This week, we were in the Neguev, a place we like particularly. We went to visit the biblical sites of Tel Beer Sheva and Tel Arad: where Avraham lived and where Joshua led the biblical wars of conquest. Other Kings of Judah also fought there.
It is always extraordinary to be able to verify with our own eyes the eternal authenticity of the Bible. Tel Arad was one of the places consecrated to the Almighty, in spite of the interdiction in the Torah to offer sacrifices out of the Mishkan of the Temple:
Leviticus 17:3-5 When someone from the community of Isra’el slaughters an ox, lamb or goat inside or outside the camp without bringing it to the entrance of the tent of meeting to present it as an offering to ADONAI before the tabernacle of ADONAI, he is to be charged with blood – he has shed blood, and that person is to be cut off from his people. The reason for this is so that the people of Isra’el will bring their sacrifices that they sacrifice out in the field -so that they will bring them to ADONAI, to the entrance of the tent of meeting, to the cohen, and sacrifice them as peace offerings to ADONAI. (CJB)
The fortress at the top of the tel, literally shelters a temple dedicated to HaShem: we found there an altar of sacrifices, an altar of incense, a Holy of holies and two pillars as reminders of those in the Temple in Jerusalem: Yachin and Boaz.
The Bible informs us that it was King Josiah who cleared the country from these high places: 2 Kings 23:8 He removed the cohanim from the cities of Y’hudah; then, from Geva to Be’er-Sheva, he desecrated the high places where the cohanim had been making offerings. He also smashed the High Places of the Gates that were at the entrance of the Gate of Y’hoshua the governor of the city, on the left as one enters the city. (CJB)
He was filled with such zeal that he restored the worship to HaShem on the Land of Israel. It is said that King Josiah was the instigator of great religious reforms.
2 Kings 23:2-3 The king went up to the house of ADONAI with all the men of Y’hudah, all those living in Yerushalayim, the cohanim, the prophets and all the people, both small and great; and he read in their hearing everything written in the scroll of the covenant that had been found in the house of ADONAI. The king stood on the platform and made a covenant in the presence of ADONAI to live following ADONAI, observing his mitzvot, instructions and regulations wholeheartedly and with all his being, so as to confirm the words of the covenant written in this scroll. All the people stood, pledging themselves to keep the covenant.(CJB)
King Josiah’s obedience allowed the Festival of Pesach to be celebrated again:
2 Kings 23:22-23 For Pesach had not been so observed since the days when the judges ruled Isra’el – not during the times of any of the kings of Isra’el or of the kings of Y’hudah. But in the eighteenth year of King Yoshiyahu this Pesach was observed to ADONAI in Yerushalayim. (CJB)
Israel Rediscovered 