Jerusalem

Bridgeway Bible Dictionary

Jerusalem has existed for thousands of years and during that time the shape of the city has changed repeatedly – valleys filled in, hills taken away, other hills added by the accumulation of rubbish, and city boundaries altered from era to era. But the overall picture of an elevated city built on an uneven plateau remains as in Bible times.

Valleys and streams

The only convenient access to the city in ancient times was from the north, access on the other sides being hindered by cliffs that fell away into deep valleys. On the south-west side was the Valley of Hinnom, where at times idolaters set up altars on which they offered their children as burnt sacrifices to the god Molech ( Joshua 15:8;  2 Chronicles 28:3;  2 Chronicles 33:6). Jeremiah foretold God’s judgment on these people by announcing that in the place where they killed their children, they themselves would be killed and their corpses left to rot in the sun ( Jeremiah 7:31-34;  Jeremiah 32:35).

People also used the Valley of Hinnom as a place to dump broken pottery ( Jeremiah 19:1-13). Other rubbish accumulated, with the result that in later years the place became a public garbage dump where fires burnt continually. The Hebrew name ‘Valley of Hinnom’ transliterated via the Greek is gehenna, which was the word Jesus used to indicate the place of final judgment on the wicked ( Matthew 5:29-30;  Matthew 10:28;  Matthew 18:9;  Matthew 23:33;  Mark 9:43-48; cf.  Revelation 20:10;  Revelation 20:15; see Hell ).

Immediately to the east of the city another valley ran south, separating the city from the Mount of Olives. This was known as the Valley of Kidron or the Valley of Jehoshaphat. In the rainy season a swiftly flowing stream ran from the hills north of Jerusalem through this valley, ending in the Dead Sea ( 2 Samuel 15:23;  1 Kings 2:37;  1 Kings 15:13;  2 Chronicles 30:14;  Joel 3:2;  Joel 3:12;  John 18:1).

Fausset's Bible Dictionary

Jeru- , "the foundation" (Implying Its Divinely Given Stability,  Psalms 87:1 ;  Isaiah 14:32 ; So Spiritually,  Hebrews 11:10 ) ; -Shalem , "of peace". The absence of the doubled "sh" forbids Ewald's derivation, Jerush- "possession". Salem is the oldest form ( Psalms 76:2;  Hebrews 7:2;  Genesis 14:18). Jebusi "the Jebusite" ( Joshua 15:8;  Joshua 18:16;  Joshua 18:28;  Judges 19:10-11) and the city itself. Jebus, the next form, Jerusalem the more modern name. Melchi-zedek ("king of righteousness") corresponds to Adoni-zedek," lord of righteousness," king of Jerusalem ( Joshua 10:1), the name being a hereditary title of the kings of Jerusalem which is "the city of righteousness" ( Isaiah 1:21-26). Psalm 110 connects Melchizedek with Zion, as other passages do with Salem. The king of Salem met Abram after his return from the slaughter of the kings, therefore near home (Hebron, to which Jerusalem was near).

"The valley of Shaveh, the king's dale" ( Genesis 14:17;  2 Samuel 18:18), was the valley of Kedron, and the king of Sodom had no improbable distance to go from Sodom in meeting him here (two furlongs from Jersalem: Josephus, Ant. 7:10, section 3). Ariel, "lion of God," is another designation ( Isaiah 29:1-2;  Isaiah 29:7). (See Ariel .) Also "the holy city" ( Matthew 4:5;  Matthew 27:53;  Revelation 11:3). AElius Hadrianus, the Roman emperor, built it (A.D. 135), whence it was named AElia Capitolina, inscribed still on the well known stone in the S. wall of the Aksa. Jerusalem did not become the nation's capital or even possession until David's time, the seat of government and of the religious worship having been previously in the N. at Shethem and Shiloh, then Gibeah and Nob (whence the tabernacle and altar were moved to Gibeon). (See David .) The boundary between Judah and Benjamin ran S. of the city hill, so that the city was in Benjamin, and Judah enclosed on two sides the tongue or promontory of land on which it stood, the valley of Hinnom bounding it W. and S., the valley of Jehoshaphat on the E.

The temple situated at the connecting point of Judah and northern Israel admirably united both in holiest bonds. Jerusalem lies on the ridge of the backbone of hills stretching from the plain of Jezreel to the desert. Jewish tradition placed the altars and sanctuary in Benjamin, the courts of the temple in Judah. The two royal tribes met in Jerusalem David showed his sense of the importance of the alliance with Saul of Benjamin by making Michal's restoration the condition of his league with Abner ( 2 Samuel 3:13). Its table land also lies almost central on the middle route from N. to S., and is the watershed of the torrents passing eastward to Jordan and westward to the Mediterranean ( Ezekiel 5:5;  Ezekiel 38:12;  Psalms 48:2).

