Flight to Egypt |
"An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. 'Get up,' he said, 'take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt." (Matthew 2:13a).
Governed directly by Rome since the death of Cleopatra, Egypt had long been recognized as a place of refuge. Numerous Jewish communities were found there, especially in Alexandria, which had the largest concentration of Jews outside Palestine. Because both Egypt and Palestine were part of the Roman Empire, travel between them was easy and relatively safe.
The flight into Egypt is a true love story in which Joseph does everything he can to keep Mary and the baby Jesus safe. Dreams are play a prominent role in the story, just as they were for the Old Testament Joseph, this Joseph's namesake. On one side the tiny family seems surrounded by the evil Herod family, and by a crowd of angels on the other. The expensive gifts of the Magi provided enough money for the family to travel on and God oversaw their journey to Egypt, then returned them safely to Palestine.
Matthew's Gospel relates no details of the journey of Mary and Joseph to Egypt to save the life of their newborn child. Undoubtedly they took the regular caravan route south from Bethlehem to Hebron (modern Road 60), then sharply northwest to Gaza. From Gaza they would have followed the coastal highway down to Pelusium, the gateway to Egypt. Traveling an average of twenty miles a day, they would have reached Egypt in about ten days. (An alternate route, through the Negev and the Sinai Desert, an area of never-ending wilderness and heat, would have been extremely dangerous for the trio).
|
In the footsteps of Jesus... From the corner of Manger Square, we walk eastward along the narrow Milk Grotto Street, passing houses and a Greek monastery, to a Franciscan chapel built around a grotto where, according to a tradition going back at least to the earliest years of Christianity, Mary and Joseph stopped while fleeing Herod's soldiers on their way to Egypt. Milk Grotto The irregularly shaped grotto is hollowed out of the soft white rock. It is now converted into a lavishly decorated chapel called by local Christians "Magharet Sitti Mariam" (Grotto of the Lady Mary), but it is more commonly known as the Milk Grotto. A church was built here at least before the 5th century AD, and mosaic fragments on the terrace of the grotto, with geometric motifs and crosses, are thought to belong to this time.
According to legend, while Mary breast fed the infant Jesus a few drops of milk fell on the stone turning it white. The cave is a place of veneration for both Christians and Muslims who believe scrapings from the stones boost the quality of a mother's breast milk and enhance fertility. |
||
|
Traveling south from Bethlehem to Egypt today…
|
||
|
The distance from Bethlehem to Hebron is about 20 miles, roughly a 30 minute drive without stopping. But there are many things to see related to Old testament history, especially the time of David, Abraham and the beginnings of the Hebrew conquest of the “Promised Land.”
Originally the Herodion consisted of two hills standing next to each other, “like a woman's breasts” as Josephus puts it. Herod used thousands of slaves to demolish one hill and level off the other. Atop the remaining hill he constructed a giant fortress with a double circular protective wall and four watch towers enclosing a palace, baths, synagogue and banquet hall as big as a football stadium.
The Lower Herodion, at the foot of the artificial mountain, was equally magnificent. The complex included palaces, storerooms, bathhouse, elaborate landscaped gardens, hippodrome (chariot racing track) and a huge pool. According to Josephus, after Herod died in Jericho in 4 BC (while the Holy Family was in Egypt), his body was brought to the Herodion and buried “in a bier of solid gold studded with precious stones.” However, Herod's tomb has never been located. In the shadow of the Herodion
is Takoa, home of the Old Testament prophet Amos, a contemporary of Isaiah and
Hosea. Amos earned a living from tending sheep and a sycamore-fig grove
Soon after Dheishah, on the right, is a large archway spanning the road leading to El-Khader, a town of some 5,000 established in 1600 AD. El-Khader, derived from Quran, literally means “the Green.” Muslims see St. George as one of the human manifestations of a spirit known as el-Khader, “the Green One,” an immortal being who wanders the world invisible to humans, but appears periodically in human form to rescue the righteous from danger or preach to the ungodly. The Legend of al-Khader has roots going back to the myth of Syrian and Babylonian fertility gods Adonis and Tammuz. It was adopted very early by Islam, but the reasoning behind the connection of St. George with el-Khader is obscure. The legend may come from famous 12th century myth of St. George killing dragon to save a Libyan princess; possibly derived from myth of Perseus killing a sea monster.
According to the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, the area was one of Solomon's favorite places: “Now there was a certain spot eight miles distant from Jerusalem which is called Etam, delightful for, and abounding in, parks and flowing streams, and to this place he would make excursions, mounted high on his chariot.” Three large pools—each about 525 feet long by 164 feet wide and 65 feet deep—were used to collect spring and rain water from surrounding valleys. They were constructed in steps, one above the other, to enable water by force of gravity. Herod the Great constructed an aqueduct to carry water to the Herodion and somewhat later Pontius Pilate built another aqueduct to carry water to Jerusalem.
The greenery of the village and valley contrasts sharply with surrounding barren
hills.
The valley explored by the twelve Israelites sent by Moses to spy out the “Promised Land” They returned with a visual aid—a single cluster of grapes—to illustrate the great fertility of area.
|
Looming
ominously like a volcano to the east of Bethlehem is our first stop, the
Herodion (highest peak, far right, seen from
Bethlehem), perhaps the most outstanding of all Herod the Great's
building achievements. It served as a desert retreat and was one of a chain of
fortresses—Hyrcania, Alexandreion, Cypros
and Masada—built by the paranoid king on the
various escape routes out of his kingdom, should he have to make a quick
retreat. 
Next
along Road 60 comes Dheishah (right), a Palestinian
refugee camp established in 1949. Dheishah, meaning “a splendor of greenery,”
was once a favorite leisure spot for Bethlehemites. Today it is the largest of
the 59 refugee camps built to accommodate thousands of Palestinians made
homeless by creation of state of Israel in 1948. Originally intended as a
temporary shelter for about 1,000 refugees, it now houses 11,000.
Just
east of the el-Khader arch are three huge
rectangular water reservoirs known as Solomon's Pools.
Why they are called “Solomon's Pools” is not clear; 
Not
far from Solomon's Pools is Artas, a
Christian Arab village, that includes the Convent and church of Sisters of Notre
Dame du Jardin, and the Monastery of Hortus Conclusus (“locked garden”), set at
the edge of a huge garden. The Latin name "horus conclusis, was inspired by Song
of Songs 4:12: “You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride; you are a
spring enclosed, a sealed fountain.”
High on hill dominating east side of Road 60 is
Efrat, the showpiece of the Gush Etzion and its largest community. Efrat
was founded in March 1983 and its name is derived from an early name for Bethlehem recorded in Genesis 48:7: “Ephrath”
(“ash heap: place of fruitfulness”). The settlement's clean white concrete
buildings are stark contrast to the Dheisheh refugee camp seen earlier. The
price for a government subsidized two-bedroom apartment is $136,000, almost half
the cost of the same apartment in the center of Jerusalem.
Just north of Hebron, at the
junction with the road from the Herodion, Road 60 passes the large Palestinian
village of Halhoul (right, Road 60 entering Halhoul).