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It was shortly before the war began in Ukraine. Natalia, a Jewish single mother from Mariupol, immigrated to Israel with her teen daughter Neli, and settled in Hof Hagalil. 

Natalia immediately felt a sense of home and belonging. She liked the people and the climate, and felt safe. And she soon found a teacher’s assistant job. But the move was much harder on Neli. Like most teens, she missed her friends, and suffered from mild depression. 

Then, just months later, war broke out in Ukraine. Seeing the ruins of her old city in the news, Natalia reflected, “I did not realize that I’d never see some of these buildings again.” She has lost contact with all her family and friends in Mariupol, and sighed, “I just pray.” 

Plus, Natalia faced financial stress, starting over on a limited income. But friends like you were there, through CBN Israel. Caring donors provided vouchers for food and other essentials—and basic appliances, including a refrigerator and a heater for the cold winters. And we gave Neli a laptop computer to help with her homework. In addition, it’s also helping mom and daughter with their Hebrew lessons, which had been a struggle on their small cell phone screens. 

Today, Neli is adjusting to her new life—and enjoying school. Natalia says gratefully, “Your help gives me hope and encouragement!” And your gift to CBN Israel can bless even more immigrants—as well as Holocaust survivors, refugees, and terror victims. 

With so many emergencies across the Holy Land, your support can bring food, financial aid, shelter, and more to those in need. 

Will you join us now in offering a lifeline to others?

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By Marc Turnage

Mount Carmel is a limestone ridge that bisects the coastal plain of the land of Israel branching off from the mountains of Samaria west towards the Mediterranean coast. It is most famous as the location for the confrontation between Elijah and the prophets of Ba’al (1 Kings 18:19).

Today, the Carmelite monastery of Mukhraka (Arabic meaning “burned place”) remembers that event. The mountain’s geographic location along the Mediterranean coast makes it fertile for agriculture (600mm average rainfall a year), which also led biblical writers and prophets to herald Carmel as a place of agricultural abundance (Song of Solomon 7:6; Isaiah 33:9; 35:2; Amos 1:2). Its fertility, rainfall, and proximity to the Phoenician coast, just to its north, made Carmel an appropriate location for the worship of Ba’al, the Phoenician god of storms and fertility. Even after Elijah, people continued to worship Ba’al of Carmel. 

The fertility, precipitation, and location of Mount Carmel play a key role in the story of Elijah and the prophets of Ba’al. Agriculture in the land of Israel proved difficult in the ancient world. The people depended solely upon God for rain to water their fields and crops due to the topography of the land (see Deuteronomy 8; 11:10-20). 

For this reason, God promised that as long as Israel obeyed Him and His commandments, He would send rain in its season; if Israel disobeyed, He would shut the heavens, so it wouldn’t rain. The concern for rain in its season (at the appropriate time) lead the Israelites to often look also to other local deities, like Ba’al, to provide rain, just in case.

The people had turned from God by worshipping Ba’al during the reign of King Ahab, and therefore, God sent drought on the land. Elijah called the children of Israel, together with the prophets of Ba’al, to gather on Mount Carmel. Mount Carmel receives some form of precipitation 250 days a year; it sits on the southern edge of Phoenicia where Ba’al worship originated. It also provided a high place. 

Ba’al is often depicted walking on the mountains, a god of high places. The drought that God sent offered a direct challenge to the god of rain. Elijah’s challenge, the god who answered with fire was God; Ba’al’s symbol was a lightening bolt. The heart of the story lies within the geographic setting of Mount Carmel. 

Of course, after God sends the fire upon Elijah’s sacrifice, and the people turn to the Lord as God, then He sends the rain. The setting and background of this story underline the challenges of daily life faced by the ancient Israelites; these challenges that raised the fundamental question that Elijah posed to the people, “If the Lord is God, then serve Him.”

Marc Turnage is President/CEO of Biblical Expeditions. He is an authority on ancient Judaism and Christian origins. He has published widely for both academic and popular audiences. His most recent book, Windows into the Bible, was named by Outreach Magazine as one of its top 100 Christian living resources. Marc is a widely sought-after speaker and a gifted teacher. He has been guiding groups to the lands of the Bible—Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, and Italy—for over twenty years.

Website: WITBUniversity.com
Facebook: @witbuniversity
Podcast: Windows into the Bible Podcast

“Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God” (Psalm 20:7 NIV).

