DonateLOG IN(0)

Casual English Bible

By Stephen M. Miller

Bible Maps Search Engine

Maps related to Kidron Valley

Home » Resources » Maps
About the Casual English Bible Maps..

Bible maps make the Bible clearer

The Casual English Bible® maps tell Bible stories in a captivating way that engages even people who have never read the Bible. Lavishly detailed maps only make the stories of Jesus and others more compelling and easier to picture and to understand.

These 3D-style maps of Bible lands are created from blended high resolution satellite images, matched to precise elevation data from international space agencies.

How to search for maps

—Type “Galilee” into the Casual English Bible’s map search engine, below. Instantly, you’ll see dozens of beautiful maps…many in 3D style. Each one tracks with a different Bible story. These aren’t generic maps with a hundred place names.
—Type “Samson” into the Bible map search engine. You’ll see the tiny village where he lived in the Judean foothills below Jerusalem.
—Type “Corinthians” and you’ll see a gallery full of maps associated with Paul’s letters of 1, 2 Corinthians, to the church in Corinth, Greece.

3D sense of the lay of the land

Get a feel for the lay of the land:

—Ararat Mountains, where Noah’s boat ran aground. The Bible doesn’t say it was Mount Ararat.
—Judean hills where Joshua and the Israelites found most of their battles for the Promised Land. They avoided the plains, where their enemies with armored chariots had the advantage over Israel’s foot soldiers.
—Jesus’ 20-mile climb from Jericho and the Jordan River Valley upward half a mile high, to the crest of the Mount of Olives, overlooking Jerusalem.
—One surprise for some readers is the Jesus Triangle, a plug of ground between three cities. It’s where Jesus spent most of his ministry time. A person can walk that entire triangle in a single day. Type “Jesus triangle” to see it.

Gehenna Valley

Gehenna Valley map

Gehenna Valley

Bible Book: Matthew Type: Maps Location: Bethany, Gehenna Valley, Gethsemane, Israel, Jerusalem, Jerusalem Temple, Judea, Judean badlands, Kidron Valley, Mount of Olives Era: Jesus
Gehenna Valley. Once apparently a city dump for Jerusalem and possibly a place where Israelites sacrifice to idos. Jesus used it as a symbol of God's punishment for sin, perhaps because some thought that the idol sacrifices offered there were a reason God let the Jews get conquered and exiled. When Jesus talks about the valley in those terms, translators created an English word to express the idea: Hell.
Get a larger copy of this map and a license to use it in your presentation, book or website.

Map Jerusalem hilltop

Jerusalem hilltop

Map Jerusalem hilltop

Bible Book: Isaiah Type: Maps Location: City of David, David's Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Jordan River Valley, Judean badlands, Judean hills, Kidron Valley, Mount Hermon, Mount of Olives, Temple Era: Heroes, kings, Prophets, Jews exiled
Map of the Jerusalem hilltop, the City of David, the Mount of Olives, and the Kidron Valley, with Gethsemane.
Jerusalem hilltop city and Temple
Get a larger copy of this map and a license to use it in your presentation, book or website.

Rephaim Valley

Bible map of Rephaim Valley for Isaiah 17

Rephaim Valley

Bible Book: Isaiah Type: Maps Location: Bethlehem, Greater Jerusalem, Hinnom Valley, Jerusalem, Kidron Valley, Rephaim Valley, Road to Bethlehem, Tyropoeon Valley Era: Heroes, kings, Prophets, Jews exiled

Rephaim Valley

When Damascus dies

Listen. One day Damascus won’t exist anymore,
Except as a pile of broken stones.
2People will desert towns in and around Aroer. 
Untended flocks will graze freely in the fields,
With no one to scare them away.
3Ephraim’s towns won’t need to worry
About defenses such as city walls.
The Damascus threat will end.
Syrian survivors will share the fate
That is coming to Israelite people.
The LORD of everyone says so.

