Tel Dan

After our boat ride across the Sea of Galilee, we drove to the Dan Stream Nature Preserve.  The Dan stream is fed by rain and snow from Mt. Herman and feeds into the Jordan River.

 We began to walk up to where the springs began.

We came upon the remains of one of those places in Scripture referred to as "the high places".  Following the division of the kingdom of Solomon, Jeroboam, son of Nebat built centers of worship with golden calves at Dan (and Bethel) as an alternative to worshiping at the Temple in Jerusalem.

Looking out at Lebanon.  We were at the border.

This is a part of the wall of Laish (later captured and renamed Dan), from the time of Abraham!!  You can see the original door is a rounded door and was filled in and fortified with wooden beams.

During the Israelite times, the gatehouse was the center of life.


II Samuel 19:9 speaks of the gate as a place where the king sat:  "Then the king arose, and sat in the gate and they told all the people, saying behold, the king doth sit in the gate.  And all the people came before the king."

 Al standing on the place the throne would have been and where King Ahab would have judged from!  It just boggles my mind how old this city is!  To think King Ahab, Queen Jezebel and the prophet Elijah would have been in this very spot!