Entrance to Tiberias

‎The above picture is very beautiful—the heavy wall, the fine arch, the graceful palms, the sea and the mountains beyond. This entrance is on the western wall of Tiberias. Through this all travelers from Nazareth pass into the city. Like Jerusalem, “Tiberias is regarded as a holy place by both Christian and Jew.” Here Christ taught; here the Jews believe that the Messiah will rise from the waters of the lake, land in the city and place His throne at Safed, three thousand feet above the city. Tiberias occupied a very high rank as a Roman city. It was surrounded by a wall three miles in circumference—longer than the ancient wall of London or of modern Jerusalem. Here Herod Antipater resided during our Lord’s ministry. It was for this reason that Pontius Pilatus, when he heard that Christ was a Galilean, sent Him to Herod. How earthly names and earthly fortunes change! Herod in his day was famous, rich and conspicious; Christ was unknown, poor and despised, but as we look back through two thousand years, we find that the kingdom of Herod was only relieved from oblivion by the fact that the obscure but holy Nazarene grew up in his country. The now squalid city of Tiberias, mentioned but once in the New Testament, has been the chief home of Jewish learning since the destruction of Jerusalem. Once the region was full of activity. It is now utterly forsaken; but the lights and shadows at morning and evening dwell on the hillsides, the ruins of massive walls, of fallen pillars, of straggling columns standing in dismal solitude near the waters’ edge or half buried on the slope above, suggesting the sumptuous buildings, the wealth, the luxury and revelry of ages ago.