It lay midway between the oldest civilized states; Egypt and Ethiopia on one hand, Babylon, Nineveh, India, Persia, Greece, and Rome on the other; thus holding the best vantage ground whence to act on heathendom. At the same time it lay out of the great highway between Egypt and Syria and Assyria, so often traversed by armies of these mutually hostile world powers, the low sea coast plain from Pelusium to Tyre; hence it generally enjoyed immunity from wars. It is 32 miles from the sea, 18 from Jordan, 20 from Hebron, 36 from Samaria; on the edge of one of the highest table lands, 3700 ft. above the Dead Sea; the N.W. part of the city is 2,581 ft. above the Mediterranean sea level; Mount Olivet is more than 100 ft. higher, namely, 2,700 ft. The descent is extraordinary; Jericho, 13 miles off, is 3,624 ft. lower than Olivet, i.e. 900 ft. below the Mediterranean. Bethel to the N., 11 miles off, is 419 ft. below Jerusalem. Ramleh to the W., 25 miles off, is 2,274 ft. lower. To the S. however the hills at Bethlehem are a little higher, 2,704; Hebron, 3,029. To the S.W. the view is more open, the plain of Rephaim beginning at the S. edge of the valley of Hinnom and stretching towards the western sea. To the N.W. also the view reaches along the upper part of the valley of Jehoshaphat.

The city is called "the valley of vision" ( Isaiah 22:1-5), for the lower parts of the city, the Tyro-peon (the cheesemakers), form a valley between the heights. The hills outside too are "round about" it ( Psalms 125:2). On the E. Olivet; on the S. the hill of evil counsel, rising from the vale of Hinnom; on the W. the ground rises to the borders of the great wady, an hour and a half from the city; on the N. a prolongation of mount Olivet bounds the prospect a mile from the City.  Jeremiah 21:13,"inhabiters of the valley, rock of the plain" (i.e. Zion). "Jerusalem the defensed" ( Ezekiel 21:20), yet doomed to be "the city of confusion," a second Babel (confusion), by apostasy losing the order of truth and holiness, so doomed to the disorder of destruction like Babylon, its prototype in evil ( Isaiah 24:10;  Jeremiah 4:23). Seventeen times desolated by conquerors, as having become a "Sodom" ( Isaiah 1:10). "The gates of the people," i.e. the central mart for the inland commerce ( Ezekiel 26:2;  Ezekiel 27:17;  1 Kings 5:9). "The perfection of beauty" ( Lamentations 2:15, the enemy in scorn quoting the Jews' own words), "beautiful for situation" ( Psalms 48:2;  Psalms 50:1-2).

The ranges of Lebanon and Antilebanon pass on southwards in two lower parallel ranges separated by the Ghor or Jordan valley, and ending in the gulf of Akabah. The eastern range distributes itself through Gilead, Mesh, and Petra, reaching the Arabian border of the Red Sea. The western range is the backbone of western Palestine, including the hills of Galilee, Samaria, Ephraim, Benjamin, and Judah, and passing on into the Sinaitic range ending at Ras Mohammed in the tongue of land between the two arms of the Red Sea. The Jerusalem range is part of the steep western wall of the valley of the Jordan and the Dead Sea. W. of this wall the hills sink into a lower range between it and the Mediterranean coast plain. The eastern ravine, the valley of Kedron or Jehoshaphat running from N. to S., meets at the S.E. grainer of the city table land promontory the valley of Hinnom, which on the W. of the precipitous promontory first runs S., then bends eastward (S. of the promontory) until it meets the valley of Jehoshaphat at Bir Ayub; thence as one they descend steeply toward the Dead Sea. The promontory itself is divided into two unequal parts by a ravine running from S. to N. The western part or "upper city" is the larger and higher.

The eastern part, mount Moriah and the Acra or "lower city" (Josephus), constitute the lower and smaller; on its southern portion is now the mosque of Omar. The central ravine half way up sends a lateral valley running up to the general level at the Jaffa or Bethlehem gate. The central ravine or depression, running toward the Damascus gate, is the Tyropeon. N. of Moriah the valley of the Asmonaeans running transversely (marked still by the reservoir with two arches, "the pool of Bethesda" so-called, near St. Stephen's gate) separates it from the suburb Bezetha or new town. Thus the city was impregnably entrenched by ravines W., S., and E., while on the N. and N.W. it had ample room for expansion. The western half is: fairly level from N. to S., remembering however the lateral valley spoken of above. The eastern hill is more than 100 ft. lower; the descent thence to the valley, the Bir Ayub, is 450 ft. The N. and S. outlying hills of Olivet, namely, Viri Galilaei, Scopus, and mount of Offence, bend somewhat toward the city, as if "standing round about Jerusalem." The neighbouring hills though not very high are a shelter to the city, and the distant hills of Moab look like a rampart on the E.

The route from the N. and E. was from the Jordan plain by Jericho and mount Olivet ( Luke 17:11;  Luke 18:35;  Luke 19:1-29;  Luke 19:45;  Luke 19:2 Samuel 15-16;  2 Chronicles 28:15). The route from Philistia and Sharon was by Joppa and Lydda, up the two Bethherons to the high ground at Gibeon, whence it turned S. and by Ramah and Gibeah passed over the N. ridge to Jerusalem. This was the road which armies took in approaching the city, and it is still the one for heavy baggage, though a shorter and steeper road through Amwas and the great wady is generally taken by travelers from Jaffa to Jerusalem. The gates were:

(1) that of Ephraim ( 2 Chronicles 25:23), the same probably as that

(2) of Benjamin ( Jeremiah 20:2), 400 cubits from

(3) "the corner gate" ( 2 Chronicles 25:23).

