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Masada
Masada shall not fall again
.
.
Today Masada
represents something special. After nearly 1,900 years from the fall of Masada,
the state of Israel became a formal nation again in 1948. As part of defending
the renewed land, all Israeli men and women are asked to serve a period in the
Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). After the completion of basic training, new IDF
soldiers climb the “snake path” at night and are sworn-in at a torch-lit
ceremony at the top of Masada. There final declaration of the night before descending the mountain as an IDF soldier is “Masada
shall not fall again.”
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Masada – A Refuge for
Herod the Great
Masada was originally
built by Herod the Great between 37 and 31 B.C. as a palace of refuge in case
of a revolt.
According to
Josephus, King Herod was an Edomite appointed by the Roman Empire as a client
king over Judea.
Because he was not a
Judean, was in league with the Romans, cruel to his subjects, and called for
the assassinations of many Hasmoneans, Herod was a despised leader.
Some psychologists
have even classified Herod as bipolar and suffering from a type of paranoia.
Thought to be one of
the reasons behind his prolific building activities such as Masada, his
paranoia about losing power is evident in the records of Josephus concerning
the murder of some of his sons, as well as the massacre of innocent children in
Matthew 2.
Masada – A Final
Standoff Against the Romans
Masada means
“fortress” in Aramaic.
The actual fortress
is located on top of a cliff, with the front edge 1,300 feet high and the back
edge 300 feet high.
At the top of the
flat plateau, the main complex was built and surrounded entirely by a casemate
wall and several defensive towers.
Inside the walls were
storehouses, a barracks, an armory, a palace, cisterns, and possibly a
synagogue.
Although an excellent
example of the building prowess of Herod the Great, Masada is best known as the
place where the Sicarii, a group of Jewish zealots, took over the Roman
garrison in 66 A.D., and then in 72 A.D., the Romans under general Flavius
Silva laid siege to the fortress.
To break the siege,
the Romans employed a slave force of over 9,000 to build a massive earthen ramp
up the side of the cliff and battered into the fortress with about 5,000
soldiers in the spring of 73 A.D.
The end result of the
siege was the suicide of 953 Sicarii and the capture of 7.
Rather than be
captured and forced into slavery by the Romans, the Sicarii ended their lives,
making a powerful statement about the freedom and independence of Judea.
Masada – The Historic
Legacy
The account of the
siege and suicide at Masada was reported by two women hiding in a cistern with
five children.
They shared the final
words of Eleazar, the leader of the Jews on Masada, which was later recounted
by the historian, Josephus:
Since we, long ago, my generous friends, resolved never
to be servants to the Romans, not to any other than to God himself, who alone
is the true and just Lord of mankind, the time is now come that obliges us to
make that resolution true in practice. (Josephus, The Jewish War, Book 7, Ch. 8, Par. 6)
The remains of at
least nine Roman camps from the siege can still be seen today, and the ramp to
the fortress made by the Romans can still be climbed.
Although Masada holds
many interesting discoveries, the most Biblically relevant came during the
excavations of 1963-65 when portions of several Biblical, sectarian, and
apocryphal scrolls were uncovered, including fragments of Genesis, Leviticus,
Deuteronomy, Psalms, and Ezekiel dating to before the 1st century A.D.
These appear to have come from nearby Qumran.
Masada – The New
Symbolism
Today, the Jewish
people are back in the land of Israel and Masada represents something special
again.
After nearly 1,900
years from the fall of Masada, the state of Israel became a formal nation again
in 1948.
As part of defending
the renewed land, all Israeli men and women are asked to serve a period in the
Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
After the completion
of basic training, new IDF soldiers climb the “snake path” at night and are
sworn-in at a torch-lit ceremony at the top of Masada.
There final
declaration of the night before descending the mountain as an IDF soldier is “Masada
shall not fall again.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
We have all sinned and deserve God’s judgment. God, the
Father, sent His only Son to satisfy that judgment for those who believe in
Him. Jesus, the creator and eternal Son of God, who lived a sinless life, loves
us so much that He died for our sins, taking the punishment that we deserve,
was buried, and rose from the dead according to the Bible.
If you truly believe and trust this in your heart, receiving Jesus alone as your Savior, declaring, "Jesus is Lord," you will be saved from judgment and spend eternity with God in heaven.
We are followers of
Jesus. Like Jesus, we reject many of the issues found in “organized religion”
(man-made attempts to reach God through rules and rituals). We consider the
personal pursuit of God as paramount in each of our personal life journeys. We
also believe that ultimate, saving Truth is found only through God’s Son, Jesus
Christ. (Read our Faith Statement here.) We believe that the
authoritative and primary source of that truth is the Bible as illuminated by
the power of the Holy Spirit. Further, we believe that spiritual growth occurs
in combination with being in God’s Word consistently and dealing with the
things we suffer in this fallen world while being in fellowship with other
believers where there is an atmosphere of grace, love, and accountability.
Although we're not formally affiliated with any organization or denomination,
we work with a number of credible ministries and churches. Read what some of
them are saying here.
AllAboutArchaeology.org is a service of All About GOD Ministries, Inc, a 501(c)(3) Non-profit organization located in Belen, NM. Currently, we have a very small team and a much larger number of volunteers. Formal governance is maintained by an outside Board of Directors.
https://www.allaboutarchaeology.org/masada.htm
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