The land of Israel sat at the crossroads of the ancient world. Its geographic location made the land strategically significant. For this reason, throughout Israel’s history, people and empires fought to control this international crossroads.

Within the ancient world, the horse and chariot represented the height of military technology. The armies that had superior cavalry and chariot forces often won the day and exerted their control over a region.

Throughout the Bible, Israel’s ability to remain within this strategic land depended upon their obedience to God. If the people of Israel obeyed the commandments of God, they stayed in the land. If they did not, God would remove them. The prophets and psalmists cautioned against trusting in horses and chariots. In other words, Israel’s military would not keep the Israelites in the land; instead, the people’s obedience to God would.

Trusting in horses and chariots meant that they sought within the military technology and strategy of the day the source of their power and sustainability at the crossroads of the world—instead of obedience to God.

In Deuteronomy, we are told God commanded that when the people established a king he “must not acquire great numbers of horses” (17:16). The prophet Isaiah admonished, “Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in the multitude of their chariots and in the great strength of their horsemen, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel, or seek help from the LORD” (Isaiah 31:1).

Israel would remain at the crossroads only when obedient; if they obeyed, they could trust that God would defend them and protect them against foreign threat. This is why the psalmist notes that while some trust in horses and chariots, Israel’s hope is in the name of the Lord.

Our modern world seeks to woo us into trusting our technology, our might, and our selves. Like Israel, we run the risk of losing sight of what keeps us anchored in our world—the source that sustains us.

We find ourselves distracted by all the shiny new innovations that show up in today’s world, thinking that through this or that technology we can gain greater influence—even influence for God.

But the answer isn’t pride in our technology or in our ingenuity; it’s trusting in God, remaining obediently faithful to Him at the crossroads of our world. This, in fact, is the greatest witness we can have to His greatness—looking to Him and obeying Him, not trusting in our world’s sources of power and ingenuity.

PRAYER

Father, we look to You; we trust in Your name. Help us to remain obedient to You at our crossroads. Amen.

God commanded the Israelites, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy” (Exodus 20:8-11).

God forbade the Israelites from working and kindling a fire on the Sabbath. While the Old Testament does not specify the parameters of “work,” Jewish tradition sought to define what constituted work, and therefore, what one must avoid on the Sabbath. Observance of the Sabbath distinguished Jews from other people within the ancient world. The Romans viewed the Jewish practice of Sabbath observance as a sign of Jewish laziness.

The Jewish Sabbath begins Friday night at sundown and continues until an hour after sundown on Saturday night. Although religious Jews go to the synagogue on the Sabbath, the home functions as the primary place for Sabbath observance. Families walk to the synagogue on Friday to pray the evening prayers within the congregation. Returning home, they eat a large meal which was prepared prior to the start of the Sabbath. No telephones, computers, or televisions interrupt Friday night Shabbat dinner.

The family sits around the table, young and old, talks, recites the benedictions and blessings, and enjoys one another’s company. Saturday morning some of the family, usually the men, walk back to the synagogue for morning prayers, and return home. During the day Saturday, they rest. Some will read, but nothing for work. Phones are shut off, as are televisions and computers. Food, which has been simmering since before the Sabbath began, is consumed, but no one is permitted to light a stove or turn on an oven.

Judaism views the Sabbath as one of God’s greatest gifts to Israel. The other commandments seek to remind Jews of their relationship to God, so they can sanctify Him by obeying Him in their daily lives. The Sabbath sanctifies God in time. It was not only a day of rest for the master of the house, animals and servants also were given a Sabbath’s rest by God. By forcing people to cease from their work, they bring their worship of God into time, not just space.

The home functions as the center of this. The celebration of Sabbath does not focus on the synagogue or the larger community; it focuses on the family. The family becomes the keeper and transmitter of the commandments and traditions God entrusted to Israel. Sabbath enabled Judaism to survive without a land and a Temple.

Marc Turnage is President/CEO of Biblical Expeditions. He is an authority on ancient Judaism and Christian origins. He has published widely for both academic and popular audiences. His most recent book, Windows into the Bible, was named by Outreach Magazine as one of its top 100 Christian living resources. Marc is a widely sought-after speaker and a gifted teacher. He has been guiding groups to the lands of the Bible—Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, and Italy—for over twenty years.

