Why the City Is Here of All Places

Cities do not grow in a random place. Beersheba is in the place where it is because of three reasons, and all of them are connected to water.

The first is what is under the ground. Nahal Be'er Sheva is an ephemeral stream, but beneath it there is high groundwater — that is, close to the surface. Here a well can be dug with relative ease and a large quantity of water produced from it. In the desert that is a real advantage, and in almost every other place in the surroundings it is not so.

These groundwaters seep through the loess soil and gather at a shallow depth near the stream. Abraham's Well, at the gates of the Old City, is only 13.5 meters deep. A well at such a depth can be dug by hand.

The second reason is who was already here. The area of the wells on the banks of the stream was the line where the holdings of the three great tribes of the Negev met — the Azazma to the south, the Tiyaha to the east and the Tarabin to the west. A meeting place of three tribes is in any case a place of trade, and weekly market days were held here even before the city was founded.

And the third reason is a decision. In 1900 the Ottomans built a city here — the only one they built in the Land of Israel — and they chose the point on purpose: close to three large concentrations of Bedouin settlement, at a junction of several trade routes, and in a place that has groundwater. The first building they put up was the police station.

And the best evidence that this place was chosen again and again is its age. On the banks of the stream the people of the Chalcolithic culture settled, more than six thousand years ago, exactly in the places where the water could be reached by digging a well. They knew nothing of the Ottomans who would come long after them, and they chose exactly the same line in the ground.

And how important was this water? In 1917 the city had 17 wells, and it was they that made it a military target: without them an army could not continue northward.

That is, four thousand years of settlement, and market, and war — all of them on that one line in the ground, where the water is close.