Ein Gedi is an oasis in the Judean Desert next to the Dead Sea.  Here most famously David fled from Saul and cut off his tassels even though David’s men egged him on to kill Saul (1 Sam 24).  Saul realized David had the opportunity to kill him.  But even David’s cutting of the tassels caused David’s “heart to smite” (1 Sam 24:5) because tassels symbolized the person who wore them, in this case Saul and his kingdom.  This very tearing was foreshadowed by Samuel ripping Saul’s tassels as a symbol of Saul’s kingdom being ripped from him (1 Sam 15:27-28). 

Ein Gedi is equated with Hatztzon Tamar in 2 Chronicles 20:2 which then places Ein Gedi as the place of the First Battle of the Kings in Genesis 14.  Ein Gedi where Jehoshaphat watched God rout the Ammonites and the Moabites (2 Chr 20) and where Ezekiel envisioned the fresh water from the Temple transforming the Dead Sea to be teeming with all kinds of fish (Ezek 47).  Today one can see two spring-fed streams with flowing water year-round: Nahal David (Wadi Sadir) and Nahal Arugot (Wadi Arija). Two other springs, the Shulamit and Ein Gedi springs, also flow in the nature reserve. 

Tel Goren is the ancient mound of En Gedi that was excavated in the 1960s and found to be the center of inhabitation of the oasis from the seventh century BCE in the times of Kings Hezekiah and Manasseh through the Byzantine period.  Subsequently, a synagogue from the third through the sixth century CE was discovered northeast of Tel Goren.  Excavations in the synagogue revealed a possible “Moses’ seat” (Matthew 23:1-3; see Chorazim) and a Hebrew and Aramaic inscription on a mosaic floor decrying anyone who tells the “secret,” very likely the Ein Gedi balsam production since this world-famous balsam was traded throughout the Mediterranean basin.