Tonight I will share a few of the images that I used in my class this morning. We have been covering the book of Joshua and this lesson was about the conquests in the north part of Canaan and also the division of the land. The images that I will share will be about the conquest. See also my post: Conquest and Division

The north part of Canaan was dominated by Hazor. The king of Hazor ruled over the other cities and they all banded together to fight the Israelites. Of course we know the outcome. Joshua and the Israelites defeated the coalition of kings.

The picture above is the ruins of the palace complex from the time of Joshua.

Here is one of the slides that I used this morning. It shows evidence of Hazor being burned. The account in Joshua tells us that Joshua burned the city. This burned area at Hazor was from that time period.

In this slide is an artist’s view of Canaanite Hazor. This is from one of the information signs at the Tel. The city of Hazor was very large at this time. The picture is a bit hard to see, but there is both an upper and lower city. The upper city has seen a lot of excavation and is what you will visit if you go there. From the upper city you can look out over the lower city. However, all you will see is a vast field. There has been some excavations in the lower city, but the archaeologists have concentrated on the upper city.

This slide was prepared in response to a question a student had in the class last week. He asked about how the water supply of a city could be secured. I decided to share some pictures from one of the water systems that I visited during my trip to Israel this summer.

This is the water system at Megiddo. I should write a separate post about some of the water systems in Israel. There are some pretty impressive ones.

If you had a secure water supply you could survive a long siege. If the enemy was able to capture or contaminate your water supply you would be in very bad shape.

Next week we will continue talking about the division of the land and also about the cities of refuge and the cities for the priests. See: A Place of Refuge

Steven