Israel falls, Rephaim Valley goes silent

4When this happens
The Israelite golden age
Dives to dirt.
Its economy breaks,
People lose it all.
5The land will look as bare
As a field picked clean,
Silent and naked in Rephaim Valley. 
6You’ll find no more people
Than olives in a harvested tree.
Two or three here and there,
Four or five high and low.
That’s what the LORD says,
Israel’s God.
7This is when Israel will come back to God.
They’ll look to their Holy One for help.

Isaiah 17, Casual English Bible

See Rephaim Valley in Joshua 15:8 also as northern boundary

The northern boundary follows a line along these locations:

Beth-hoglah north of Beth-arabah and the Bohan Stone, named after Reuben’ son. 7It climbs out of Trouble Valley and continues to Debir and then north to Gilgal. Gilgal faces Adummin Hill, which is south of the dry creek. It goes on the En-shemesh springs of water and to En-rogel. 8The boundary continues along the Son of Hinnom Valley. It doesn’t include Jerusalem, where Jebusites live. The boundary runs along the Jerusalem hillside just south of the city. Then it climbs to the top of the hill on the west side of Hinnom Valley. That’s at the north end of the Valley of Rephaim.

9Judah’s northern boundary runs over to the Nephtoah spring and to the towns on Mount Ephron. It includes Baalah, a city also called Kiriath-jearim. 10The boundary continues west to Mount Seir. And it runs along the north hillside of Mount Jearim, also known as Chesalon, and then on to Beth-shemesh and to Timnah. 11From there, it continues to Ekron’s northern hill. Then it moves along to Shikkeron, Mount Baalah, Jabneel, and ends at the Mediterranean Sea.

Compare Bible versions with Bible Gateway

Get a larger copy of this map and a license to use it in your presentation, book or website.

Saul kills all 85 priests at Nob

Map of Nob, the town of 85 priests King Saul wrongly executed.

Saul kills all 85 priests at Nob

Bible Book: 1 Samuel Type: Maps Location: Gibeah, Jebus, Jerusalem, Kidron Valley, Mount of Olives, Nob Era: Heroes, kings

Saul kills priests at Nob

King Saul wiped out an entire community of priests. He killed all 85 priests in Nob. David, on the run from King Saul, tricked those priests at Nob into giving him and some of this men food. They had no idea he had fallen out of favor with King Saul and that Saul was hunting him. When Saul found out the priests had helped him, here's what happened, reported in 1 Samuel 22:11-19.

Saul sends for the priests

11Saul sent for the priest and his entire family. Everyone came. 12Saul told the priest, “Listen up, son of Ahitub.” The priest said, “I am here listening, my king.” 13Saul said, “Why are you helping my enemy, the son of Jesse? You gave him bread, a sword, and you took his requests to God. And now he’s leading a rebellion against me and trying to kill me. You helped him do that. Why?” 14Ahimelech said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. What official or any other servant do you have who is more devoted to you than David? My goodness, he’s your son-in-law. When you give him a mission, he completes it quickly. Everyone in your family respects him. 15Besides, that wasn’t the first time I took one of his questions to God. So, I don’t understand why there’s a problem with this one. Please don’t think that me or my family opposes you. I don’t understand what you’re saying about us or David.”

Sentenced to death

16“You’ll understand this,” the king said. “I sentence you and your family to death.” 17Saul ordered the nearby guards, “Kill the priests. They’re with David. They knew he was a fugitive. And they didn’t bother to tell me that he came to them.” The guards refused to kill priests of the LORD. 18So the king said, “Doeg, kill the priests.” Doeg killed 85 men who were dressed in the linen that priests wore. 19Then Doeg went to their town of Nob and killed the people and their livestock. He led the slaughter of men, women, children, babies, cattle, donkeys, and sheep. He killed them all with swords. 20One of Ahimelech’s sons escaped: Abiathar. He went to David. 21Abiathar told David that the king had killed his entire family, including all the priests of the LORD. Compare the story in other Bible translations at Bible Gateway.  
Get a larger copy of this map and a license to use it in your presentation, book or website.

