The Mighty Jordan River

 The land of Israel is mainly of a limestone "karst" landscape.  Karst is very porous and full of holes and channels.  Nowhere is this more dramatically shown than at the headwaters of the Jordan River.   The day we visited northern Israel, it was very foggy and we did not get a good photo of Mt. Hermon.  We walked through a heavily wooded area to the headwaters.  The River Jordan is fed by snow melt from Mt. Hermon.  It comes bubbling up from the ground.  It comes oozing out from under tree roots, from between stones of ancient walls.  Soon, within 2-3 hundred feet the little trickles start converging.

 Maybe if you enlarge to photo you can see the small stream next to the stone walk way.  For a mile, tiny stream after tiny stream jaunt downhill and.....

 becomes a wildly dangerous rushing river.

 This is not a river you would want to put your toe in.  I did get close enough to taste the water (in a calmer place than here).  It was very sweet and cold.

Within 2-3 miles when it gets to Caesarea Philippi, it has widened out and calmed down.  It flows pretty regularly to the Sea of Galilee, but is then is largely diverted throughout Israel.  The portion of the "mighty Jordan River"heading south of the Sea of Galilee is just a tiny stream to the Dead Sea.  

The Palace of Herod Agrippa II

Near Caesarea Philippi  is the exotic palace of Herod Agrippa.  The renditions are helpful to visualize how it would have looked at the time of Christ.  An interesting feature of this palace... actually fairly common was having an aqueduct routed through the middle of the house.  No doubt bathroom and kitchen facilities were conveniently placed to take care of business.   In many towns with good water sources, bath houses were also placed over aqueducts.

 Here is a better view of the palace complex.  The little hole in the escarpment in the background is the temple complex of Augustus and the Roman god Pan of the previous post.

 And here we can see the remain of the palace.  The caves dug into the side of the hill on the right side of the photo were granaries and other storage facilities.  The palace was 2 and 3 stories high.

 Above: is the hall where you can see the aqueduct running under the floor of this hall.  They did not have flushing toilets at that time but constantly running water flowed under the seats.



To the right are the remnants of another arched hallway.

King Herod Agrippa was the one who was called to judge Paul in Caesarea, a Roman port city on the Mediterranean coast, not 30 miles from this palace.  After hearing Paul's impassioned defense, his visions, his testimony, king Agrippa replied "Almost, thou persuadest me to be a Christian".
Here was a man who stood, as it were, on top of the world, yet all he gained in glory, power and wealth lie in ruins for all the world to look upon.  It is impossible that true success lies in the accumulation of such transient treasures.  Paul, who gave up everything to follow Christ, even into death has had a far more enduring legacy than Herod Agrippa.