(4) Of Joshua, governor of the city ( 2 Kings 23:8).

(5) That between the two walls ( 2 Kings 25:4).

(6) Horse gate ( Nehemiah 3:28).

(7) The valley gate ( 2 Chronicles 26:9).

(8) Fish gate ( 2 Chronicles 33:14).

(9) Dung gate ( Nehemiah 2:13).

(10) Sheep gate ( Nehemiah 3:1).

(11) E. gate ( Nehemiah 3:29).

(12) Miphkad ( Nehemiah 3:31).

(13) Fountain gate ( Nehemiah 12:37).

(14) Water gate.

(15) Old gate ( Nehemiah 12:39).

(16) Prison gate.

(17) The E. gate (margin  Jeremiah 19:2, "sun gate"), Harsith; Jerome takes it from heres, "a potter's vessel," the way out to Hinnom valley where the potters formed vessels for the use of the temple ( Jeremiah 19:10-11).

(18) First gate ( Zechariah 14:10), perhaps "the old gate" of  Nehemiah 3:6.

The gates of the temple were Sur ( 2 Kings 11:6), named "the gate of foundation" ( 2 Chronicles 23:5); "the gate of the guard" ( 2 Kings 11:6;  2 Kings 11:19); "high gate" ( 2 Chronicles 23:20); Shallecheth ( 1 Chronicles 26:16). The sides of the valleys of Kedron and Hinnom were and are the chief burial places ( 2 Kings 23:6); tombs still abound on the slopes. Impurities of every kind were cast there ( 1 Kings 15:13;  2 Chronicles 29:5;  2 Chronicles 29:16). The kings were buried in mount Zion. "David was buried in the city of David (here used in a vague sense (see Birch's remark quoted at the close of this article) of the Ophel S. of the temple mount), between Siloah and the house of the mighty men," i.e. the guard house ( Nehemiah 3:16). It became the general burial place of the kings of Judah. Its site was known down to Titus' destruction of the city, which confused the knowledge of the sacred sites. "The king's garden," of David and Solomon, was at the point of union of Kedron and Hinnom ( Nehemiah 3:15). The garden of Gethsemane was at the foot of Olivet. Beyond the Damascus or northern gate the wall crosses the royal caverns.

Jerusalem is honeycombed with natural and excavated caverns and cisterns for water, for burial, and for quarries. The royal quarries extend under the city according to the first measurement 200 yds. southeastwards, and are 100 yds. wide. The cuttings are four or five inches wide, with a little hollow at the left corner of each, into which a wick and oil might be placed. Mr. Schick adds considerably to these measurements by his recent discoveries. The entrance is so low that one must stoop, but the height speedily increases in advancing. N. of the city an abundant waterspring existed, the outflow of which was stopped probably by Hezekiah, and the water conducted underground to reservoirs within the city. From these the overflow passed to "the fount of the Virgin," thence to Siloam, and perhaps to Bir Ayub, the "well of Nehemiah." Besides this spring, private and public cisterns abounded. Outside on the W. are the upper and lower reservoirs of Gihon (Birket Momilla and Birket es Sultan). On the S.E. outside is the pool of Siloam. The Birket Hammam Sitti Maryam is close to St. Stephen's gate, which is on the eastern side of the city, just above the Haram area.

The pool of Hezekiah is within, near the Jaffa gate, which receives the overflow of Birket Mamilla. The pool of Bethesda is inside, near St. Stephen's gate. Barclay discovered a reservoir in the Tyropoeon, W. of the Haram (the temple erect, the slopes S. of which are Ophel), supplied from Bethlehem and Solomon's pools. Four great towers stood at the N.W. part of the wall. The castle of Antonia, in our Lord's time, rose above all other buildings in the city, and was protected by the keep in its S.E. corner.

History: The first mention of Jerusalem is as the Salem of Melchizedek ( Genesis 14:18). Herodotus gives it the name Cadytis, which reappears in the modern El Kuds, or this may come from Kodesh, "the holy city." Next in  Joshua 10:1, etc., as the capital of Adonizedek. Then Joshua allotted it to Benjamin ( Joshua 15:8;  Joshua 18:16;  Joshua 18:28). Neither Judah, whose land environed the stronghold, nor Benjamin could drive the Jebusites out of it ( Joshua 15:62;  Judges 1:21).

The first destruction of tide lower city is recorded  Judges 1:3-8; Judah, with Simeon, "smote it with the sword, and set it on fire" as being unable to retain possession of it (for the Jebusites or Canaanites held the fortress), so that, as Josephus says (Ant. 5:2, section 23), they moved to Hebron. This was the first of the 17 sieges ending with the Roman ( Luke 21:20;  Matthew 24:15). Twice in these sieges it was destroyed; on two other occasions its walls were overthrown. We find it in the hands of the stranger, the Jebusite, in  Judges 19:10-12. David at last took the hitherto impregnable stronghold, which was therefore called "the city of David" (Joab being the first in the assault,  1 Chronicles 11:6), and built his palace there. (See David .) He enclosed the city and citadel together with a wall, and strengthened Zion "inwards" by a wall upon the N. side where the lower town joined it; and brought up the ark, making it thus the political and religious center of the nation ( 2 Samuel 5:6-9;  2 Samuel 5:2 Samuel 6-7). This choice was under the direction of Jehovah ( Deuteronomy 12:5-21;  1 Kings 11:36); henceforth it was "the city of the Great King" ( Matthew 5:35), "the holy city" ( Nehemiah 11:18), the spiritual as well as civil capital.

