Looking
towards Jerusalem from the West
Israeli archeologists recently discovered a temple with sacred artifacts that were over 2,750 years old. This was during the era of King Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem and before it was destroyed in 586 BCE; but after it was build around 1000 BCE. The artifacts were discovered in the Tel Motza archeological site, located in a mound where a new section of the Tel-Aviv Highway known as Highway 1 was expected to be build about five miles west of Jerusalem. According to a recent interview with the directors of the Israeli Antiquities Authority; Anna Eirikh, Dr. Hamoudi Khalaily and Shua Kisilevitz, we learned:
Eirikh, Khalaily and Kisilevitz Interview – “The ritual building at Tel Motza is an unusual and striking find, in light of the fact that there are hardly any remains of ritual buildings of the period in Judae at the time of the First Temple…
The uniqueness of the structure is even more remarkable because of the vicinity of the site's proximity to the capital city of Jerusalem, which acted as the Kingdom's main sacred center at the time…Among other finds, the site has yielded pottery figurines of men, one of them bearded, whose significance is still unknown.”
Tel Motza and the surrounding region are renowned for their prime archaeological importance. Many finds have previously been uncovered at the site, from a variety of different periods. The prime reason for the excavations was the identity of the site with the Biblical settlement called “Mazah” identified in the Book of Joshua that was built the tribal borders of Judah and Benjamin in Joshua 18:26.
There they did find a settlement that included a large public building, another large structure identified as a storehouse and numerous silos in the vicinity. On this evidence the Israeli archeologists then identified that these buildings were run by high-ranking political officials and used to house grain supplies for the capital city of Jerusalem. As identified by the archeologists:
Israeli Antiquities Authority – “The current excavation has revealed part of a large structure, from the early days of the monarchic period (Iron Age IIA). The walls of the structure are massive, and it includes a wide, east-facing entrance, conforming to the tradition of temple construction in the ancient Near East: the rays of the sun rising in the east would have illuminated the object placed inside the temple first, symbolizing the divine presence within.
A square structure which was probably an altar was exposed in the temple courtyard, and the cache of sacred vessels was found near the structure. The assemblage includes:
- Ritual pottery vessels, with fragments of chalices (bowls on a high base which were used in sacred rituals),
- Decorated ritual pedestals, and a
- Number of pottery figurines of two kinds: the first, small heads in human form (anthropomorphic) with a flat headdress and curling hair; the second, figurines of animals (zoomorphic) – mainly of harnessed animals.
The find of the sacred structure together with the accompanying cache of sacred vessels, and especially the significant coastal influence evident in the anthropomorphic figurines, still require extensive research.”
In other archeological research sites in Israel excavated in the past, they also have noticed certain ritual figurines, vessels and chalices that included pottery figurines and sacred objects, and have uniformly been identified as personal or domestic ritual objects. Yet there was a difference at the site at Tel Motza for here was something different;
- A ritual platform plus the
- Identity of a temple outside the Solomon’s Temple located in Jerusalem.
As the archeological site directors affirmed:
Israeli Antiquities Authority directors – “The finds recently discovered at Tel Motza provide rare archaeological evidence for the existence of temples and ritual enclosures in the Kingdom of Judah in general, and in the Jerusalem region in particular, prior to the religious reforms throughout the kingdom at the end of the monarchic period (at the time of Hezekiah and Isaiah), which abolished all ritual sites, concentrating ritual practices solely at the Temple in Jerusalem.”
During the days of King Hezekiah, there was a religious reformation under the influence of the “Prophet Isaiah, the prophet of Catastrophes”, they both witnessed the wrath of the Divine for the apostasy of the Northern Kingdom of Israel when the it was destroyed by King Sargon from Assyria in 720 BCE and nineteen years later, the last siege and captivity of the Israelites left just prior to the invasion and siege of Jerusalem by King Sennacherib in 701 BCE that was aborted by the direct intervention of the Divine with a “blast from the heavens” incinerated the entire Assyrian army when their metal shields, lances, spears and armor became a “ground” that attracted a multi-million volt bolide of fire from the heavens and Jerusalem was divinely spared.