Website: WITBUniversity.com
Facebook: @witbuniversity
Podcast: Windows into the Bible Podcast

By Arlene Bridges Samuels

Debates about nuclear weapons, Chinese spy balloons, Abrams tanks, and war permeate the news cycle with alarming facts and theories. Missing in action is the recognition both of Israel’s past role to ensure that Iraq and Syria did not join the nuclear club—and the danger posed by Iran’s current Islamic regime. Also missing in action is media fairness when reporting on Israel.

So let’s review the facts.

In June 1981, Israel attacked Iraq’s Osirak nuclear research reactor during a stealth operation the Jewish nation code-named “Operation Opera.” Like present-day Iran, Iraq had claimed that its goals in pursuing nuclear power were peaceful. Unfortunately, most world leaders and media were quick to join in a chorus of accusations and condemnation, accusing Israel of acting as an unprovoked aggressor as they chose to accept the claims of Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein. Israel claimed its pre-emptive attack had been in self-defense; the small nation didn’t believe Hussein’s assurances of peace. Israel’s June attacks partially destroyed the reactor and today, 42 years later, Iraq is still not a nuclear power. 

Moving ahead more than a quarter of a century: In 2007, Israel undertook another action to deter nuclear capability in another nation, Syria—then, as now, governed by the dictator Bashar al-Assad. Looking at the benign photos of Assad and his wife, Asma, both dressed stylishly in western garb, it is hard to imagine their complicity in Syria’s civil war, which broke out in 2011. However, supported by Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah, President Assad oversaw the murders of hundreds of thousands of his citizens and pushed many thousands more into fleeing as refugees. 

On September 5, 2007, Israeli planes flew into neighboring Syria—before the outbreak of that nation’s civil war. In “Operation Out of the Box,” the Israeli Air Force dropped tons of explosives on the nuclear reactor that North Korea helped build. It was camouflaged as an agricultural farm. Syria is an enemy of Israel and policed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). No peace treaty exists between Israel and Syria. As happened in 1981, condemnation of Israel was harsh, although in both instances Israel acted only after conducting extensive research and verifying the threats of the nuclear sites. 

Israel’s decisions to remove credible nuclear threats from Iraq and Syria in order to defend its own freedoms and citizenry deserve accolades, not condemnation. Their actions weren’t only for their own benefit; the attacks reduced threats from these two unstable countries against the rest of the Middle East and beyond. Amid the horrors of war in Iraq and Syria, Israel’s actions removed one lethal aspect of war that the world does not face today from these two nations. 

Nevertheless, other nations—especially in the region—remain anxious about another threat: how Iran’s leaders are rushing toward an apocalyptic nuclear strength. That possibility threatens not only Israel and its Arab neighbors: The regime holds the dreadful distinction of being the world’s largest sponsor of terror, which has its deadly sights set on Europe, the United States, South America, and others. 

Drone production is emerging as a new wave of warfare built on the ground and launched into the skies. (For example, the Russian army is using this airborne weapon to spread fear and reduce resistance in Ukraine.) Amid the challenges in today’s conflicts, it is important to understand how Iran and Russia are currently allied in drone warfare. The Times of Israel reported on February 5 that Iranian officials visited Russia to finalize building a drone plant there. Last year, Russian officials had visited Tehran, Iran’s capital. Reportedly, once the Russian factory is built it will be able to produce 6,000 drones in the next few years. That cooperation is of concern to Israel, the United States, and many other Western nations. Iran has already shipped suicide drones to Russia and has developed prolific drone manufacturing inside Iran. The Wall Street Journal describes it as “reshaping security in the Middle East.” That concern explains Israel’s recently launched drone attack in Isfahan, Iran, at an ammunition manufacturing location, as reported in The Jerusalem Post. 

The media often characterize Israel as the instigator of terror—that it is trigger-happy at every turn. The truth is that Israel’s enemies shamelessly proclaim their goal of battering Israel into oblivion. Those goals necessitate Israel’s defending itself against its declared enemies—whether inside Israel (from Palestinian leaders and terrorists), from Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iranian military in Syria, or Hamas in Gaza. Regarding the Islamic Republic and evidenced by attacks in Iraq and Syria in 1981 and 2007, Israel takes measured steps against Iran. However, Prime Minister Netanyahu—now in his sixth term—stated on January 28, “I have come back to office … for one main reason, to do everything I can to prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons.”