Solomon’s Jerusalem

Map of King Solomon's Jerusalem

Solomon's Jerusalem

Bible Book: Ecclesiastes Type: Maps Location: City of David, Hinnom Valley, Jerusalem, Jesus, Jordan River Valley, Kidron Valley, Mount Hermon, Solomon Era: Back from exile

Solomon's Jerusalem

King Solomon's Jerusalem sat on ridge and stretched about one kilometer (3/4 miles) from the Temple Mount on the top of the ridge, down to Lower Jerusalem called the City of David. King David's Jerusalem  was about half as big. Solomon added the Temple and surrounding area later.

Kings after Solomon began extending Jerusalem to the west. The Jerusalem of Jesus, during the Roman occupation of Israel, was much larger...until Rome crushed a Jewish revolt and destroyed the city in AD 70. That was the last Temple the Jews ever had. Arab invaders conquered the land and 1400 years ago built a Muslim shrine on the Temple Mount. It's now Jerusalem's most famous landmark: the Dome of the Rock.

For another angle on Jerusalem, see the map with Nehemiah 7. Here's a sampling of King Solomon's unusual writing, which many scholars say was written centuries later by a writer borrowing Solomon's name.

WHATEVER WE DO, IT’S A WASTE OF TIME

1David’s son, the Scholar and King of Jerusalem, offers these observations
2It’s a pitiful waste of time, the Scholar says.
It’s all worthless and meaningless.
3What do people get for all their hard work,
For spilling their sweat under the sun?
4A generation dies and another is born,
But it makes no difference to the everlasting earth.
5The sun rises. The sun sets.
Then it races all night to rise again.
6The wind blows north.
The wind blows south.
The wind blows round and round.
It follows its route, comes back home,
Then it starts all over again.
7Rivers and streams flow into the sea
But the sea always has room for more.
So, water returns to the streams where it came from
And the streams flow back to the sea.
8Everything is exhausting,
Too exhausting for words.
What we see isn’t satisfying.
8What we hear isn’t good enough.

Ecclesiastes 1:1-8, Casual English Bible

King Solomon's Jerusalem
Get a larger copy of this map and a license to use it in your presentation, book or website.

Temple Mount in Jerusalem

3D map of Temple Mount in Jerusalem

Temple Mount in Jerusalem

Bible Book: Ezra, Nehemiah Type: Maps Location: City of David, Kidron Valley, Mount of Olives, Ophel, Temple Mount Era: Back from exile

Temple Mount in Jerusalem

The Temple Mount is at the rocky top of the ridge on which Jews built their Jerusalem Temple. King David lived down the hill in the City of David, a walled city below the top of the ridge. His son and successor, Solomon, expanded the city north, to the Temple Mount, where he built the first Jewish Temple. Babylonian invaders destroyed it and the entire city about 400 years later, in 586 BC. They exiled the surviving Jews. Persians conquered the Babylonians 50 years later and freed the Jews to go home. They rebuilt the Temple in 516 BC. So, they had lived without a Jerusalem worship center for 70 years. Then, 70 years after they built the second Temple, Nehemiah, a Jewish winetaster for the Persian king, got permission to go to Jerusalem and repair the walls. He served there as governor fror about 13 years.  
Get a larger copy of this map and a license to use it in your presentation, book or website.

Jerusalem Temple, walls rebuilt

Map of Jerusalem temple and walls in the time of Ezra, Nehemiah

Jerusalem Temple, walls rebuilt

Bible Book: Ezra, Nehemiah Type: Maps Location: Central Valley, Gehenna, Gihon Spring, Jerusalem, Jerusalem Temple, Kidron Valley, Mount of Olives, Temple Mount, Valley of Hinnom Era: Back from exile
Jerusalem Temple, walls rebuilt Prophet Ezra convinces Jerusalem Jews to finish rebuilding the Temple that invading Babylonians destroyed about 70 years earlier. Then in another 70 years or so, Nehemiah, the Jewish wine-taster of the Persian king gets his king's permission to repair some of the walls around Jerusalem.
Get a larger copy of this map and a license to use it in your presentation, book or website.

