The Wilderness

I went to the Dead sea, near the place where David hid from Saul - I couldn't believe how beautiful it was, although the mountains lining the beach were an atrocity. I didn't know God made things that ugly!(Maybe I should have contemplated cockroaches before I went.) They are the biblical 'wilderness,' hundreds of feet of desolate rock and bare dirt, akin to the land Jesus was tempted in.


A close-up of the hills lining the Dead Sea. This is similar to the land Jesus was tempted in. Mark 1:12-13 - At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert, and he was in the desert forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.

Nahal David is a rocky gorge that torrents of water have carved out over the millenia. It comes down in flash floods that kill, and its sister gorge was closed off when I was there, in case it flooded.


Nahal David, in En Gedi. David and his men hid from Saul in these rocky crags. If you strain your eyes you can make out a large group of teenagers in the middle, and a few in the bottom corner. This was taken in mid-March - the mid-February photograph on the site I linked to above makes things look a lot greener. (Alternatively, it may have graduated from Adobe Photoshop! :)

At the very end of the gorge there's a waterfall, and you begin to realize that there might actually be some logic behind this oasis rumor. Not a great deal perhaps, as it's a pretty thin waterfall, but there is a fair amount of greenery clinging to the rocks near it, and you begin to see the correlation.
Gravity has clearly changed its tactics according to this waterfall, but you get the idea. Song of Solomon 1:13 - My lover is to me a cluster of henna blossoms from the vineyards of En Gedi. I don't have any idea what henna blossoms look like, but I'm thinking maybe things have changed a bit over the last three thousand years, because this is the lushest part of Nahal David I could find - at the 'lush season.'

The place depressed me just being there. All this plain rock and dirt, ugh. I can't imagine growing up there - I'd be a depressed discouraged mess.

The Scripture - Judas Iscariot
John 6:71 - Then Jesus replied, "Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!" (He meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, who, though one of the Twelve, was later to betray him.)

John 13:2 - The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus.

John 13:26 - Jesus answered, "It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish." Then, dipping the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, son of Simon.

Matthew 10:4 - Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

See sections below for more Scripture.

Judas Iscariot, the Dagger-maker from Kerioth
I read a couple books with sections on Judas, and turned up some interesting information on his name. The meanings are in italics:

“The word [Iscariot] can be geographical, designating the town from which he came. It can also come from a word meaning “dagger-carrying assassins,” and meaning that Judas was a Zealot party member. The word also may come from the Hebrew word meaning ‘false one’; or finally, perhaps the word came from both Greek and Hebrew, meaning the one who “handed over” [Jesus]. At this point individuals can pick and choose the meaning that makes more sense to them…‘Iscariot’ probably designated Judas’ place of origin, but not without some sense of a relationship to the Zealots, and the name somehow relates to what Judas did.” (O’Grady, 190. Italics mine.)

“His surname, Iscariot, signifies the region he came from. It is derived from the Hebrew term ish (“man”) and the name of a town, Kerioth – “man of Kerioth.” Judas probably came from Kerioth-hezron (cf. Joshua 15:25), a humble town in the south of Judea.” (MacArthur, 182, author of the MacArthur Study Bible. Italics his.)

Kerioth was near the southern end of the Dead Sea, a region known for its copper and iron deposits. Since many towns specialized in an industry – see my Nazareth entry – it’s quite sensible that a town near metal deposits specialized in metalwork of some sort – say, dagger-making. This is even more likely in light of the fact that there aren’t a lot of ways to make a living in the desert.

“For I am bringing you into a good land - a land of streams and pools of water, with springs flowing in the valleys and hills; a land with milk and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey, a land where bread is not scarce and you will lack nothing, a land where rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills.” (Deut 8:6-9)


Judas Son of Simon Iscariot
John states that Judas was the son of Simon Iscariot. This is slightly odd, since surnames persay didn’t exist, and most people were known by their occupation or father/husband, e.g., Simon son of Jonah, James son of Alphaeus. If their location was significant in identifying them, you might use the place instead – e.g., Jesus of Nazareth. There were a mighty lot of Jesus’ around, and everybody would have known who Jesus of Nazareth was.

Perhaps Judas was known by both his father and his location because both were significant to his identity. This would explain why his father is given a surname, which doesn’t add up with the other examples in Scripture – ‘Simon Iscariot’ may have been a name people knew. ‘Jenna Bush’ might not mean much in twenty years, but ‘Jenna Bush daughter of George Bush’ would.

