounter he had with a woman that was at a well near the city.  

  • Upper and Lower Galilee have the climate soil that is conducive to widespread agriculture. Lower Galilee also has some valleys that became major roads. Major empires of the fertile crescent exerted their influence here as they expanded. When the Greeks took control with their military, they also spread their cultural influence.

  • The Jezreel Valley is the center of activity for many of the biblical narratives. Not only was it an important economic and strategic location for Israel, but also for the Canaanites, Egyptians, Arameans and Assyrians. It is also a place where significant events took place in the lives of the prophets and Jesus.

  • This body of water is often referred to as a, “sea” even though it is fresh water, not salt water. There are not many stories in the Hebrew Bible that take place in this area, but it is a center of activity for Jesus during his ministry. Many of the parables are illustrations taken from local culture and geography.

  • The Huleh basin has an abundance of water from several sources. The soil is also good, but the conditions for growing crops in some areas presents some challenges. Dan is a strategic city in the north as a gateway to the region and a religious center under Jeroboam. Caesarea Phillippi was built by Herod and was a place that Jesus used to teach his disciples about his role as Messiah and their future as leaders of the church.  

  • The Gospel of Luke traces the journey of Jesus to Jerusalem, and the book of Acts traces the journey of the gospel going out from Jerusalem. The events in Pentecost have a connection to the events at Mt. Sinai. The gospel is for the world but the events that made it possible are anchored in Israel. (Don't forget the Epilogue, Lesson 21!)

  • There are two different stories in the Gospels of Jesus feeding large groups of people. One account is in John 6 and another account is in Mark 8. The message is similar but the geography gives you some clues to help you understand why the details are different.

Have you ever read about a place and when you went there in person, it came alive? As you walk through the hills and valleys of Israel with Dr. Parker, you will see the stories of the Bible in living color. 

Your location affects your lifestyle, relationships, worldview, occupation, diet and travel. In ancient Israel, you depended on the resources around you to survive. People often lived near springs or rivers, but it was possible in some places to collect rain water and ration it through the year. The terrain and the type of soil would determine what crops you could grow, or what animals you could raise. Living near a road would give you opportunities to sell what you produced or buy what you needed. Your location would determine the amount of risk you would face from people in neighboring countries. By living in the hill country, you would develop a different mindset than if you lived on an open plain.

Once you begin to have an understanding of the, "rocks and roads" of Israel, reading your Bible with a good map next to you will help you get a 3 dimensional perspective. When the characters and the scenery become life-like in your mind, you will find yourself being inspired and motivated in your understanding of your relationship with God and how you can apply it in your interactions with others. Take this opportunity to learn from Dr. Parker to "Listen to the Land!"

Don't forget the Epilogue, Lesson 21!

 

Recommended Books

Listen to the Land: Historical Geography - Bible Study

Listen to the Land: Historical Geography - Bible Study

Have you ever read about a place and when you went there in person, it came alive? As you walk through the hills and valleys of Israel with Dr. Parker, you will see the...

Listen to the Land: Historical Geography - Bible Study
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Dr. Cyndi Parker
Listen to the Land (Historical Geography)
BS600-10
Jerusalem in the First Century
Lesson Transcript

Okay. So we're still in Jerusalem with all the same geography, but we're moving into a different time period. Now, what is interesting and we could spend an entire course, we could do an entire course just on Jerusalem itself, going through all the different historical stories that happened here. And so, again, just in our geographical historian mindset, we have to just think of this area being really full of Israelite stories, and this city is going to hold on to all of that and preserve all of that. So we have to remember that there's no mediocre interaction with Jerusalem because Jerusalem comes I mean, from David on up, all of these stories, so much history, the temple that is here, the spirit of God that is here, everything is significant. And we're going to take that with us into a new time frame. So this is first century Jerusalem. And as I said, that the city expanded and contracted between the Kidron and the Benham valleys. By the first century, the city had expanded and covered all of the eastern hill, all of the western hills, so it was all the way between these two valleys. It had also somewhat expanded to the north, quite a bit further north than it had been before. We're going to jump into this time period, really focusing on Herod the Great. We met him down at Masada, transforming all of the land because he also transformed the land up here as well. He took the eastern hill, which is very narrow. He took the northern part of the eastern hill where the temple was. So Solomon's temple was here. It was destroyed when the people came back from exile with Ezra Nehemiah, they're rebuilding the temple.