Nehemiah rebuilds walls of Jerusalem

Map of Jerusalem walls and gates in the time of Nehemiah

Nehemiah rebuilds walls of Jerusalem

Bible Book: Ezra, Nehemiah Type: Maps Location: Benjamin Gate, City of David, East Gate, Fish Gate, Gihon Spring, Horse Gate, Jerusalem, Jerusalem gates, Kidron Valley, Meeting Gate, Mount of Olives, Muster Gate, Old Gate, Ophel, Sheep Gate, Temple, Temple Mount, Tower of Hananel, Tower of Ovens, Tower of the Hundred, Valley Gate, Wall of Ophel, Water Gate Era: Back from exile

Nehemiah rebuilt walls, gates of Jerusalem

Nehemiah is one odd story. He’s a Jew serving wine to a Persian king in what is now Iran. Who saw that coming? The king, Artaxerxes, trusts this Jewish man with his life. How did Nehemiah get there? Likely he was the descendant of Jews taken captive to Babylon (Iraq) about 150 years earlier, when Babylon leveled Jerusalem and other cities and took the Jews captive. About 50 years later, Persia (Iran) defeated Babylon and freed the Jews and other captives to go home. But many Jews stayed because they grew up in exile. Iraq and Iran was the only homeland they knew. Yet, many returned to the land of their ancestors to rebuild Jerusalem and the other cities. Nehemiah gets word that Jerusalem’s walls are still broken down and the city gates are gone. It’s a city undefended. He can’t believe it. By this time, Jews have had about 90 years to fix those walls.

Winetaster becomes city builder

So, Nehemiah talks the king into giving him a 12-year leave of absence so he can repair the walls. It certainly seems odd that the king would grant his winetaster’s Big Ask. Yet the king also agrees to give him the wood for the job, sends him with a detachment of soldiers as an escort, and then appoints him governor over the Jewish province of Judah. That’s what the southern Jewish nation of Judah had become, a Persian province ruled by a Persian king who even chose the songs Jews could sing at the Temple (Nehemiah 11:23). Earlier, when Babylon exiled Jews from their homeland, settlers moved in. They hated the idea of Jews returning to power because it meant the Jews would try to take back the land and get rid of everyone else. Nehemiah had 12 years to fix the walls. It took him 52 days. Nehemiah rallied Jerusalem-area Jews to join the work. They felt the clock sands slipping away while their neighbors plotted to stop the work. Murdering Nehemiah seems to have been one plan on the table. Attacking the work crew was another. Jewish construction workers carried their weapons on the job in daylight, guarded the walls all night, and didn’t get much sleep during those 52 days and nights. Nehemiah spent the rest of his 12-year leave reminding the people what it meant to be Jewish. They studied the Laws of Moses that we read today as the first five books in the Bible.

JERUSALEM’S WALL BUILDERS: ROLL CREDITS

NEHEMIAH’S MOTLEY CONSTRUCTION CREW

Nehemiah 3 1Teams of people worked together repairing different parts of Jerusalem’s damaged wall and destroyed gates. SHEEP GATE. Elisheba the high priest worked alongside other priests to rebuild the Sheep Gate. Then they built the doors, set them in place, and dedicated the entire area to God. They did this all the way from the Tower of the Hundred to the Tower of the Hananel. 2WALL. Jericho men worked on the wall beside the gate. Zaccur son of Imri worked just beyond them. 3FISH GATE. Hassenaah’s sons built the Fish Gate. They set in the door and placed the beams, bolts, and bars. 4WALL. Meremoth worked beside them on wall repairs. He was the son of Uriah and grandson of Hakkoz. 5WALL. People from the village of Tekoa made repairs. But their noble leaders wouldn’t stoop to manual labor—even for the Lord. It was beneath them.

More

Jerusalem walls, gates in time of Nehemiah
Get a larger copy of this map and a license to use it in your presentation, book or website.

Jump ahead to:

→ Table of Contents
error: Alert: Content selection is disabled!!