For this its situation admirably adapted it, bordering between Judah, his own tribe, and the valiant small tribe of Benjamin, which formed the connecting link with the northern tribes, especially with Ephraim the house of Joseph. This event he, and his enemies the Philistines too, regarded as a pledge that his kingdom was established. Here in Zion was the sepulchre of David, where also most of his successors were buried. In  1 Samuel 17:54 it is said David brought Goliath's head to Jerusalem; either to the lower city, which was already in the Israelites' hands, or finally, as a trophy, to the city of David when it fell into his hands. The altar too was transferred in Solomon's reign from the tabernacle of Gibeon to the permanent temple. The preparation for this transference was made by David's sacrificing in the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, where he saw the Angel of Jehovah after the plague, and where he was directed by God to rear an altar ( 2 Samuel 24:16-25; 1 Chronicles 21;  1 Chronicles 22:1;  2 Chronicles 3:1;  Psalms 76:1-2;  Psalms 132:13-18). Asaph wrote  Psalms 78:67-71 to soothe Ephraim's jealous feeling by showing that the transference of the sanctuary from Shiloh to Zion was God's appointment; henceforth Zion is "the mountain of the Lord's house" ( Isaiah 2:2).

At the meeting of the valleys Kedron and Hinnom David had his royal gardens, S.E. of the city, watered by Ain Ayub (the well of Joab). Solomon, besides the Temple and Palace, enlarged and strengthened the wall with towers (Jos. Ant. 8:6, section 1), taking in the outlying suburbs ( 1 Kings 3:1;  1 Kings 9:15;  1 Kings 9:24). (See Temple ; Palace He built also a palace for his Egyptian queen, not in the city of David (in the New Testament this phrase means Bethlehem):  1 Kings 7:8;  1 Kings 9:24;  2 Chronicles 8:11. On the hill S.E. of Jerusalem, a southern part of Olivet, he built shrines for his foreign wives' idols; it is hence called "the mount of offence,"  1 Kings 11:7;  2 Kings 23:13, "the mount of corruption." Josephus (Ant. 8:7, section 4) praises the roads which Solomon paved with black stone, probably the durable basalt from Argob. "Solomon made silver in Jerusalem (common) as stones, and cedars as sycamore trees" ( 1 Kings 10:27;  2 Chronicles 9:27;  Ecclesiastes 2:9). At the disruption under Rehoboam the priests, Levites, and better disposed of the people flocked from the northern kingdom to Judah and Jerusalem which the king fortified ( 2 Chronicles 11:5-17).

But fortifications avail nothing without God's favor. He and his people forfeited this by idolatries ( 1 Kings 14:22-28;  1 Kings 14:2 Chronicles 12). So Shishak, Jeroboam's ally, came up against Jerusalem. Rehoboam at once surrendered all the treasures of Jehovah's house, and of the palace, including Solomon's 300 golden shields (three pounds in each) in the house of the forest of Lebanon ( 1 Kings 10:17), for which Rehoboam substituted brazen shields. Asa, after overthrowing the Ethiopian Zerah who thought to spoil Jerusalem as Shishak did, brought in the sacred offerings which his father Abijah had dedicated from the war with Jeroboam ( 2 Chronicles 13:16-20), and which he himself had dedicated from the Ethiopian spoil, into the house of the Lord, silver, gold, and vessels ( 1 Kings 15:15;  2 Chronicles 14:12-13). So he replaced the vessels taken by Shishak. Asa also rebuilt Jehovah's altar before the porch ( 2 Chronicles 15:8). Jehoshaphat, Asa's son, probably added "the new court" to the temple ( 2 Chronicles 20:5).

The fourth siege of Jerusalem was in the reign of Jehoram, Jehoshaphat's son. In punishment for his walking in the Israelite Ahab's idolatries instead of the ways of his father, and for his slaying his brothers, Jehovah smote him with a great stroke, stirring up the spirit of the Philistines and the Arabians near the Ethiopians to break into Judah, slay all his sons except the youngest (in retributive justice both to himself and his sons:  2 Chronicles 21:4;  2 Chronicles 21:10-20;  2 Chronicles 22:1;  2 Chronicles 24:7), and carry away all the substance in the king's house, and his wives; he himself also died of sore disease by Jehovah's visitation, and was excluded from "the sepulchres of the kings," though buried in the city of David. Keil denies the certainty of Jerusalem having been taken this time, as "Judah" does not necessarily include Jerusalem which is generally distinctly mentioned; "the king's house" is not necessarily the palace, what may be meant is all whatever substance of the king's house (family) was found.

