Every journey in ScrollCompass, in the words the app uses. Each summary is original, and each passage is given as a reference.
ScrollCompass gives chapter-and-verse references and its own summaries. It does not reproduce a Bible translation.
Sent east, he sailed west
Told to go east to Nineveh, the prophet Jonah boards a ship heading west instead. A storm, a great fish and a second call turn him around, and the book ends with a question left for him to answer.
A household on the road, and a promise
Terah's household leaves Ur for Haran. There Abram hears a call and walks on into Canaan: to Shechem, to Bethel, down to Egypt and back, and at last to Hebron.
Out by one road, home by another
Fleeing his brother's anger, Jacob walks north from Beersheba to Haran, dreaming at Bethel on the way. Twenty years later he comes home by another road, through Gilead and over the Jabbok, to meet Esau.
Sold down the coast road, and a family that follows
Joseph, his father's favourite, is sold by his brothers to a caravan bound for Egypt. He rises from prison to Pharaoh's side, and when famine drives his brothers down to buy grain, he brings his whole family to Goshen.
From the Nile to Midian, and to the mountain of God
A Hebrew child is drawn out of the Nile and raised in Pharaoh's house. Grown, he kills an Egyptian and flees to Midian, where he marries and keeps sheep for years. At a mountain in the wilderness a bush burns without burning up, and a voice sends him back to Egypt.
Out of Egypt, through the sea, into the wilderness
Moses and Aaron stand before Pharaoh, and the king refuses. Plague follows plague until, on the night of the first Passover, Israel leaves Rameses. Trapped between Pharaoh's chariots and the sea, they cross on dry ground, sing on the far shore, and walk three days into the wilderness to bitter water and an oasis of palms.
From the wilderness of Sin to Mount Nebo
Forty years in eleven scenes: bread on the ground each morning and water from a rock; the covenant at the mountain, the calf, and the tent; the road to Kadesh and the long stay there; Aaron's death, the way round Edom, the kings east of the Jordan, a seer who could only bless, and Moses looking over a river he would not cross.
Forty days in the land, forty years for it
From the springs of Kadesh twelve men go north to scout the land they have been promised: up through the Negev to Hebron, to a valley of grapes, and on toward the far north. Ten come back afraid, two come back sure. The people weep, a generation is turned back into the wilderness, and a late attempt to go up anyway ends in defeat at Hormah.
From the plains of Moab over the river to the walls of Jericho
Moses is dead, and Joshua must take the people over the Jordan. Two men slip into Jericho and are hidden by Rahab; the river, in flood, stands back while the ark waits in its bed; twelve stones are set up at Gilgal; and after seven days of silent marching the wall of Jericho falls.
A famine, a vow, and a harvest
In a famine, a family of Bethlehem goes round the Dead Sea to Moab. Ten years later Naomi walks home a widow, and her Moabite daughter-in-law Ruth refuses to leave her. In the barley fields of Bethlehem, Ruth's loyalty leads to a marriage, a son, and the line of King David.
Taken in battle, sent home on a cart
In the days of Eli the priest, Israel carries the ark of the covenant from Shiloh into battle against the Philistines, and loses it. The captured ark goes round three Philistine cities, Ashdod, Gath and Ekron, and brings disaster wherever it rests, until the Philistines send it home on a cart drawn by two cows to Beth-shemesh. It waits at Kiriath-jearim for many years, until King David brings it up to Jerusalem with dancing.
Caves, wilderness and a king who could not catch him
King Saul turns against the young David, and David runs: through a window at night, to the prophet Samuel, past the priests of Nob to the Philistine city of Gath, into the cave of Adullam, round the wilderness of Judah from Keilah to Ziph, Maon and En-gedi. Twice he has Saul in his power and lets him live. At last he takes refuge among the Philistines at Ziklag, and the story ends with Saul's death on Mount Gilboa.
