You'll Never Guess What the Dead Sea and a Woman's Body Have in Common
Ariella Mendlowitz
Breaking Israel News
Ariella Mendlowitz
Breaking Israel News
Just last week, Samantha Siegel, a Jerusalem-based artisan baker stumbled upon a miraculous discovery: the existence of freshwater ponds on the shores of the Dead Sea filled with fish swimming through its waters. For Siegel, the evidence of living creatures meant more than just a shocking phenomenon; it meant the fulfillment of Ezekiel’s prophecy.
Then said he unto me: ‘These waters issue forth toward the eastern region and shall go down into the Arabah; and when they shall enter into the sea into the sea of the putrid waters the waters shall be healed. And it shall come to pass that every living creature wherewith it swarmeth whithersoever the rivers shall come shall live; and there shall be a very great multitude of fish; for these waters are come thither that all things be healed and may live whithersoever the river cometh.
Ezekiel 47:8-9 (The Israel Bible)
But the presence of fish, a symbol of a return to life in a barren place, struck an even deeper chord within Siegel: that of the direct connection between the Dead Sea’s rejuvenation and the prophesied return of woman’s glory.
Samantha started out by explaining the important position of Israel in relation to the planet as compared to the human body: “When you look at the globe, Israel lies at the ‘belly’ of the world,” she told Breaking Israel News. Within the Holy Land exists the lowest place on earth: the Dead Sea. Siegel drew a connection between the biblical body of water and a woman’s womb, saying, “just as the Dead Sea is the deepest spot within earth, so to the woman’s womb is the deepest point within her.”
Yet a point of irony is raised by such a comparison: the womb was created with the ability to create and nourish life, while the Dead Sea with its heavy salt content, a result of God’s curse after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis, completely inhibits and prevents life.
Refusing to be dismayed by such a paradox, the Chicago-born mother explained to Breaking Israel News that it is exactly this irony that makes the appearance of life amid the desolation even more miraculous.
“With the renewal of life in the Dead Sea, as evidenced by the teeming fish, there’s a strong message that the Jordan Valley will once again be as ‘God’s garden’; it will return to the status it once had prior to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah that transformed the beautiful valley into a wasteland,” she said...
Then said he unto me: ‘These waters issue forth toward the eastern region and shall go down into the Arabah; and when they shall enter into the sea into the sea of the putrid waters the waters shall be healed. And it shall come to pass that every living creature wherewith it swarmeth whithersoever the rivers shall come shall live; and there shall be a very great multitude of fish; for these waters are come thither that all things be healed and may live whithersoever the river cometh.
Ezekiel 47:8-9 (The Israel Bible)
But the presence of fish, a symbol of a return to life in a barren place, struck an even deeper chord within Siegel: that of the direct connection between the Dead Sea’s rejuvenation and the prophesied return of woman’s glory.
Samantha started out by explaining the important position of Israel in relation to the planet as compared to the human body: “When you look at the globe, Israel lies at the ‘belly’ of the world,” she told Breaking Israel News. Within the Holy Land exists the lowest place on earth: the Dead Sea. Siegel drew a connection between the biblical body of water and a woman’s womb, saying, “just as the Dead Sea is the deepest spot within earth, so to the woman’s womb is the deepest point within her.”
Yet a point of irony is raised by such a comparison: the womb was created with the ability to create and nourish life, while the Dead Sea with its heavy salt content, a result of God’s curse after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis, completely inhibits and prevents life.
Refusing to be dismayed by such a paradox, the Chicago-born mother explained to Breaking Israel News that it is exactly this irony that makes the appearance of life amid the desolation even more miraculous.
“With the renewal of life in the Dead Sea, as evidenced by the teeming fish, there’s a strong message that the Jordan Valley will once again be as ‘God’s garden’; it will return to the status it once had prior to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah that transformed the beautiful valley into a wasteland,” she said...