Simon the Zealot consistently precedes Judas’ name in the lists of the apostles. The Zealots robbed and murdered those oppressing the peasants, all in the name of killing for God.* Judas acted like a Zealot, yet he wasn’t referred to as one when listed. If Iscariot had a more specific designation, that would make sense.

Nearly all of the iron and much of the copper deposits were from the southern desert, where Kerioth was located. It’s possible that Kerioth specialized in a specific type of dagger, like Bethlehem specialized in a specific type of pottery, and Judas’ family ‘owned’ Kerioth and/or its industry. Aristocrats did sometimes own towns; see my Nazareth and/or Tiberias entry. This would add up with his stealing from the common purse of the group – it’s easier to go from poor to poor than it is from well-off to poor, with the fact that he acted like a Zealot but was listed right after Simon the Zealot and wasn’t referred to as one, and with both aspects of the name.

Trusting God
This is what the LORD says:
"Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who depends on flesh for his strength
and whose heart turns away from the LORD.

He will be like a bush in the wastelands;
he will not see prosperity when it comes.
He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in a salt land where no one lives.

"But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.
He will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.

It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit."

Travelogue
I went do Nahal David and the Dead Sea, as described above. Then back to the hotel. Jammies on again…. Sitting on bed…. Staring into space…thanking God I didn’t go to college before the Civil War….

Shriieeeeeeekk! Shrrriiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeekkk!

There is this thing on my wall, with legs, that looks horribly like pictures I’ve seen in books of a disgusting member of the reptile species named lizards! That weird splay-legged thing, seven or eight inches long, I think, but I can guarantee you, when it heard me it took off – behind the microwavae!! Oh gross! A lizard hiding out in my room and I’m supposed to sleep???

Oh dearie me no. None of that.

I heaved my laptop and suitcase off the cold tile floor onto the couch made of plywoods cloth cousin, stood on the bed to change back into day clothes, dragged everything to the car and slept there.

Yes, I’m serious. And I have to give myself due credit here – those were two good, long, loud shrieks, even for me, and I can shriek pretty well when put to the test.

I hate lizards! What ever was God thinking when he made lizards?

They must have evolved.

Well so I saw the sunrise next morning, over the Dead Sea – it was kinda pretty, actually. I never knew the Dead Sea could be pretty – seems rather like an oxymoron – and I don’t recommend my methodology for investigating the matter. I did, however, enjoy the moment – here’s my journal entry:

“I’m sitting in a car by the shores of the Dead Sea. The sun is just emerging, glinting things with beauty after a depressing rain. Palm trees that were bent horizontal in the wind an hour ago stand tall now. The fog has lifted and I can see Jordan. It’s really weird to stare across a narrow sea and see another country!

"I never understood before why they called it the Dead Sea. Now I get it – virtually nothing lives here. Even the shore is nothing but rock and dirt. I’m a little perplexed as to why the palm trees smack in front of me aren’t landing on my car, the way they’re blowing this way and that. The ones in the distance are flattening again now. The Jordan mountains are disappearing again. Storm clouds cover the sky to my right, left and behind me, but straight ahead they are clear blue. Beyond that, they’re moving in for the kill.”

Then I went to breakfast at the kibbutz in my clothes-turned-pj’s-turned-clothes-again – that’s the last time I ever stay in a kibbutz – where an American reporter traveling alone informed me that it probably was a lizard, and I really should have left it alone because it would have eaten all the bugs for me.

Oh fantastic.

She also told me to nix my plans to go to Jordan, which apparently is a really stupid idea for women traveling alone, despite my travel guides comment that Jordan is one of the safest places in the world.

So now I’m homeless. This is going to be a very interesting trip.

Future Glory! :)
The desert and the parched land will be glad;
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom;
it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the LORD,
the splendor of our God.

Strengthen the feeble hands,
steady the knees that give way;
say to those with fearful hearts,
"Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come,
he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution
he will come to save you."

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
Then will the lame leap like a deer,
and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness
and streams in the desert.

Sources
MacArthur, John, Twelve Ordinary Men, W Publishing Group, 2002
O’Grady, John F., Men In The Bible: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, Paulist Press, 2005