Valley of Elah, Israel, where David fought Goliath

On our last day in Jerusalem, December 6th, we took a 45-minute bus ride from Jerusalem to the Valley of Elah, where David fought Goliath in 1010 BC (approximately).

Zooming in with Google Earth on the bigger view above, you can clearly see two hills with a narrow valley between them, right off of Highway 38 in Israel:

Below is a view of the valley from the west:

Our Israeli tour guide, Ronny Cohen, was the best--hilariously funny and very knowledgeable about all the sites we visited in Israel. He had a great New York accent, as he lived his first 20 years there. He became an Israeli citizen in the early 1970s.

Of course, right off the bus, Jerry had to take the obligatory photo of "Pat in front of" to prove we were there.

We walked a short distance along Highway 38 to see the Elah Valley.

Our tour group was excited to see this famous site as we walked through the mud.

The valley is rich agricultural land now. You can see one of the hills in the distance. Ronny pointed to the hills on the left and the right said, "The Israelites would have stood on that hill and the Philistines would have stood on that hill." David and Goliath each came down from their respective hills to do battle.

I'm not sure what was growing in the valley, but it looked very healthy.

The hill on the right comes into view.

The mud was thick and dense and it took me days to get every last bit of it out of my shoes, even though at first I thought I'd save it as a souvenir of the Elah Valley.

Ronny demonstrated with his own home-made leather slingshot how David flung the stone. He'd made it himself exactly like the ones from ancient times.

He shot 3 stones and he got pretty good distance with each one.

And then we bade farewell to the famous battlefield, whose well-known battle is recorded in 1 Samuel 17.

This was taken from the bus of the orchard across the highway from the David V. Goliath battlefield.