[00:02:06] They rebuilt another temple here, smaller than not nearly as significant as Solomon's temple, not nearly as fancy. That temple gets refurbished during the Hasmonean time period. So there has unions were about a century worth of time when the Jews were independent from the Greeks. And so we don't have anyone acting as an overlord over the Jews at that time, and they refurbished the temple and made it better. It is Herod the Great though, who in kind of a trade and exchange with the Jews, because the Jews understood him to be only partially Jewish and not really Jewish, and he needed to rule over the top of them. So he was like, Hey, how about if I expand your temple and make it even grander than what you remember? And so there was a massive, really huge building project where they take this narrow part of the hill and made it flat and expanded it. This platform on which the temple was built was known in the ancient world as one of those places you have to see before you die. Yeah. Times magazine is like, you know, the the 50 greatest natural wonders or you have to go see this. Well, in the ancient world, they had similar type reports. And people would say it's astounding because the Roman world, the Greco-Roman world was known for having platforms. It's just they often put multiple temples on them, so you would get different gods represented. But in Jerusalem there was a very large platform and there was only one temple. And people used to say, You have to go see Herod's temple in Jerusalem. It's amazing. Even more astounding, there's no statues anywhere. And and the ancient world just thought this was absolutely remarkable, something that you had to go try to see.

[00:04:05] So this eastern hill becomes quite larger than it it naturally was. And then Herod builds his own palace way over here on the western hill. Now, on this map, it looks like this is more elevated. It's larger in space, but the eastern hill is lower than the western hill. So Herod's palace, which sits opposite the temple, is actually more elevated than the temple, which could be just a matter of geography, maybe. But it parallels Herod's ego, where Herod was always trying to set himself up as the biggest, the best, the most glorious builder the world had ever known. So if we were, there's a great model in the city of Jerusalem that you can go visit. And so these images come from that model. It's not exactly accurate, but it's really close. And so as we look on this model, this is giving us a bird's eye view of what approaching Jerusalem would have been like, especially if we were standing on the Mount of Olives. So the our perspective, we're obviously looking down onto the city because the Mount of Olives is higher. And so you come over and the first thing that captures your attention is the Temple Mount. It's big. It's beautiful. It dominates the landscape for sure. And you can see the like heading off this way. This would be south. We would be looking west towards the city. Up here would be Herod's palace, like in this oblong area up here. And then the city walls that went around the city of Jerusalem. Let's talk just a little bit and get to know the context of first century Jerusalem, who lived there and what was the economy like. This is actually a lot more complex and complicated than we really have time to go through in a geography course.

[00:06:08] So I would highly recommend that you pick up a good book that talks about the history, the complexity of Jerusalem. Or pick up my new book, Encountering Jesus in the Real World of the Gospels, because I go through this in quite a bit of detail. Okay. So again, looking at the model of Jerusalem and we've switched our perspective a bit, so we're looking north from the south. So the Mount of Olives is over here, right? So this gives us just a little fuller look of the eastern hill, which is here, the dramatic slope up to the western hill, which is here with Herod's palace that is over on the far western side, looking down onto the Cynon Valley. Okay. So we have found through archeological evidence, we can tell the economic status of the wide variety of people who lived in Jerusalem. Well, where did the rich live? So we should talk about that first. Where were the wealthy people? Was there a wealthy, like, gated community, that type of idea in Jerusalem? Sure enough. Yes, there is. Sure enough. The wealthiest of the people were the S'agissait class. The Sadducees were connected with the temple. But if we again go through our history, the development and transformation of Judaism up to the time of first century, the Sadducees were highly connected politically. It may not then surprise us all that much that they would put their palatial homes close to where Herod was. So you have the big palace looking out towards the west, and then everyone around him is going to make sure they're very connected to him. We find a similarity in goals politically. Now, how do we know those were priestly homes? Why didn't they belong to Roman soldiers or or wealthy Roman people? How do we know that they were Jews? And how do we know that they were probably sadnesses? Well, when we excavated these huge we again, when archeologists excavated these huge palatial homes, we found what are called a mikvah inside the homes.

