Page 14 - Holyland Magazine - 2009 Edition

In a water-starved land,
cisterns, aqueducts and
waterways were essential for
human development and
survival. Visiting these
venerable waterworks will
introduce you to some marvels in the land of Israel, located in the temperate as now.
of ancient engineering.
14 “They came to the pits, and found no water; they returned with their vessels empty...” (Jeremiah 14:3)
FGLOOWWITH THE
Water was always a major concern
zone on the very edge of the desert. The
number of biblical references to rain and
dew, floods and drought, waterholes, wells
and cisterns attests to the importance of
water to the people living in harmony with
nature. Unlike Egypt, where water was
abundant and pumped up from the Nile
(“For the land, into which you are entering
to possess it, is not like the land of Egypt
from which you came, where you used to
sow your seed and water it with your foot
like a vegetable garden,” the land of
Canaan was a “land of hills and valleys”
that “drinks water from the rain of heaven”
(Deuteronomy 10:11-12). And this made
all the difference in the world, then as well
THE WELL
Water was the source of blessing and the
reason for war. Daily life centered on the
well, with trade, meetings, courtships and
alliance-building taking place there, as we
see in the stories of Abraham and Isaac,
who dug wells in the dry river beds as “when
Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found
there a well of flowing water,” (Gen 26:19-
25). From earliest times, wells have also
been the cause of much strife. The covenant
between Abimelech and Abraham at Be’er
Sheva (Gen 32) was a necessity since fighting
over this limited resource was common and
wells were filled by the enemy and often
had to be dug out again.
The high aqueduct to Caesarea, a Roman
development to bring the water to the people.
Itamar Grinberg