Page 48 - Holyland Magazine - 2016 Edition
P. 48
The high aqueduct to Caesarea,
a Roman development to bring
the water to the people. Photo:
Itamar Grinberg
Go with the Flow
In a water-starved land, cisterns, Water was always a major concern The well
aqueducts and waterways were in the land of Israel, located in
essential for human development the temperate zone on the very Water was the source of blessing and the
and survival. Visiting these edge of the desert. The number reason for war. Daily life centered on the
venerable waterworks will of biblical references to rain and well, with trade, meetings, courtships and
introduce you to some marvels dew, floods and drought, waterholes, wells alliance-building taking place there, as we
of ancient engineering. and cisterns attests to the importance of see in the stories of Abraham and Isaac,
water to the people living in harmony with who dug wells in the dry river beds as “when
By Yoni Shapira nature. Unlike Egypt, where water was Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found
abundant and pumped up from the Nile there a well of flowing water,” (Gen 26:19-
(“For the land, into which you are entering 25). From earliest times, wells have also
to possess it, is not like the land of Egypt been the cause of much strife. The covenant
from which you came, where you used to between Abimelech and Abraham at Be’er
sow your seed and water it with your foot Sheva (Gen 32) was a necessity since fighting
like a vegetable garden"), the land of Canaan over this limited resource was common and
was a “land of hills and valleys” that “drinks wells were filled by the enemy and often had
water from the rain of heaven” (Deuteronomy to be dug out again.
10:11-12). And this made all the difference in
the world, then as well as now. Ancient wells are hard to find today, since
over the centuries they were filled with silt and
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