But it is hard to see how they could carry away his sons and wives without taking the capital. Next Joash (and Jehoiada in his 23rd year of reign ( 2 Kings 12:6-16;  2 Chronicles 24:4-14) repaired the temple after its being injured by the Baal worshippers of Athaliah's rein. (See Joash ; JEHOIADA.) Joash apostatized at Jehoiada's death. Then Hazael (by God's appointment) set his face to go up to Jerusalem, and Joash bought him off only at the sacrifice of all the treasures in the temple and palace. Two of his servants slew him. Like Jehoram he was excluded from the royal sepulchres, whereas Jehoiada, his subject, was honoured with burial there. Amaziah, intoxicated with his success against Edom whose idols, in spite of a prophet's warning, he adopted, challenged Joust of Israel. (See Amaziah .) The latter conquered at Bethshemesh at the opening of the hills 12 miles W. of Jerusalem. Taking Amaziah prisoner he brought him to Jerusalem and there broke down the wall from the Ephraim or Benjamin gate to the corner gate (N.W. of the city) 400 cubits (the first time the walls were injured, probably at the N.W. corner), and took all the silver and gold and vessels in God's house under charge of the Obed Edom family, and the treasures of the palace, and hostages.

Josephus (9:9, section 9) says that he compelled the inhabitants to open the gates by threatening to kill Amaziah otherwise. Uzziah repaired the walls, building towers at the corner gate (the N.W. corner of the city:  2 Chronicles 26:9;  Nehemiah 3:19-24), at the turning of the wall (E. of Zion, so that the tower at this turning defended both Zion and the temple from attacks from the S.E. valley), and at the valley gate (on the W. of the city, where now is the Jaffa gate) opening to Hinnom. Also he made engines to be on the towers and bulwarks, to shoot arrows and great stones with. The great earthquake in his reign ( Amos 1:1) was a physical premonition of the social revolutions about to visit the guilty nation as a judgment from God ( Matthew 24:7-8). Jotham "built the high gate of the house of the Lord" connecting the palace and the temple ( 2 Chronicles 23:20;  2 Chronicles 27:3); and built much at the wall of Ophel, the S. slope of Moriah, the wall that connected Zion with the temple mount. Under Ahaz Jerusalem was besieged by Rezin of Syria and Pekah of Israel ( 2 Kings 16:5-6). Josephus (Ant. 9:12, section 1) says it withstood them" for a long time," doubtless owing to the fortifications of the two previous kings.

Rezin during it made an expedition to Elath, which he transferred from the Jews to Edom. On his return, finding Jerusalem still not taken, he ravaged Judea, and leaving Pekah at Jerusalem he carried a number of captives to Damascus. Ahaz then ventured to meet Pekah in open battle and was utterly defeated, losing 120,000 slain, besides numerous captives, all of whom however by the prophet Oded's counsel were sent back. Jerusalem was uninjured. (See Ahaz as to his mutilation of the temple, in vassalage to Tiglath Pileser.) Hezekiah "in the first year of his reign" "suddenly," i.e. with a promptness that took men by surprise, restored all that his father had desecrated ( 2 Chronicles 29:3;  2 Chronicles 29:36). (See Hezekiah on this and Sennacherib's invasion.)

Hezekiah stopped the outflow of the source of the Kedron N.E. of the city, to which Nachal is applied as distinguished from the Hinnom valley S. and W., which is called Ge , and brought it within, underground, to the W. side of the city of David, which must therefore have been on the E. ( 2 Kings 20:20;  2 Chronicles 32:4;  2 Chronicles 32:30;  Isaiah 22:9-11), i.e., to the valley Tyropeon between the E. and W. divisions of the city, where traces of the channel still exist. He made strong or fortified the Μιllο (the article marks it as a well known place), probably a large tower at one particular part of the wall ( Judges 9:6;  Judges 9:46;  Judges 9:49, where Μille is interchanged with Μigdol "a tower".) (See Millo .) The name, which means "the filling," originated probably in the fact that this castle filled or completed the fortification of the city of David. It was situated ( 1 Chronicles 11:8) at the N.W. corner of the wall, on the slope of the Tyropeon valley, where Zion had least height and therefore needed most strengthening ( 1 Kings 11:27).

Manasseh on his restoration from Babylon built a fresh wall outside the city of David on the W. side of Gihon in the valley, even to the entering in at the fish gate ( 2 Chronicles 33:14), and continued Jotham's works enclosing Ophel, and raising the fortress up to a very great height. (See Josiah on the renovation of the temple in his reign). "The second (or lower) part" of the city, ha-Mishoneh, "the college," is mentioned as Huldah's place of residence ( 2 Chronicles 34:22;  2 Kings 22:14). The fish gate on the N. resounds with cries at the foe's approach (in the prophecy of  Zephaniah 1:10) first; then the second or lower part of the city, Acra; then the hills Zion and Moriah last. Josiah's successor Jeroahaz gave place to Jehoiakim. (See Jeroahaz; Jehoiakim ) Nebuchadnezzar, after defeating Pharaoh Necho at Carchemish, marched to Jerusalem, carried off the temple vessels, and fettered Jehoiakim as Necho's tributary, intending to take him to Babylon; but afterward for his ally Josiah's sake, Jehoiakim's father, restored him as a vassal ( 2 Chronicles 36:6-7). Three years after Jehoiakim rebelled, and Nebuchadnezzar sent Chaldaean, Syrian, Moabite, and Ammonite "bands" to chastise him ( 2 Kings 24:2).

