58 the Maccabees used Metsada as a military base


DURING
THEIR REVOLT
AGAINST THE SELEUCID
DYNASTY!

A century later,
Herod the Great transformed Masada
into a veritable fortress city, flattening the boat-shaped summit
and enclosing it with a massive wall made of white Jerusalem stone?

Herod added storerooms and grain houses, rainwater cisterns, even a swimming pool!

He also placed @ Metsada a huge cache of weapons sufficient, it was said, to arm a 1000 men.

For himself & his family,
Herod constructed a monumental tree-tiered palace that hùng
from the northern prow of the cliff face, just below the lip of the summit, complete with baths,
glittering colonnades, multihued mosaics, and a dazzling 180-degree view
of the briny-white Deas Sea valley.

After Herod's death,
the fortress and palaces @ Masada, and the cache of weapons stored therein,
fell into Roman hands! When the Jewish rebellion began in 66 CE/BC, the Sicarii, under the leadership of Menahem,
seized it from Roman control & took its weapons back to Jerusalem
to join forces with Eleazar the Temple captain.

Having seized control
over the city & destroyd the Temple archives,
the rebels began minting coins to celebrate their hard-won in-
dependence: these coins were etched with symbols of victory - Chalices & Palm Branches -
and inscribed with slogans like "Freedom of Tsion" & "Yerushalayim Is Holy," written not in Greek,
the language of the heathens & idolaters, but in Hebrew! Each coin was self-consciously dated "Year One,"
as though a wholly new era had begun?! The prophets had been right:
surely thìs wàs THE Kingdom of God.

12 dec 2015 - bewerkt op 14 dec 2015 - meld ongepast verhaal
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Asih, man, 80 jaar
   
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