Anyone who has ever visited ancient Jericho can testify to the reality that in the summer it can be unbearably hot.  Locals are convinced that hell itself is only ten degrees hotter than Jericho.  There is an old aphorism that in China only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun, and that surely applied to Jericho as well–which is why a drama that unfolded as Jesus approached the city on His way to Jerusalem is so remarkable.