[00:08:27] So what is a mikvah? A mikvah is a place where you do a ritual cleansing baths, so it's not a bathtub. These homes also had bathtubs, which is remarkable because this was long before people really started taking baths. Only the wealthy of the wealthy took baths, plus were in an area thirsty for water. But you have to be a very wealthy family to be able to collect water for a bathtub. Right. So we have a few bathtubs in these homes. The homes are decorated with frescoes that mirror the type of style that we see in Pompeii. So Pompeii, you know, the city that was destroyed, it set the standard, the trends, the fashionable trends of building. And we see the wealthy in Jerusalem trying to be like that. Okay. So they're mimicking Pompeii, but how do we know, again, that they were priests? Well, those mikvah are a mikvah, but these ritual cleansing baths were in every single one of the homes, sometimes multiple mikvah in the homes. So in their basements, where they, in the privacy of their own home, can do the ritual cleansing baths that was preparing them ritually to then go over to the temple. Now, we also, based on the writings of Josephus and some archeological evidence, we know there was a bridge because of the differentiations of the heights of the hills. Well, if you're really wealthy and if you're really concerned about purity, you don't want to walk around that with the masses down into the Central Valley, up again to the temple. Oh, no, no, no. You build a bridge so that you can just go straight from the western hill directly over into the temple, and you're somewhat set apart from the masses. I have all kinds of tour groups that really wish that bridge still existed.

[00:10:26] As we hike through the city of Jerusalem. Okay. So the priestly homes are these very wealthy, palatial homes. All seem to be here very close to Herod's palace. We have another neighborhood that is dripping down the western hill. The homes were also like significant homes, but not the wealthiest of wealthy homes. And they were a lot more compact and built really close together. We can find some of the roads and some of the stairs that went up the roads. But again, we're looking at the common masses of people living through here, maybe also on the north side of the city, the wealthy here on the western hill, Herod's palace and the temple over on the eastern hill. Okay. Now, let's say none of us belong to a priestly family. And so we do not have the mikvah, but that are in our own homes. But we have to go through the process of a ritual bath before we can ascend up to the temple and stand in the fiery holiness of God's presence. So what do we do? Well, all around the Temple Mount, we have evidence of hundreds of mikvah aught. So most likely, like if we were all pilgrims and we were coming to Jerusalem, let's say for Passover or one of the pilgrimage festivals, and we've come a very long distance, we would maybe come and there's a significant road, big, huge, massive road that ran right along the Temple Mount. So where all the shops were, so we could go and exchange our coins and we could buy our sacrifices and we could get ready for everything that we need to do. And then we would pay a fee and we would go into the mikvah, and then we would do the ritual cleansing baths so that our hearts were pure, symbolically, as we then ascended up to the temple.

[00:12:31] Okay. Now, what if we're even poorer than that? What if. What if you're someone who's blind or lame? You have a physical disfigurement, you've been pushed to the outskirts of society. You don't quite belong. You are begging for alms, which means you don't really have anything extra. Which is going through the process of a mikvah would be really challenging, and more often than not, you're not even able to pay the temple tax that you have to pay to go into the temple. So what do you do? Well, on the outskirts of the city, there's only two that I have pictured here, but there were really three. We have these huge pools now. They're not recreational pools, but they're pools that served as water collection places. So again, just knowing this city is thirsty, there's only one spring that needs to service everyone. So these water collection pools were essential for gathering water in the rainy season, and then it became a resource for the entire community. People could then go, or if you have sheep that you're bringing into the city, you could stop at the pool and water your sheep from the pool. And what we find is the poor often congregated around the pools, archeologically based on the way the pools are shaped. There's been quite a convincing argument that these pools were probably also used as a mikvah by the poorest of the poor. They may not then be able to pay the tax to go into the temple, but they can somewhat kind of a little bit participate in what was going on in the community. Now, when we think of first century Jerusalem, Jesus isn't there all the time. He tends to be there for festivals. He spends most of his time up north in Galilee.

[00:14:22] But when he is in Jerusalem, if we were to just map out where are the different miracles, where the different conversations, where is it that we find Jesus most of the time? At the temple a lot, holding conversations and debates. When he is here, if you pay attention what kind of conversations he's having, he's having very intricate theological debates with Sadducees and Pharisees. But we also find him all the time. We're the poorest of the poor around these pools, the blind man, where he puts money on his eyes and it goes goes to go to the poor slum, go rinse off the lame man who's up here at the pools of Bethesda. Do you really want to be healed? Do you understand how it's going to change your life? RAY And all the time he then tells them, Now go to the temple. There's something about restoring the people from the outskirts of society, bringing them all the way in, and then saying, You know what? You also get access to God and God's presence. And it's really, really beautiful. Okay. So we've we've covered this little bit. I want to just, again, put it on the map, but we're going to take another view of the model of city where Herod's palace is and the temple we already covered, who has access to the temple from this model, we're again going to say, okay, Herod's palace over here, the religious elite being right there as well. And now I'm going to point out on the northern corner of the Temple Mount is where we had the Antonia fortress. So Herod had this built because, well, the temple is quite a contentious area. You know, just think. Just think for a moment. If we are Jewish pilgrims and we go to the city, we're going to the city as pilgrims for religious holidays.

