The Holy Land for Christian Travelers by John A. Beck

Author:John A. Beck
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Travel/Holy Land;REL006160;TRV015020;REL006680;Bible—Geography;Israel—Description and travel
ISBN: 9781493409198
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2017-06-08T04:00:00+00:00

Herodium (Herodion) National Park

The Herodium is a spectacular palace built by Herod the Great. It was part safe house to which he could flee, part lookout station against invaders from the east, part luxury palace for the entertainment of his guests, and part monumental tomb designed to be his final resting place. It was also a place Jesus used to illustrate a lesson more spectacular in content than Herod’s palace, a lesson on the power of prayer.

Begin your visit with a walk up the steep ramp to the rim of the upper palace. As you start your climb, look down and to your left. That is where you will find the sprawling and luxurious lower palace of the Herodium. Its most distinguishing feature is the swimming pool with its signature island in the middle. Herod surrounded this pool with a formal garden and buildings filled with luxurious amenities and art, the perfect place for Herod’s guests to relax.

Continue climbing and walk to the northeast side of the rim. From there the geographical context of the Herodium and its role as a lookout station will become clear. To the west you will see Judah’s hill country. Bethlehem is in view to the northwest, and the towers on the Mount of Olives to the north mark the location of Jerusalem. To the east lies the Judean Wilderness, the Dead Sea, and the even higher mountains of modern Jordan. It is particularly this view to the east that made the Herodium a valuable lookout station. Invaders from the Transjordan had to begin their trip across the Judean Wilderness where they could stock up on water, at a place like En Gedi located along the shoreline of the Dead Sea. An ancient road went from En Gedi, above the deeply cut Wadi Tekoa that lies to your south, on its way to Judah’s interior. No invader could make this trek without passing within view of the Herodium, making it a key eastern lookout station.

As you look down into the circular interior of Herod’s upper palace, you get a sense of the engineering feat required to make this place possible. First, the interior of the hill you are standing on was hollowed out. Then Herod built a five-story, circular building at the base of and around the perimeter of this excavated recess. The most distinguishing features of this building were its four towers, whose bases are still intact. As you can see, the round tower on the east side of the complex was the largest. It was mostly solid and would have extended an additional eighty feet above its current foundation. Three other semicircular towers are found on the north, west, and south sides of the complex. These were hollow and contained storage and living space. Once Herod had the circular halls and towers in place, he shaved the soil and rock from the adjacent hill (just north of the current complex) and moved it to the Herodium building site in order to create the steep exterior slopes that covered two stories of the previously built halls.

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