Nebuchadnezzar in person came up against Jehoiachin, who surrendered in the third month of his reign, wishing to spare the city the horrors of a lengthened siege when he saw resistance would be unavailing ( 2 Kings 24:10-13; Josephus, B. J., 6:2). (See Jehoiachin .) Nebuchadnezzar carried, away all the temple and palace treasures, and some of Solomon's gold vessels heretofore still left, which he cut in pieces, leaving only a few ( Jeremiah 27:19); also the princes, men of wealth, and skilled artisans, in all 10,000, leaving only the poorest behind. Zedekiah he made king under an oath of allegiance by God ( 2 Chronicles 36:13;  Ezekiel 17:13-18). In violation of this oath Zedekiah, relying on Pharaoh Hophra, revolted. Nebuchadnezzar then began the siege of Jerusalem, surrounding it with troops, in Zedekiah's ninth year, tenth day of the tenth month. From forts erected on lofty mounds around he hurled missiles into the city, and battered the walls and houses and gates with rams ( Jeremiah 32:24;  Jeremiah 33:4;  Jeremiah 52:4;  Jeremiah 52:6;  Ezekiel 21:22).

On Pharaoh Hophra's approach the siege was for a brief space intermitted ( Jeremiah 37:5-11); but the Chaldeans returned and took Jerusalem after the inhabitants had suffered much by famine and pestilence ( Jeremiah 32:24;  2 Kings 25:3;  Lamentations 5:10) in Zedekiah's 11th year, on the ninth day of the fourth month, a year and a half from the beginning of the siege. Nebuchadnezzar was meanwhile at Riblah, watching the siege of Tyre. The breach in the walls of Jerusalem was made at midnight, and the Jews knew nothing until the Chaldean generals took their seats ( Jeremiah 39:3) "in the middle gate" (between Zion the citadel and the lower city on the N.), or as the Jewish historian says, "in the middle court of the temple" (Josephus, Ant. 10:8, section 2). Zedekiah stole out by a gate on the S. side, and by the royal gardens fled across Kedron and Olivet, but was overtaken in the Jericho plains, and brought for judgment to Riblah. On the seventh day of the next (the fifth) month Nebuzaradan, the commander of the king's body guard, arrived, and after collecting the captives and booty, on the tenth day he burnt the temple, palace, and chief buildings, and threw down the walls ( Jeremiah 52:12-14), so that they soon became "heaps of rubbish" ( Nehemiah 4:2).

The Assyrian regular custom was for the generals to sit in council at the gate, the usual place of public assembly, at the close of a siege The Imperial Bible Dictionary supposes Zion's superior strength caused the month's delay between the princes sitting in the gate on the ninth day of the fourth month and the final desolation on the seventh day of the fifth month; but the account above is more probable. The king's orders had to be first obtained from Riblah before the final destruction took place under Nebuzaradan, who carried out Nebuchadnezzar's instructions. Meantime the horrors described in  Lamentations 2:4;  Lamentations 5:11-12, slaughter of old and young, and violation of women, took place in the upper city, Zion, as well as the lower. "In the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion He poured out His fury like fire. They ravished the women in Zion, and the maids in the city of Judah. Princes are hanged up by their hand," etc. (On The Numbers Carried Away, And Who Returned, Gedaliah'S Murder, And The Rebuilding Of The Temple, Etc. See Captivity; Gedaliah; Cyrus; Ezra; Haggai; Nehemiah.)

42,360 returned with Zerubbabel's caravan ( Ezra 2:64), carrying back the old temple vessels besides other treasures ( Ezra 5:14;  Ezra 6:5). On the first day of the seventh month Joshua the high priest and Zerubbabel set up the altar and kept the feast of tabernacles ( Ezra 3:1-6). In the second year the temple foundation was laid, amid tears of the old men and the trumpets' notes sounded by the priests and cymbal music of the Levites. The work, after many interruptions by Samaritan enemies influencing Artaxerxes or Pseudo-Smerdis, (they failed apparently with Ahasuerus, Cyrus' successor), then by Tatnai governor W. of the river, was finally completed on the third day of the last month, Adar, in the sixth year of Darius, by the Jews encouraged through the prophesying of Haggai ( Haggai 1:4-9) and Zechariah. (Ezra 4; Ezra 5;  Ezra 6:14-15 ff) (See Artaxerxes .) Psalm 137 gives us a glimpse of the yearnings after Jerusalem of the captives in Babylon. The Jews still commemorate the chief events of this period by fasts: Nebuchadnezzar's investment of Jerusalem the 10th of Tebeth (January 5); Nebuzaradan's destruction of the temple, also Titus', 10th of Ab (July 29); Gedaliah's murder.