Netanyahu’s leadership, supporting ingenious ways to prevent Iran from accomplishing its goals, became evident in a dramatic operation. In 2018, a covert operation was carried out by members of Israel’s Mossad inside Tehran; they entered a warehouse stored with documents verifying Iran’s nuclear information. In one night, the Mossad famously heisted a half-ton of crucial security information. They escaped with 10,000 documents, videos, and photographs.

At the United Nations General Assembly later that year, Prime Minister Netanyahu showed that “Iran lied about its nuclear ambitions and deceived powers involved in the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA.” Netanyahu’s biting observation is still a major concern. Despite the current internal chaos in Israel due to the proposed judicial reforms, Iran is the predominant threat to Israel’s safety. If Israel is forced to launch attacks of a more robust nature against the Islamic regime, keep in mind what you have read here and understand that Israel is on the front line of danger. Remember, Iran’s Ayatollahs subscribe to world domination through a tyrannical version of Islamic law.

Thankfully, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinkin announced at a press conference that a renewed nuclear deal with Iran is “no longer a priority.” The United States has wisely turned its focus toward the Islamic regime’s close relationship with Russia and Iran’s treatment of its citizens—arresting and imprisoning thousands and murdering hundreds since the protests began in September. 

One of Judaism’s cultural foundations is to “repair the world” (Hebrew: Tikkun Olam). The biblical concept of compassion embraces actions intended to improve the world. Israelis long for peace, not war, to shape their homeland with shalom—a shalom that encompasses the meanings of peace, harmony, wholeness, completeness, prosperity, welfare, and tranquility. Their peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, the Abraham Accords, and consistent efforts to negotiate with Palestinian leaders are evidence of Israel’s goals. Tikkun Olam offers proof that the world’s only Jewish state extends humanitarian aid where possible even to nations and peoples who hate them or where conflict exists.

Israelis intensely understand trauma and crisis, meeting their own challenges by developing logistics and aid. They send their expertise worldwide. Amid this week’s devastating earthquake in Turkey, where Reuters reports the death toll has already soared above 12,000 deaths, IsraAID teams quickly landed in Turkey offering expert search and rescue efforts. This international non-governmental humanitarian aid organization is based in Israel and since 2001 has rushed to more than 50 nations in humanitarian crisis. In Syria more than 2,000 have died and Israel has mounted assistance with medications, tents, and other supplies. Although Syria and Israel have no peace treaty, and anti-Israel Iranian military are stationed in Syria, Israel has also offered medical treatment for Syrians in Israeli hospitals.

For thousands of years, God’s faithfulness to His chosen people and land has been evident. Israel survives against all odds and remains a light to the world enacting Tikkun Olam.

Join us at CBN Israel this week to pray for Israel, its neighbors, and its enemies. As we are reminded in 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.”

Please join CBN Israel in prayer for Turkey and Syria as well as the entire region:

• Pray for Turkish citizens amid the earthquake’s traumatic results.
• Pray for members of IsraAID going to Turkey and aid sent to Syria.
• Pray for Israel’s strategies regarding drone warfare and security breaches.
• Pray for the safety of Israel Defense Forces in all military on land, sea, cyberspace, Mossad, Shin Bet, and police.
• Pray for Christians to actively promote facts about Israel wherever possible.

Arlene Bridges Samuels pioneered Christian outreach for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). After she served nine years on AIPAC’s staff, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem USA engaged her as Outreach Director part-time for their project, American Christian Leaders for Israel. Arlene is an author at The Blogs-Times of Israel, a guest columnist at All Israel News, and has frequently traveled to Israel since 1990. She co-edited The Auschwitz Album Revisited and is a volunteer on the board of Violins of Hope South Carolina. Arlene has attended Israel’s Government Press Office Christian Media Summit three times and hosts her devotionals, The Eclectic Evangelical, on Facebook.

As a 33-year-old Jewish Ukrainian, Vladimir arrived in Israel on February 20, 2022. He was on a free 10-day tour to explore the possibility of someday moving his family there. Four days later, Russia attacked Ukraine. And suddenly, “someday” became an emergency decision. 