Clay Anthropomorphic Figurines of Human Heads at Tel Motza
Prior to this period of the great apostasy in the Kingdom of Judah, the Northern Ten Tribes of the House of Israel rebelled against the G-d of Israel. They refused to worship in the Temple of Solomon, refused to accept the divinely appointed high priest and Levites to be their temple priests, refused to accept the Jewish prophetic warnings, and opened their own sacred sites and began again the worship of the Golden Calf after the disastrous rebellion by the “Erev Rav” just before Moses received the Ten Commands laser engraved on two stone tables, and refused to accept the Torah Law judges of Judah, later known as the Pharisee and the Rabbanim, to be their legal judiciaries of Torah Law.
They, the Northern Ten Tribes later formed their own pagan cults and apostate temples in Dan and in Samaria, the later located in the region called the “disputed territories” in the region of Shomron today. Without the inflow of pilgrims coming in from the Northern Tribes to the yearly festivals, the unifying significance upon the people even in Judea was affected aversely.
The apostasy of the Northern Kingdom began to creep into the Southern Kingdom of Jerusalem. This cultic site was one of numerous sites that peaked during the reign of King Manasseh. The spreading of cultic sites throughout Judea diluted the influence of the Solomon Temple culture upon G-d chosen peoples.
According to the ancient histories in the TaNaKh (Old Testament), King Hezekiah abolished idolatry in the Kingdom of Judah, by destroying the high place (bamot) and the “bronze serpent” (Nehushtan) made by Moses when the G-d of Israel punished the Children of Israel for their rebellion against going across the Jordan into the Promised Land (Numbers 21:8). It was later used later as an object of idolatrous worship (2 Kings 18:4). The worship of HaShem was again centralized at the Jerusalem Temple of Solomon, and King Hezekiah reinstituted the Passover Festival (2 Chronicles 30:5, 10, 13, 26).
As we are beginning to see, the archeological data that is now being revealed in multiple sites across the Land of Israel states one relevant truth. Through a covenant relationship and also through apostasy, the presence of both the Jewish and the Lost Ten Tribes of the House of Israel will eventually become an irrevocable truth. Since the days of the Sumerians, when Abraham was first given the call to go to the “land of promise”, the presence of Abraham and his descendants can no longer be disputed.
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The spiritual fight to corrupt the covenant relationship between G-d and the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has been ongoing for over three thousand years. According to the Chumash, according to the rabbinic commentators, G-d’s covenant with Israel was a covenant that could not be broken, even though there was a party not deserving of it being fulfilled for all eternity. Yet, HaSatan and the forces of evil will continue to lead us to believe that if we fail and break the covenantal demands, it’s over for us. That’s not true. For the G-d of Israel has promised that even if the Jews and the Lost Ten Tribes of the House of Israel are both guilty of breaking the covenant, yet, at the end of time, He will honor His Holy Name, and we both will be redeemed; at least those who desire to be included as one of G-d’s redeemed.
So today, the G-d of Israel is whistling or coaxing you to come back to the brotherhood of Klal Yisra’el (All Israel). To learn more about this redemptive process, you are Welcome to Contact “Kol Ha'Tor”, the Voice of the Turtledove. Here is a joint Orthodox Jewish and 10-Triber Mission to bring awareness of the imminent fulfillment of the Biblical Prophecies regarding the Redemption of all Israel (12 Tribes Re-conciled and Re-United). This super Event of all Times will entail establishing in the region of Shomron (the Ancient Bible Heartland of the Patriarchs) and the Judean Wilderness into a new homeland for the Return of the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel when All Israel will finally be redeemed.
For inquiries about Kol Ha Tor Vision for the Lost Tribes of Israel, Visit – “Shomron Lives!”,a Spiritual Retreat and Guest House in Samaria, that hosts Shomron (Samaria) Tours to reacquaint the Returning Lost Tribers of the House of Israel.