3rd Tisri (September 19); Ezekiel and the captives at Babylon hearing the news of the temple's destruction, 9th Tebeth; the Chaldees entering the city, also Titus' making, a breach in Antonia, 17th Tammuz (July 8). The new temple was 60 cubits lower than Solomon's (Josephus Ant. 15:11, section 1). After 58 years' interval Ezra (457 B.C.: Ezra 7-8) led a second caravan of priests, Levites, Nethinims, and laymen, 1777 in all, with valuable offerings of the Persian king, and of the Jews still remaining in Babylon; he corrected several irregularities, especially the alliance with and retention of foreign wives, which had caused such sin and sorrow to the nation formerly. Eleven years afterward Nehemiah arrived (445 B.C.), and gave the finishing stroke to the national organization by rebuilding and dedicating the wall (enclosing Jerusalem as well as Zion), notwithstanding the mockings and threats of the Horonite Sanballat, the ruler of the Samaritans, and Tobiah the Ammonite. Ezra cooperated with him (Nehemiah 8) by reading publicly the law at a national assembly on the first of the seventh month, the anniversary of the first return of Zerubbabel's caravan; then followed the grand and formal observance of the feast of tabernacles with a fullness of detail such as had not been since Joshua's days, for the earlier observance in  Ezra 3:1;  Ezra 3:4 was only with burnt offerings, etc.

(See Nehemiah on his abolition of usury, and attention to the genealogies, so important to the Jews.) According to  Nehemiah 13:4-9;  Nehemiah 13:28, "one of the sons (probably meaning grandson or descendant; Manasseh according to Josephus, Ant. 11:7, section 2) of Joiada," Eliashib's (whose un-Jewish conduct Nehemiah corrected) son, married the daughter of Sanballat. Manasseh became the first priest of the Samaritan temple on Gerizim. Joiada's son Jonathan ( Nehemiah 12:11) or Johanan murdered his brother Joshua in the temple, through rivalry for the high priesthood. Bagoas, the Persian general, thereupon entered the sanctuary itself, saying he was less unclean than the body of the murdered man, and imposed a tribute of 50 darics for every daily lamb sacrificed for seven years. (See Alexander THE GREAT and Jaddua on their interview at Sapha: Mizreh, Scopus, or the Nob of Isaiah, the high ridge N. of the city, crossed by the northern road, whence the first view, a full one, of both the temple and city is obtained.) In 320 B.C it fell into Ptolemy Soter's hands because the Jews would not fight on the sabbath. Many Jews were transported to Egypt and N. Africa (Josephus, Ant. 12:1, Apion 1:2).

Simon the Just, a leading hero with the Jews, succeeded his father Onias in the high priesthood (300 B.C.). He repaired the sanctuary, added deep foundations to gain a larger surface ( Sirach 50:1-4), coated the great sea or cistern in the court with brass, and fortified the city walls. Ptolemy Philadelphus caused the Septuagint Greek translation of the Old Testament to be made at Alexandria (255 B.C.), and for the purpose sent Aristeas to Jerusalem in Eleazar's high priesthood, and bestowed rich gifts on the temple (Josephus, Ant. 12:2, section 5-10, 15). Jerusalem became a prey subsequently to rival parties, at one time taken by Antiochus the Great (203 B.C.), then retaken by Scopas the Alexandrian general, who garrisoned the citadel, then again delivered by the Jews to Antiochus, who rewarded them by presents for the temple, which He decreed should be inviolable, and by remitting taxes. Antiochus Epiphanes, the subject of Daniel's prophecy (Daniel 8; Daniel 11), sold the high priesthood while Onias III. was alive to the high priest's brother Joshua. (See Antichrist .) The latter, under the Graecised name Jason, introduced at Jerusalem.

Greek dress, sports, and gymnasia where young men were trained naked (1 Maccabees. 1; 2 Maccabees 4-5), and endeavoured to "become uncircumcised." obliterating the Jews' distinctive mark. Onias )assuming the Greek name Μenelaus ) in his turn bought the high priesthood from Antiochus with the consecrated plate of the temple, and drove away Jason, who however again returned but soon retreated and perished beyond Jordan. Antiochus carne to Jerusalem, slew Ptolemy's adherents, and, guided by Menelaus into the sanctuary, carried off the golden altar, candlestick, and table of shewbread, vessels, utensils, and 1800 talents, also numerous captives. Resolving to exterminate the Jews utterly, in two years he sent Apollonius to carry out his purpose. On the sabbath when the Jews were at their devotions an indiscriminate slaughter took place, the city was spoiled and burnt, and the walls demolished. Seizing on Zion, the city of David "on an eminence in the lower city," i.e. in the eastern hill, not the western hill or upper city (Josephus, Ant. 12:9, section 3; 5, section 4), "adjoining the northern wall of the temple, and so high as to overlook it," the enemy fortified it with a turreted wall, securing their booty, cattle and women prisoners.