Vladimir recalled, “In one moment everything changed.” He worried about his pregnant wife and little boy back in Ukraine and called her frantically. They both decided it was safer for them to join him in Israel, and days later, she and their son were evacuated to meet him there. 

The family received temporary housing near Tel Aviv. Fleeing in haste, they had brought very little, and had no money or packed possessions. So, they were given the basics they would need, including free intensive Hebrew language classes, and a small stipend to get them started. They soon settled in Haifa, yet still lacked many essentials in a new land. But who could help?

Thankfully, friends like you were there through CBN Israel. Caring donors gave them vouchers to buy food and other basics. They also provided them with a new refrigerator and necessary furniture. In addition, they offered counseling and assistance, including connecting them with local partners who offer Hebrew classes, job training, and other services crucial to this transition. 

As Vladimir learns Hebrew to find work, and his wife is weeks from giving birth, he is grateful for your help, saying, “We feel at home here.” And your gift to CBN Israel can bless more refugees—as well as Holocaust survivors, terror victims, and others. 

So many in Israel are in crisis situations. Your support can bring housing, groceries, financial aid, and more to those in need. 

Please help us extend a hand to those who are struggling!

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By Marc Turnage

Bible readers find the issue of Jewish burial customs and tombs interesting due to the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus. While the Gospels do not provide an exact location for the tomb of Jesus, although tradition and archaeology does support the traditional location of the Holy Sepulchre, they do offer several interesting details about Jewish burial practices and the style of tombs used in the first century. And, since Jesus was placed in a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid (Luke 23:53), the style of His tomb must have been one of two known from the first century.

Jewish tombs in the first century consisted of two types: kokhim and arcosolia. The most common being the kokhim. A kokh (singular) was a long, narrow recess cut into a rock tomb in which a body, coffin, or ossuary (bone box) could be laid. The typical kokhim tomb was hewn into the hillside and consisted of a square chamber. The entrance to an ordinary kokhim tomb was a small square opening that required a person entering to stoop. The height of the chamber was usually less than that of a person, so they often cut a square pit into the floor of the chamber. This pit created a bench on three sides of the chamber where the bodies of the deceased could be prepared. 

After the chamber and the pit were cut, the kokhim were cut level with the top of the benches and perpendicular to the wall of the tomb in a counter clockwise direction, from right to left, in every wall except the entrance wall. One to three kokhim were usually cut per wall. The kokh had roughly vaulted ceilings and were the length of the deceased or a coffin. After the deceased was placed into the kokh, a blocking stone sealed the square entrance of the tomb. Small stones and plaster helped to further seal the blocking stone. The tomb was sealed in a manner that it blended into the surrounding hillside. 

After a year, when the flesh had decayed, the bones were collected and buried into the ossuary. Once the bones were placed into the ossuary, the ossuary could be placed in a loculus (kokh) within the tomb or upon the bench or floor of the main tomb chamber. Ossuaries were made of the soft, chalky limestone (a few ossuaries were made out of clay or wood) and consisted of a box where the bones were placed and a lid. The limestone was placed into water to soften the stone, which allowed the stone to be easily carved into the ossuary. 

Originally ossuaries served one individual, so the dimensions of the ossuary were the length of the femur and the width and height of the pelvis and skull. Many ossuaries, however, contain the bones of more than one person (and not complete persons at that). Most of the ossuaries discovered bear decorations, although they can be plain. Professional craftsmen decorated the ossuaries using a compass, ruler, straightedge, carving knife, gouge, mallet, and chisel. 

Many ossuaries bear inscriptions in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. These inscriptions were not done by professional scribes, but in the semi-dark of the cave by family members, to identify the deceased. Archaeologists excavating south of the Old City of Jerusalem in 1990 discovered an ornately decorated ossuary bearing the inscription “Joseph, son of Caiaphas,” the high priest who turned Jesus over to Pilate. It held the bones of a sixty-year-old male, and in the eye sockets of the skull were two coins. The practice of secondary burial in ossuaries date from the period of the first century B.C. to the first century A.D. Jews could also bury in coffins during this period as well. 

In addition to the kokhim tomb, arcosolia tombs began to appear sporadically during the first century. The arcosolia is a bench-like aperture with an arched ceiling hewn into the length of the wall. This style of burial was more expensive since only three burial places existed within a tomb chamber instead of six or nine, as typically found within kokhim tombs. Approximately 130 arcosolia tombs have been discovered in Jerusalem and over half of them also contain kokhim. Ossuaries (bone boxes) could be placed on the arcosolia benches.

