Kidron Valley

Mount Scopus in the North East of Jerusalem overlooks the Kidron Valley. The Kidron Valley begins at Mount Scopus and stretches all the way down south and then turns east, 21 miles and spills at the Dead Sea. From Mount Scopus one sees the Old City of Jerusalem and the Golden Dome on which Abraham bound his son Isaac in fulfillment of God’s command to sacrifice his only son on the rock.  It was here that King Solomon’s temple (960 BC) which was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC and the second temple built by the exiles and destroyed by the Romans once stood.

The Kidron valley was a kind of an Eastern border between Jerusalem and the wilderness. Jewish law does not permit the burial of the dead within the city but only outside. It is for this reason the Mount of Olives was the necropolis or the city of the dead.

In the Book of Samuel we read that the young shepherd from the city of David (the original city of David was Bethlehem) had to deal with many challenges after he becomes king, one of them being the rebellion of his son, Absalom.  When Absalom came back from Hebron, he wanted to seize the kingdom from his father David. David was merciful and even though he could have killed his son, he chooses to flee (2 Samuel 15) through the Kidron valley into the wilderness. The people of Israel advised David to take the arc of the covenant with him but he chose to keep it in the city because he believe that the arc of the covenant is not his but God’s.