[00:16:18] Right. What is it? Those religious holidays always remind you of what God has done in the life of his people. And here in the first century, Rome is in charge. And every time Jews come to the temple, they're always remembering, oh, you know, God is in charge. And there were always like friction over, we should be free. God is going to restore as we don't fully know what that looks like, but we're anticipating that. And so when Rome is in charge and by the time of Jesus, Rome has only been there about 60 years. So their parents remember being free and not being under Roman control. So because everything is a bit contentious here, it builds the Antonia fortress and then stockpiles a whole bunch of Roman soldiers there. And they can look down onto the Temple Mount and just make sure no one's getting out of hand. So there's so many different stories and it kind of kills me that we're not going through all of them. But I do want to take this view of entering from over the Mount of Olives into the city. And I want to talk just briefly primarily about the geography related to the passion narrative. So Jesus coming into the city for the last time and before we really map where different events happened, I do want to set the stage a little bit with everything that I've just said about the history. But we're also going to think of what time of year is it when Jesus comes in, when he's about to die? He's traveling as a pilgrim to Jerusalem. During what time of year? It's Passover. So during Passover, we are all collectively remembering what? God and Pharaoh went head to head. God wins over the great and mighty world dominating Empire.

[00:18:13] And God brings his people out so that they can worship Him in the right way. Passover. So let's just say you're a Roman soldier during Passover, when the population of the city swells, you know, they have to be rolling their eyes. Oh, no. Everyone is remembering our God is greater then the world dominating empire that controlled them during the first century. That was Rome. Now, interestingly enough, about 100 years earlier. Not quite, but about 100 years earlier, when the Greeks were in control of the city of Jerusalem, there was a revolt that happened and Jews were able to money and family was able to come in and claim independence from the Greeks. That looked like this is where we were going to get the festival of Hanukkah is out of this particular military victory. The temple had been desecrated, but they had enough oil left. God miraculously multiplies the oils that they're able to rededicate the temple, hence the Festival of Lights, Hanukkah. But the people, when you read the narrative of what happened at that time, people are celebrating. They're waving palm branches around. They're saying God saved us. God has redeemed us right from the hand of the enemy. And so it's then interesting to think of Jesus coming in to the city of Jerusalem for the last time. Let's think of the layers that are here. One we already did. David left weeping, but he came back through the wilderness, rejoicing. Ezekiel looks at the Spirit of God leaving to the east and the rejoicing of the spirit of God coming back. And then Jesus now is fulfilling all of this prophecy coming up from Jericho through the wilderness, over the Mount of Olives. And what happens when he gets there? He tells his disciples, Go find a cult and I'm going to ride in on a cult, on a donkey.

[00:20:28] Which is interesting because in the ancient Near East, if you rode into a city on a donkey, you were already king. If you rode into the city on a horse, which seems more majestic to us, but a horse is always a war animal. So if you're riding in on a horse, you're declaring war on the city. If you ride in on a donkey, you already have the city. So it's quite a majestic scene. It's a very kingly scene of Jesus coming in. Now, depending on which gospel you're reading, the gospel of Matthew has the people shouting, Hosanna, Hosanna! Which means God save us. And they're waving palm branches and singing songs for those who have ears to hear. It sounds a lot like when the houses unions were able to free the people from the Greeks and re cleanse and rededicate the temple. So let's again find ourselves here in the Antonia fortress, looking towards the east, towards the Mount of Olives, when this guy, Jesus, who has quite a bit of popularity among the crowds, comes in to celebrate Passover in the city, and the crowds of people are shouting, God save us, and everyone knows God is going to save them from the Romans. Right. We're looking for another ruler. We're looking for another king. And if you're standing in the Antonia fortress looking toward that way, you're going, Oh, now this is going to be trouble. We have to keep our eye on him all week long. If you are in the elite houses of the Sadducees who have very strong political connections and you're looking towards the Mount of Olives, where the crowds of people are bringing in someone that they want to be the Messiah, you, too, are looking at them going, Oh, no, no, no, no.