The tomb identified within the Holy Sepulchre as the tomb of Jesus was originally an arcosolium (singular) with an antechamber; however, the centuries of pilgrims and the various destructions of the church have deformed and obliterated the tomb. What visitors see today is a later structure; nevertheless, the tomb originally contained a first century arcosolium tomb. 

Burial practices reflect the values, philosophy, and religion of people. The style of tombs used by Jews in the first century differ significantly from those used in the period of the Old Testament, which reflects the development of views of death and the afterlife from the period of the Old Testament to the New Testament.

Marc Turnage is President/CEO of Biblical Expeditions. He is an authority on ancient Judaism and Christian origins. He has published widely for both academic and popular audiences. His most recent book, Windows into the Bible, was named by Outreach Magazine as one of its top 100 Christian living resources. Marc is a widely sought-after speaker and a gifted teacher. He has been guiding groups to the lands of the Bible—Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, and Italy—for over twenty years.

Website: WITBUniversity.com
Facebook: @witbuniversity
Podcast: Windows into the Bible Podcast

“Now the word of the Lord came to him [Abram]: ‘This one will not be your heir; instead, one who comes from your own body will be your heir.’ He took him outside and said, ‘Look at the sky and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’

Then He said to him, ‘Your offspring will be that numerous.’ Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness. He also said to him, ‘I am Yahweh who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess. … But you will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a ripe old age. In the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure’” (Genesis 15:4-7, 15-16 HCSB).

We often read the Bible to seek out the promises of God for ourselves. Reading them gives us peace and hope that God is with us and that He will bring us through our circumstances. Abraham offers a figure to whom God made tremendous promises, who proved faithful to God.

But have you ever noticed that Abraham never lived to see the fullness of God’s promises? Abraham saw Isaac, but he never saw his descendants as numerous as the stars of the heavens. He never saw his seed inherit the Promised Land.

We search the promises of the Bible to bolster our faith that God will take care of us or see what He will do for us. Remember that in the Bible, the “we” is always more important than the “me.” Had Abraham only sought God’s promises for himself or looked for their fulfillment in his lifetime, he could never have been the father of faith. But Abraham was believing God.

He recognized that God’s plans extended beyond him—that he and his faithfulness had a role to play within God’s bigger picture. But he did not see the fullness of the promise. He trusted God. And he did his part; he played his role faithfully.

Does our spirituality focus primarily on what God has done, can do, or will do for us? Or are we content to be faithful and serve him, playing our role within His will, not ours? Do we need to see His promises realized in our circumstances, immediately, or will we remain faithful in light of the possibility that we may not see the promise realized in our lifetime?

Abraham went to his grave with only God’s promise that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars and that God would bring them back into the land. Yet he remained faithful. Do we have that degree of faith?

PRAYER

Father, enable me to serve You and faithfully perform my duty to You, so that Your will is done—even when I don’t see it. Amen.

By Arlene Bridges Samuels 

As we look for light amid the darkness of world events, the U.S. Congress might seem a surprising place to find it. Yet the enduring cooperation between the people and governments of the United States and Israel—surely a beacon of promise and hope—survives despite turnovers in Congress and the presidency. 

The U.S. Congress votes in favor of Israel’s annual security aid, a necessity more urgent now than ever before. The Christian community’s mark among members of Congress to promote legislation that will strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship is significant and helps increase the safety of both allies. Although Congress may not base its decisions on Genesis 12:3, that “God will bless those who bless Israel,” politically active Christians are motivated by scripture and congress matches its decision-making about our staunch ally important for our own nation.  

The Islamic regime continues marching toward possessing and using nuclear weapons. Its surrogates surround Israel’s borders in Lebanon, Gaza, and Syria—geographic proximity that brings terror up close. However, when it comes to Israel, terror shatters the peace within Israel’s borders. It is up close and personal when a 21-year-old terrorist living in east Jerusalem arrives at Ateret Avraham synagogue on Shabbat and starts shooting. During that four-minute shooting spree last week, the terrorist shot and killed seven Israelis and wounded three others, all on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. When a second terror attack took place the following morning in the City of David, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) added three additional battalions and ramped up the security alert to its highest level. The murders are considered the worst terror outbreak in years. 

