No wonder David found En Gedi to be a refuge from Saul (1 Samuel 23-24). What a place of refreshment in the hot Judean wilderness! Date palms provided vegetation too. The beautiful waterfalls seemed to drop down out of nowhere, shooting out from way overhead. Over the weekend of January 17, four of us hiked back into wilderness of En G
edi. The trail snaked upward along the side of a ravine, and all around us were the crags and crevices, and gaping holes that looked like caverns. Along the route, we enjoyed looking at the rock badgers too.
My guess, the temperature was in the high 60s, low 70s that day. We would have been really huffing and puffing if it had been in the summertime heat!
During the time of the Davidic Era of Israel's history, 1000-900 B.C., there were settlements dotting the landscape on the western side of the Dead Sea. This region is known as the midbar, the desert. En Gedi is about half-way down, thinking about the north-south axis, right next to the Dead Sea.
G. Mark Sumpter
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