A drought, a mountain, and a whisper
In the days of King Ahab, the prophet Elijah announces a drought, hides by a wadi in Gilead and lodges with a widow on the Phoenician coast. He faces the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, runs ahead of the rain to Jezreel, and flees for his life to Beersheba and on through the wilderness to Horeb, the mountain of God, where he hears not the wind, the earthquake or the fire, but a low whisper. He walks back to find Elisha at the plough.
A commander, a captive girl, and seven dips in a muddy river
Naaman, commander of the army of Aram, has a skin disease. A captive girl from Israel says there is a prophet in Samaria who could heal him. He rides south with a letter from his king, silver, gold and fine clothes, is sent by Elisha's messenger to wash seven times in the Jordan, and nearly rides home in a rage. His servants talk him round. He comes back healed, asks for two mule-loads of Israel's earth, and leaves; and Elisha's servant Gehazi runs after him for the gift his master refused.
From Jerusalem to Babylon, and home again
Three journeys on one map, told in order. Babylon takes Jerusalem's young king and its craftsmen into exile, then burns the city and its temple, and the captives are marched north and east to Babylon. Decades later Cyrus of Persia lets the exiles go home, and they set up the altar again and lay the temple's foundations. Nearly a century after that, Nehemiah, cupbearer to the Persian king at Susa, rides to Jerusalem with the king's letters and looks over its broken walls by night.
Antioch to Derbe, and all the way back
Sent out from Antioch in Syria, Barnabas and Paul sail to Cyprus, cross to the mainland, climb inland over the Taurus, and then return through every city they had visited to report to the community that sent them.
Nazareth, Bethlehem, the temple, Egypt — and home
Luke tells of an angel at Nazareth, a visit to the hill country, a census journey to Bethlehem, a manger, shepherds, and a presentation in the temple. Matthew tells of magi from the east, King Herod, a flight into Egypt by night and a return that avoids Judea. This story follows both sets of roads on one map, and keeps the two accounts apart.
From the Jordan to Cana, twice over
John's Gospel follows Jesus from the Jordan where John was baptising up to Galilee for a wedding, down to the lake, up to Jerusalem for Passover, out into Judea, north through Samaria to a well at noon, and back to Cana, where a father's son is healed from a day's walk away.
Mark's lakeshore sites, in Mark's order
A tour of the places on the Sea of Galilee where Mark's Gospel sets Jesus' work, in the order Mark tells them: the shore where four fishermen were called, Capernaum's synagogue and Simon's house, a roof opened for a paralysed man, a boat used as a pulpit, bread for five thousand in a deserted place, a night on the water, Magdala, Bethsaida, and the hill town of Chorazin. It is a sequence of sites, not one journey.
Across the lake and back
One evening Jesus and his disciples set out in a boat to cross the Sea of Galilee. A squall struck in the middle of the lake and was stilled; on the far shore, in Gentile country, a man who lived among the tombs met them, a herd of pigs rushed into the water, and the townspeople asked Jesus to leave. The healed man was sent home to the Decapolis, and the boat crossed back. Mark 4:35-5:20, with the far shore drawn at Kursi as the traditional site and the three manuscript readings of its name explained.
The long way round the lake
Jesus leaves Galilee for the country of Tyre, on the Phoenician coast, where a Gentile mother will not take no for an answer. Then Mark takes him north through Sidon and back to the Sea of Galilee through the Decapolis — the long way round — where a deaf man is healed and four thousand people are fed, before a boat crosses to Dalmanutha. Mark 7:24-8:10. Mark names the places but no road between them; every line is a reconstruction.
Luke's road from Galilee to the Mount of Olives
Luke gives ten chapters to Jesus' last journey to Jerusalem, and fills them with teaching rather than stops: a Samaritan village that turns him away, the seventy-two sent ahead, Martha and Mary, ten lepers on the border of Samaria and Galilee, a blind man and Zacchaeus at Jericho, the parable of the minas, the colt at Bethphage, and the city seen from the Mount of Olives. Luke 9:51-19:44. Luke's order is not an itinerary; the road drawn here, down the Jordan valley by Perea, is a reconstruction.
