A beautiful oasis in the Negev desert, surrounded by white and sandy cliffs. This rare and natural reserve has various plants and wildlife throughout the park.
In between the impressive cliffs, a fresh water stream runs through it and patches of shade cover the various trails. Making it an attractive hike for visitors walking among the gorgeous canyon that rises above.
The Ein Avdat National Park and Natural Reserve is located off the Be'er Sheva-Mitspe Ramon, road number 40. The lower entrance to En Avdat is near Ben-Gurion’s tomb and Midreshet Sde Boker. The upper entrance is about 5 km to the south.
Ein Avdat have two entrances to the parking area, one is southern and second is northern.
The ticket office is at the northern entrance, by the Midreshet Ben-Gurion and the Wilderness of Zin nature trail. If you really want to enjoy the reserve, walk the the popular trail to the spring covers 7km, it takes about 4 hours walking. Eating in the park is not allowed because the wild animal that lives in the are. The park have only one toilet facilities at the main ticket office.
Ein Avdat is closed to ancient Nabatean city of Avdat and was part of Incense Route from Petra to Gaza, here the caravans has an excellent parking area to continue in the route.
As you stand among the ruins of the Negev Highland city of Avdat, the echoes of the bells tinkling on the bridles of the camels that passed this way in their caravans of hundreds, bringing the riches of the East – frankincense and myrrh – to market via the Mediterranean. Avdat was founded by Nabatean traders, the masters of those caravans as a way station on this Incense Route. Long before, the Israelites had wandered near here through the Wilderness of Zin.
At the visitor center a short film will introduces you to the mysteries of this site. Then you’ll visit a luxurious ancient bathhouse with a dressing room, two steam rooms, a furnace and a 210-foot-deep well. At the top of the city, you’ll discover a third-century guard tower with a Greek inscription, and a Nabatean shrine to their god Oboda (after whom Avdat was named). This temple eventually became a church, whose pillars frame a magnificent Negev desertscape.
Considering the surrounding desert, you’ll be amazed to find a wine-press here, revealing agricultural skills that tamed their harsh surroundings by harvesting every precious drop of water into a complex system of channels and cisterns. From the top of the hill, you can see the Ben Ari Farm research station, where today’s Negev farmers have studied ways to emulate these ancient achievements.
Avdat’s homes once covered not only the visitor path you now walk, but the entire slope below, now part of the 518-acre Avdat National Park. Once you’ve experienced Avdat, you’ll know why its ancient cultural, social and economic impact on the region has placed it, together with its Negev sister-cities of Mamshit and Shivta, on UNESCO’s prestigious list of World Heritage Sites.
Source: Israel Tourism Ministry
The blessing and curse here have played out repeatedly in history. The nations or groups (plural: “those”) who have blessed Abram or his descendants have been blessed by God. The individuals (singular: “him”) who have cursed Abram or Israel have been “cursed,” coming eventually to a bad end. This, however, is not a blank check for the actions of unbelieving Israel, as if the nation could do no wrong or deserves no criticism or has no accountability for its actions. It is a general ongoing promise. Acts 3:25 and Gl 3:8 indicate that all the families of the earth are blessed in the availability of salvation through Jesus Christ, and Gl 6:16 refers to the church as “the Israel of God” through which, by implication, that blessing is extended.
Ted Cabal, ed., The Apologetics Study Bible, Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, 2007, paragraph 712.
In referring to “the people [Abram] had acquired in Haran” the Bible is not sanctioning slavery. “Acquired” may refer to household servants, which wealthy families of the era had, rather than to slaves. Furthermore, even characters whom the Bible views favorably do not always act in accordance with what God approves. In evaluating their actions, we must recall that God did not reveal His will in its entirety at the beginning, but rather gradually throughout the course of biblical history. Biblical narrative often conveys the divine and human authors’ evaluation of a character’s actions implicitly rather than explicitly, not by denouncing the actions but by recording their outcome. The disgrace resulting from Abram’s lie in verses 12–13 is an example of this.
Some have supposed the note “At that time the Canaanites were in the land” (see note on 13:7) means that in the author’s day they were no longer there. If so, Moses could not be the author. But “that time” is clearly not being contrasted to the author’s time but to Abram’s time. The point is that when God made His promise to Abram the land was already occupied.
Ted Cabal, ed., The Apologetics Study Bible, Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, 2007, paragraph 713-714.