[00:22:17] Because if that guy is successful, we lose our positions and the strength of Rome is going to squash us. So they too are going to look at what Jesus is doing and say, This is not cool. We don't like this. This sets up quite this difficult, kind of tense week that Jesus spends in the city of Jerusalem. And when you read the Gospels, you should read read it with that anticipation of, oh, you know, it's like they're intricate debates that are going on the whole entire week. Well, we get to the end of the week and Jesus celebrates The Last Supper with his disciples. We don't actually know where that house was. There is a home that or a place that people go to to remember the event. But we don't we don't have any very precise archeological data to tell us for sure. But I'm just going to put it somewhere over on the Western Hill, just kind of following tradition, but say we don't know. When they're done celebrating the Last Supper, they leave and they go, as was their custom to the Mount of Olives. And I almost wonder if the disciples didn't think that they were going back to Mary Martha's house. They live at the top of the Mount of Olives, on the wilderness facing side. Every time Jesus and the disciples were in Jerusalem, they often stayed with Mary and Martha and the whole entire week that Jesus is in Jerusalem. We watch him walk down the Mount of Olives into the city and then leave later, and he's constantly doing this. So I must wonder, the disciples were going, This is like we're heading back, as is natural. So we get the pause in the Garden of Gethsemane, which in and of itself is a massively, incredibly crafted, beautiful theological moment.

[00:24:08] But then we get the soldiers that come, and the soldiers then are going to take them to Caiaphas house or to the priest's house. Well, where did the priest live? In the vicinity of Herod's Palace. So there's something of an illegal trial that is going on as the high priest and other very elite members of the religious community are there debating what are we going to do with this guy who's in the city that the crowds of people love? And so ultimately they go, you know, we don't have nearly as much power as pilot has. Let's send him to pilot. And if we frame him as someone who's going up against Rome, pilot will have the decision to kill Jesus. So they send him to pilot. Now, pilot would have been staying in Herod's palace. Herod has long since died. Pilot is now in charge geographically. This whole entire area. Pilot would have been staying in that palace. They sent him from the elite neighborhood, just basically across the street to the palace. Pilot goes, Oh, this looks messy. And you know what? Herod Antipas, who is the ruler of Galilee, where Jesus spends most of his time, Herod Antipas is happens to be in town to celebrate the Passover. I'll send Jesus to Herod. Well, Herod's palace was not that far away. It's in the palatial area where the priests are go. And Herod Antipas is very quick to go. No, no, no. Jesus doesn't spend any time with him. Sent right back to. To see pilot. And then this is where pilot who is known. Well, he has quite the reputation of always trying to like poke at the Jews. Even the ruling party did not like them, so he didn't actually want to give them what they wanted.

[00:25:58] But he also needed to make sure that Rome would not ever have a chance to blame him for an insurrection. So he is finally convinced, okay, we're going to kill Jesus. And so they take Jesus right from the palace, out through the gate, right outside the walls of the city. And they crucify him. Now, why do I spend all this time looking at the geography? Part of this is because I've heard. So many people say, why is it that the crowds of people who who escorted Jesus into the city are the crowds of people who turn on him and call for his death later on? And this is when I say, well, let's look at the geography and think about what neighborhood we're in. The crowds of people are in the city because everyone's coming into the city. Everyone can see Jesus when he's approaching the city. But when Jesus is being put on trial and people are calling for his death, what neighborhood is he in? It's a very politically connected, very small neighborhood. Yes, there's a lot of activity. But the people who live over here on the Hill, do they know what's going on? It's happening at night. Most of it it's happening behind closed gates in inner courtyards. People don't necessarily know what's going on until they wake up. And it's not that the crowds of people called for Jesus's death. It's a crowd, a specialized crowd called for Jesus, his death. But the crowds of people who ushered Jesus in are the same ones who had their vision crushed. When they wake up and they see that the guy they hoped would save them is actually on a Roman cross outside of the city. This is just another one of those instances where I'm like, we have to keep mapping things on to the ground because it tells us things that other people would have known intuitively as they read this story.

[00:27:57] How big of an area are we talking about here? Well, it's two miles to run all the way around the modern day old city wall, which is going valley to valley. It's small like you can you can cover the whole entire territory multiple times throughout a day. If your legs don't give out on you. Yeah. So it's quite small. So then when you go in between neighborhoods, even this, I mean this only takes like 2 minutes to walk from here to here. And I walk this with groups. I make them go back and forth and forth, back and forth, back and forth to here. And then you go, Ah, now I see. Now I see in a whole different way. Okay. I hate to leave Jerusalem. But alas, we shall leave Jerusalem and continue looking at other areas of Benjamin's territory. It's just Jerusalem is the southernmost bit of Benjamin's territory, as we are going to remind ourselves that Henham Valley is separating us. Judah. The Tribe of Judah to the Tribe of Benjamin.