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Israel
The land of Israel in Jesus' day was situated at the western end of the
Fertile Crescent with the great Mediterranean Sea as its western boundary, the Jordan
River as the eastern, the northern being Lebanon and Hermon, and the southern
boundary was the hills of Judea which slope down into the great Negev and the
desert.
Israel's length (from Dan to Beersheba) was about 160 miles and its average
width was about 50 miles. It was a mountainous land and to be familiar with it a
person had to often "lift up his eyes to the mountains." It was a land with
extraordinary contrasts of climate, from the cool airs of Jerusalem to the
tropical heats of Jericho, "the city of palms," only 14 miles away. It was also a very
colorful land with strikingly bright clouds and its famous rich blue waters of
the Sea of Galilee, as well as the vivid green of the Jordan valley and the
gleaming snows of Mount Hermon. The flatland along the shores of the
Mediterranean formed a highway down into Egypt along which had marched many conquerors.