Meanwhile, government officials from two nations that are responsible for murdering their own populations recently met in Damascus to arrange a meeting between Iran’s president, Ebrahim Riasi, and Syria’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad. At this meeting, Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and Syria’s foreign minister, Faisal Mekdad, recapped their “challenges” with Western nations. Mekdad observed that they must “secure their national interests.” He named the United States and the “Zionist Regime” (Israel) and their “mercenaries” as threats. 

On another front, the head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog—the International Atomic Energy Agency—plans to travel back to Iran in his attempt to revive the 2015 Iran deal. Director Rafael Grossi reports that although Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon yet, it has “amassed enough nuclear material for several nuclear weapons, not one.” I believe this latest attempt at a deal with the Islamic regime will fail, since the ayatollahs are fixated on one goal: using nuclear bombs to establish a worldwide caliphate governed under tyrannical Islamic law. The Gulf Arab states, Israel, and the United States are their prime targets. 

Iran’s leaders view United Nations diplomacy as simply another forum for propaganda. The Iran regime’s dangers to its own population and the active terror from its surrogates in Lebanon, Gaza, and Syria are intensifying. 

But here’s one kind of message that is bound to get their attention. On January 26, the U.S. Central Command and Israel Defense Forces completed a massive military exercise called Juniper Oak 2023, the biggest joint drill on record. Its size and scope must have sent an unmistakable message to the ayatollahs. As U.S. General Michael “Erik” Kurilla observed on NBC, “It would not surprise me if Iran sees the scale and the nature of these activities and understands what the two of us are capable of doing.” 

The combined participation included 1,100 Israeli soldiers and 6,400 U.S. soldiers in the drill. The Times of Israel reported that 142 aircraft were involved: F-35, F-15, F-16, and F/A-18 fighter jets; AC-130 Hercules transports; B-52 heavy bombers; and AH-64 Apache helicopters. A U.S. Navy carrier strike group coordinated operations with six Israeli ships and a submarine that carried out maneuvers with the American aircraft carrier.

Israel provides unmatched efforts that help our own U.S. security, as Israel shares intelligence with the U.S. government and military. The advantages of this cooperation spill over into our civilian airline safety methods that were gleaned from Israeli resources. Another benefit is that Israel never asks for American boots on the ground. Their policy is to defend themselves by themselves. 

When it comes to Return on Investment (ROI), our relationship with Israel is quite favorable. Such benefits manifest themselves in our economy. Our U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, the capital, reported in 2021 that bilateral trade resulted in nearly $50 billion in goods and services annually. Another example worth noting: Israelis themselves invested around $24 billion in the United States. Compare huge Israeli investments to our Congress’s Ten-Year Memorandum of Understanding with Israel. Renewed again in 2018, the memorandum commits $3.8 billion annually in U.S. funds for Israel’s security for the following decade. Seventy-five percent remains in the U.S.—in factories that manufacture some of Israel’s advanced weaponry and employ American citizens. We are surely on the winning end.

When it comes to the U.S. Congress, although Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and several other members of the House of Representatives are anti-Semitic (as evidenced by their comments and votes), both Democrats and Republicans are staunch pro-Israel votes on important legislation and resolutions to continue strengthening the US-Israel relationship. 

Last week, on January 25, 2023, a recent bipartisan resolution—House Resolution 7—roundly won approval, passing in a 420-1 vote. Republican House member Thomas Massie (R-KY) cast the only NO vote. The resolution condemned the “violent suppression” of women-led protesters in Iran for the last five months. Congresswoman Claudia Tenney (R-NY) described the protests as the “most significant popular protest” in Iran since the 1979 takeover by the Islamic regime. 

The 24/7 news cycle thrives on bad news. However, focusing on good news, some that I have mentioned above, provides motivation to do what we can, where we can. Prayer is our foundation, and putting feet on our prayers is faith in action. Three hundred and sixty-five times in Scripture, God says, “Fear not.” He assures us in Isaiah 41:10, “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.” 

Please join CBN Israel this week in praying for Israel and the Middle East:

• Pray for citizens in the Islamic Republic who are demonstrating, imprisoned, and killed by the regime.
• Pray for Israelis who are once again on high alert for terror, including Hamas rockets launched into Israeli civilian areas.
• Pray that world leaders will pressure Israel’s enemies, not Israel—which defends its citizens from terrorists. 
• Pray for hundreds of thousands of Syrian families who have fled Syria as well as those left amid the Iranian presence in their nation. 

