Today we stood on Mount Carmel in Israel, the home of King David’s wife Abigail and the place where Elijah did battle with the prophets of Baal (1Kings 18). It’s a great story of face-to-face altar combat, with Elijah talking smack to the false prophets and then destroying them—literally.
What did surprise me though was what could be seen from the top of Carmel. Looking southwest you can see Caesarea, which is located on the Mediterranean coast of Israel. Turning just a bit to your left you can see the mountains of ancient Samaria. Continuing in the same direction, Mount Gilboa rises above the valley, yes, the place where King Saul fought his last battle, then fell on his sword (1 Samuel 28-31). Without even moving your feet, but just by shifting your eyes to the left you see “the hill of Moreh” where Gideon did battle with the Midianites (Judges 7) and then Mount Tabor, where the judge Deborah sent Barak into battle (Judges 4).
One more slight turn in the same direction and you see the modern city of Nazareth nestled in the mountains above the plain of Jezreel. The trees block your view further north or the list of geographical sites associated with biblical history would just keep going on, I’m sure.
It’s not that one can see these sites at all, rather that you can stand in one place and see all of these places at one time!
I wonder if Elijah, while waiting on Mount Carmel for the prophets of Baal to get through with their empty incantations and gyrations, looked around and thought about all that God had already done to show Himself to people.
Imagine Jesus, Joseph, and Mary on their way to Jerusalem, walking down from their mountain home in Nazareth into the valley of Jezreel and Joseph pointing to this mountain and that mountain and this river and that rock and this pillar and over there—teaching Jesus the history of Israel every time they turned a new corner on their journey.
Perhaps God picked such a small and insignificant piece of His Creation for this very reason—for proximity, so that the very mountains He created could tell the stories of His marvelous ways!
Mark's Blog 
wow…i hope i could stand there too and see these places with my own eyes 🙂
When we were up there last year, our group sang “Days of Elijah.” It was awesome!
Very much soo! One day we will be able to ask why God chose specifically this part of the world, a very small piece of all His creation, to make history with mankind! Though I`m not sure if we are any more interested in that.
What a great God we serve!