A parable Jesus told, set on the real road down from Jerusalem to Jericho
This is a parable — a story Jesus told, not a journey anyone made. A teacher of the law asks what he must do to have eternal life, and then who counts as his neighbour; Jesus answers with a story about a man robbed and left half dead on the road down to Jericho, a priest and a Levite who pass him by, and a Samaritan who stops. The road is real, and the map draws it: about 22 km, falling some 1,000 m through the Judean wilderness. Luke 10:25-37.
Two disciples walk west toward evening, and back the same night
On the day the tomb is found empty, two followers of Jesus walk from Jerusalem to a village called Emmaus, talking over everything that has happened. A stranger falls in with them and opens the scriptures to them on the road; at supper, when he breaks the bread, they know him, and he is gone. That same hour they walk back to Jerusalem. Luke 24:13-35. Where Emmaus was is disputed: the map draws Emmaus-Nicopolis, about 25 km out, and names the nearer candidates.
Mark 11–16, with the other Gospels labelled
The last week of Jesus in Jerusalem, told in Mark's order from the road over the Mount of Olives to the empty tomb. What Matthew, Luke and John add or tell differently is named as theirs, and every street on the plan is a reconstruction that says so.
A light on the road, and a basket over the wall
Saul set out from Jerusalem with letters to arrest the followers of Jesus in Damascus. Near the city a light stopped him; blind, he was led in, and on Straight Street a disciple named Ananias laid hands on him. Within days he was preaching Jesus in the synagogues. A plot drove him out over the wall in a basket, back to Jerusalem, and down to Caesarea to be sent off to Tarsus. Acts 9:1–31, with Paul's own retellings in Acts 22 and 26 alongside; where the light shone is not known.
From Samaria to a desert road, and up the coast
When persecution scattered the believers from Jerusalem, Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah there, and even a famous magician was baptized. Then Philip was sent to the desert road that runs from Jerusalem toward Gaza, where he met the treasurer of the queen of Ethiopia reading Isaiah in his carriage, explained the passage, and baptized him at water beside the road. Philip next turned up at Azotus and worked his way up the coast to Caesarea. Acts 8:4–40; where the baptism happened is not known.
Down to the coast, and a door opened to the Gentiles
Visiting the believers in the towns of the plain, Peter healed a paralysed man named Aeneas at Lydda and was called to Joppa, where a disciple named Tabitha had died; she was raised to life. While he stayed with Simon the tanner by the sea, a vision on the rooftop and three messengers from a Roman centurion sent him up the coast to Caesarea, where Cornelius and his household received the Holy Spirit and were baptized. Back in Jerusalem, Peter explained what had happened. Acts 9:32–11:18.
From Antioch into Macedonia and Greece, and home again
Parted from Barnabas, Paul sets out from Antioch with Silas, takes Timothy on at Lystra, finds the roads west and north closed to him, and crosses from Troas into Europe: Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens and a year and a half at Corinth, before sailing home by way of Ephesus and Caesarea.
Ephesus, the Aegean, and the road up to Jerusalem
Paul crosses Asia Minor once more to Ephesus and stays more than two years; a riot fills the city's theatre. He goes round by Macedonia and Greece, turns back because of a plot, restores a fallen young man at Troas, says goodbye to the Ephesian elders at Miletus, and sails by Cos, Rhodes and Tyre to Caesarea, where a prophet warns him of chains — and he goes up to Jerusalem.
A prisoner's passage to the emperor's court
Handed to a centurion at Caesarea, Paul sails for Italy at the end of the season. A north-easter drives the ship for fourteen nights across the open sea, it breaks up on the shore of Malta, and everyone aboard survives. After a winter on the island, the last leg is by ship to Puteoli and on foot up the Appian Way into Rome.