Arlene Bridges Samuels pioneered Christian outreach for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). After she served nine years on AIPAC’s staff, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem USA engaged her as Outreach Director part-time for their project, American Christian Leaders for Israel. Arlene is an author at The Blogs-Times of Israel, a guest columnist at All Israel News, and has frequently traveled to Israel since 1990. She co-edited The Auschwitz Album Revisited and is a volunteer on the board of Violins of Hope South Carolina. Arlene has attended Israel’s Government Press Office Christian Media Summit three times and hosts her devotionals, The Eclectic Evangelical, on Facebook.

By Marc Turnage

Mentioned more than any other location in the Gospels, apart from Jerusalem, Capernaum sits on the northern shore of the lake of Galilee. The Gospels indicate it served as an important base during Jesus’ ministry around the lake, with Matthew referring to it as “his own city” (9:1). He performed miracles in the village casting out a demon in its synagogue on the Sabbath, healing Simon’s mother-in-law, and caring for many who suffered. Jesus taught in the synagogue built by a centurion (Luke 7:5). 

Capernaum does not appear in ancient sources prior to the first century where both the Gospels and the first century historian Josephus mention it. Its name means the “village of Nahum,” although no indication of who Nahum was is known. Archaeological excavations indicate that some settlement at the site existed as early as the third millennium B.C.; however, the village that Jesus knew began around 330 B.C. and continued until the Arab conquest in A.D. 640, when the layout of the village was significantly altered. Archaeological excavations indicate a population shift and growth took place in the first century B.C., in which the population became markedly Jewish. 

The site of Capernaum today consists of two sites, one controlled by the Franciscans, which contains some houses, the synagogue, and the Christian shrine, and the other site belongs to the Greek Orthodox Church. Excavations on the Greek Orthodox property have been limited. Most of what they excavated dates to the Byzantine period (4^th-7^th centuries A.D.). They did discover a bathhouse (2^nd-3^rd century A.D.), a tomb, which dates to the 1^st century, and some suggest that the sea wall of the harbor goes back to the first century as well. The more popular and developed side of Capernaum belongs to the Franciscans; however, most of the remains that visitors see date to the Byzantine period.

The synagogue that stands in the site today was constructed out of limestone, which had to be brought to the village since the local stone is the black, volcanic basalt. Certain architectural elements of the structure suggest a 3^rd-4^th century date; however, pottery discovered under the floor indicates that the current building was constructed in the 5^th-6^th century. The limestone building rests upon a basalt wall. While visitors to the site are shown this wall and told it dates to the first century, the time of Jesus, this simply does not seem to be the case. The wall supports the limestone structure above it. It is possible that they built this structure on top of the earlier, first century synagogue, but the synagogue of Jesus would have been much smaller, as excavations under the floor of the Byzantine period synagogue have revealed houses in use during the first century. 

The excavated houses date primarily to the Byzantine period; however, excavators uncovered a large courtyard to a house, which dates to the first century. The homes in Capernaum reflect a style of home popular within the ancient world known as the insula. These homes surrounded a central courtyard in which much of the domestic life of the family took place. This style of home illustrates many stories in the Gospels. 

Visitors to Capernaum encounter a large modern church built over a series of ancient ruins, which consist of three phases. The earliest phase consists of an insula home (200 B.C.-A.D. 135). The second phase reflects an insula sacra in which a certain portion of the house became a shrine (2^nd-4^th century A.D.). The final phase (5^th-6^th century A.D.) preserves a Byzantine shrine with three concentric octagonal walls with mosaic floors. This structure architecturally reflects a Byzantine shrine, built over a sacred site, but it is not a church. The excavators explained these three phrases as evidence of this site being the “House of Saint Peter.” 

Marc Turnage is President/CEO of Biblical Expeditions. He is an authority on ancient Judaism and Christian origins. He has published widely for both academic and popular audiences. His most recent book, Windows into the Bible, was named by Outreach Magazine as one of its top 100 Christian living resources. Marc is a widely sought-after speaker and a gifted teacher. He has been guiding groups to the lands of the Bible—Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, and Italy—for over twenty years.

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