"...and the waters of the sea become fresh"

Not a news flash. The quote concerning the Dead Sea (Yam HaMelach) comes from Ezekiel's prophecy of the millenial kingdom. The Dead Sea, the lowest point on Earth, is receding rapidly. Due to the irragation diversion of its source, the Jordan River, and natural evaporation of the existing water in the sea, the water level of the sea drops steadily, leaving an accumulation of minerals. The density of the water contributes to the name of the sea. Nothing lives in the Dead Sea but this some day will change. Ezekiel describes the sea in Ezekiel 47:8-10:

"Then he said to me, 'These waters go out toward the eastern region and go down into the Arabah; then they go toward the sea, being made to flow into the sea, and the waters of the sea become fresh. It will come about that every living creature which swarms in every place where the river goes, will live. And there will be very many fish, for these waters go there and the others become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes. And it will come about that fishermen will stand beside it; from Engedi to Eneglaim there will be a place for the spreading of nets. Their fish will be according to their kinds, like the fish of the Great Sea, very many.'"

I was able to take a trip to the Dead Sea with a group from Hebrew University last Friday. We left at 2:30 (that's right b'boker, "in the morning") to be able to be at Masada by sunrise. The day was a lot of fun and I learned a lot from the tour guide that I didn't know before about Masada. He described how Herod the Great designed the cisterns (water storage rooms) surrounding Masada to fill up naturally from the run off of wadis (dry river beds) that receive huge amounts of water when it rains even miles away. For those of you at Master's, you might think about the wash near north campus. This wash is a river even days after the rain has stopped at school because the water from the nearby mountains drains through this wash. Herod used this system to feed cisterns in the middle of the desert so that Masada had enough water to sustain life upon the rock for years, even to sustain crops growing upon the summit.