9-5-23 The Jericho Tunnel

– Bill Perkins - https://compass.org/the-jerusalem-to-jericho-tunnel/ You’re going to be blown away by this amazing archeological certitude! For background, we’ll start with the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, camped against it and built a siege wall all around it. 2Kings 25:1b 2Kings 25 is the story of the Babylonian invasion and conquest of Jerusalem in 586 BC. It’s a pretty brutal description about the Babylonians building a “siege wall” surrounding the city in order to hem them in so they would slowly starve—making it easy to conquer them. A siege wall was always built far enough away that the occupants couldn’t reach the invaders with their weapons. In this case, 300 yards was about as far as a catapult could launch a large stone. The terrain around Jerusalem isn’t flat so it’s assumed the siege wall would have been built over 300 yards away on the downhill slopes and less on the uphill slopes. Once the siege wall was in place, the Babylons could just wait. It would be just a matter of time until the Israelites starved to death. Israel held on for over a year exhausting all their food supplies. Then Egypt came to their aid, temporarily lifting the siege. … Pharaoh’s army had set out from Egypt; and when the Chaldeans who had been besieging Jerusalem heard the report about them, they lifted the siege from Jerusalem. Jer. 37:5b But the Babylonians defeated the Egyptians in short order, reimplemented their Jerusalem siege wall, and continued their Jerusalem conquest. Four months later, starvation was taking its toll on the residents of Jerusalem. On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land. 2Kings 25:3 So the Israelites are totally out of food. They know they have to surrender or starve to death. This is where it gets interesting … the Babylonians make their move on the severely malnourished and weakened Israelites. Then the city was broken into, and all the men of war fled by night by way of the gate between the two walls beside the king’s garden, though the Chaldeans were all around the city. And they went by way of the Arabah. 2Kings 25:4 The “Arabah” is referring to the desert area around the Jordan River, east of Jericho, near the north end of the Dead Sea. So when King Zedekiah realized that the Babylonians were going to breach the walls of Jerusalem and take the city, he and his Israeli soldiers fled in the middle of the night. But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook him in the plains of Jericho [Arabah] and all his army was scattered from him. 2Kings 25:5 So let’s think about this. King Zedekiah and his soldiers snuck out of Jerusalem but didn’t get caught until they were near Jericho—18 miles away! Now with a siege set around Jerusalem, how in the world did King Zedekiah and his army get to the desert (Arabah) down by the Dead Sea near Jericho and the Jordan River (plains) without being noticed? Well, it turns out that Solomon’s quarry (where the 1st Temple’s stones were cut on the north end of the city) has an opening to a tunnel that goes all the way to the desert, near Qumran…18 miles away! Apparently most of this subterranean passage is natural, but also a lot of digging had been done creating additional passages throughout the length of the tunnel. We can confirm this subterranean passage with two extra Biblical sources: In the Midrash Rabbah II, a 16th century Jewish commentary, in the Book of Numbers, it says: “One who observed the Sabbath in a cave, even though it be like the cave of Zedekiah, which was eighteen miles long, may walk through the whole of it.” And in the Book of 2Maccabees it describes Jeremiah once reprimanding some who were trying to follow him into this subterranean passage saying, “This place would remain hidden until God regathered His people unto mercy.” The “regathered His people unto mercy” is a reference to the 2nd regathering of the Jews to the promised land, which happened in 1948. Jewish archeologists have also discovered a large passage from Solomon's quarry to an area directly under the Temple Mount. And at the end of this passage there’s a vertical shaft to the Temple Mount area. Archeologists have concluded that the stones used for Solomon’s Temple were transported from inside the quarry down the tunnel to the shaft under the Temple Mount and lifted/hoisted to the surface. (See diagram) So obviously Zedekiah and his soldiers used this outlet to secretly enter into the quarry and then take the subterranean passage from the quarry all the way to the plains between Jericho, the Dead Sea and the Jordan River. The Midrash Rabbah commentary also explains that God caused some Babylonian soldiers to chase a deer down to the cave’s entrance near the Dead Sea arriving at the same time Zedekiah was exiting with his soldiers which is how they were discovered. So Zedekiah, many princes and his sons were captured by the Babylonians. The Babylonians slaughtered all of them in front of Zedekiah and then the soldiers gouged out Zedekiah’s eyes, his last visual being his kids being murdered. They slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, then put out the eyes of Zedekiah and bound him with bronze fetters and brought him to Babylon. 2Kings 25:7 And the most interesting thing about all of this is that Jeremiah was the prophet who prophesied a great deal about the coming Babylonian captivity. So Jeremiah would have been highly motivated to hide all of Solomon’s treasures (leaving a few to be discovered in the Temple) and then he prophesied they would remain hidden until the second regathering of Israelites which happened in 1948. And also interesting is that the Copper Scroll, with its long list of the immense Jewish gold and silver treasures(1) was found in 1952 in the Arabah area. This subterranean passage, going 18 miles from Jerusalem to the area east of Jericho and north of the Dead Sea, just boggles my mind. The Jews today refer to Solomon’s quarry as Jedekiah’s Cave. We’ve been to this cave often on our Israel tours but I’ve never heard about or been shown the entrance to the tunnel that goes to the Arabah/desert. I’ve been told by an archeologist that the entrance can be seen but it’s been sealed up by the Ottomans. The Ottomans/Muslims conquered Israel in 1517 and completed rebuilding her walls in 1541. We know they knew about this passageway because they had to seal up the entrance due to the fact that people kept getting lost inside. Hey, let’s face it, 18 miles of dark tunnels means if you lost your light you might never find your way out. So today, at the south end/bottom of Solomon’s quarry, the entrance to the 18-mile passageway remains closed. But all this raises a lot of questions. A LOT of questions! Like why didn’t the residents of Jerusalem escape with Zedekiah and his army out of the city through the tunnel to Arabah desert near Jericho? Starvation is quite the motivator, so why didn’t the residents use the tunnel to get supplies, food, etc.? Why didn’t Jeremiah share his secret tunnel info that could have saved so many people? Granted, 18 miles of total darkness would require a lot of oil lamps. But if you’re starving to death, and the residents had known about this passageway, surely they would've tried to use it to escape. So for some reason it seems the passageway was kept secret, very secret! Naturally I’m wondering if maybe it was kept secret because Jeremiah hid Solomon’s treasures somewhere inside. Was it such a big secret Jeremiah took it to his grave? And no one else knew about the vast treasures until the Copper Scroll was found near Qumran in 1952? Quite possible. Zedekiah, being King, might have had knowledge of the tunnel that went all the way to the Jordan River. But probably not of the existence of the hidden treasures, only the tunnel. The king died in his imprisonment in Babylon. So the secret tunnel and possibly the enormous treasure from the days of Solomon, hidden for some 2500 years now seems to be coming to light. So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts. 2Pet. 1:19 I can’t wait to see if this 18-mile passageway and/or Jeremiah is connected to the future discovery of Solomon’s vast riches. Maybe! CQLJ!