Antiochus decreed pagan worship throughout his kingdom, and sent Athenaeus to Jerusalem to enforce it. The temple was reconsecrated to Jupiter Olympias (2 Maccabees 6). Pagan riot, reveling, and dalliance with harlots took place within the sacred precincts. The altar was filled with profane things, sabbath keeping was forbidden, the Jewish religion proscribed. The Jews on the king's birthday were forced monthly to eat of idol sacrifices, and to go in procession carrying ivy on Bacchus' feast. Pigs' flesh was offered to Zeus on an altar set on Jehovah's brazen altar, and the broth sprinkled about the temple (Josephus Ant. 12-13). Many heroically resisted; so, amidst torments and bitter persecutions, the ancient spirit of the theocracy revived ( Hebrews 11:34-38). See for their terrible and heroic sufferings for their faith  2 Maccabees 6:10-31; 2 Maccabees 7. Judas Maccabeus then gathered 6,000 faithful Jews (chapter 8), and praying God to look upon the downtrodden people, the profaned temple, the slaughter of harmless infants, and blasphemies against His name, be could not be withstood by the enemy.

With 10,000 he defeated Lysias with 60,000 choice footmen and 5000 horsemen at Bethsura, in Idumea. Judas' prayer (1 Maccabees 4) before the battle breathes the true spirit of faith: "Blessed Art Thou, O Saviour Of Israel, Who Didst Quell The Violence Of The Mighty Man By The Band Of Thy Servant David, And Gavest The Host Of Strangers Into The Hand Of Jonathan The Son Of Saul And His Armour Bearer: Shut Up This Army In The Hand Of Thy People Israel ... And Let All Those That Know Thy Name Praise Thee With Thanksgiving." On the third anniversary of the desecration, the 25th of Chisleu, 165 B.C., he dedicated the temple with an eight days' feast (alluded to in  John 10:22, and apparently observed by our Lord though of human ordinance). Then he strengthened the temple's outer wall. On Eleazar his brother's death in battle, Judas retired to Jerusalem and endured a severe siege, which ended in Lysias advising Antiochus (son of Epiphanes) to grant the Jews their own laws, their liberty, and their fortress. Judas subsequently defeated Nicanor, general of the usurper Demetrius, whence the gate E. of the great court was named Nicanor. Judas died (161 B.C.) in battle with Bacchides, Nicanor's successor, and all Israel mourned for him; "how is the valiant man fallen that delivered Israel!" (1 Maccabees 9) Jonathan and Simon, Judas' brothers, succeeded to the command of Israel, and rebuilt the walls as a solid fortification round Zion.

Simon succeeded as high priest and leader at Jonathan's death, and took the lower city, Acra, which had been so long in the foe's hands. He cast down the citadel and lowered the eminence on which it stood, so that the temple overtopped all the other buildings; and he filled up the valleys with earth, in order to make them on a level with the narrow streets of the city, thus the entire depth of the temple foundations did not appear. (Josephus, Ant. 13:6, section 7; B.J., 5:5, section 1). Then he built a fort on the N.W. side of the temple hill, so as to command Acra, namely, Baris, where he resided, afterward the well known Antonia John Hyrcanus his son succeeded. Antiochus Sidetes, king of Syria, besieged Jerusalem, and then and then only a want of water was experienced, which was relieved by a fall of rain. Ultimately the siege ended in terms of peace. The name Maccabee was first given to Judas, from the initials of the Hebrew "Who among the gods is like unto Thee, O Jehovah?" ( Exodus 15:11) or of the sentence, "Mattathias (whose third son was Judas), a priest (of the course of Joarib, the first of the 24 courses, but not high priest), son of Johnnan"; or from Makabah "a hammer," as Charles Martel (hammer or mallet) is named from his prowess.

"Asmonaeans" is the proper family designation, from Hashmon, the great grandfather of Mattathias. Aristobulus, Hyrcanus' son, succeeded as high priest, and assumed the title "king." Alexander next succeeded. Then his sons Aristobulus and Hyrcanus by their rivalries (in which for the first time the animosities of the sects, the Pharisees and Sadducees come into prominence) caused the interference of Pompey the Roman general (63 B.C.), who after a siege took the temple by storm, the priests all the time calmly performing regularly their rites, and many being slain while thus engaged. What most astonished the Romans was to find no image or shrine in the holy of holies. Pompey allowed Hyrcanus to remain high priest without the title "king." He reverently left the treasures and sprees in the temple untouched; he merely laid a tribute upon the city, and destroyed the walls. The greedy Crassus two years later (54 B.C.) not only plundered what Pompey had spared, but also what the Jews throughout the world had contributed, namely, 10,000 talents or 2,000,000 British pounds, and this though the priest in charge had given him a bar of gold on condition of his sparing everything else. Julius Caesar confirmed Hyrcanus in the high priesthood, and gave him civil power as ethnarch, and made his chief minister Antipater the Idumean, Herod's father, procurator of Judaea. (See Herod .)

Upon Antipater's assassination Herod and Phasaelus his sons, with Hyrcanus, resisted Antigonus (Aristobulus' son and Hyrcanus' nephew), who with a Parthian army attacked Jerusalem. Five hundred Parthian horsemen with Antigonus were admitted on pretence of mediating. Phasaelus was killed, Herod escaped. Hyrcanus knelt before the new king his nephew, who then bit off his ears to incapacitate him from being high priest. Herod ultimately, with the Roman governor of Syria, Sosius, took Jerusalem by siege and storm. Antigonus gave himself up from the Baris, which remained untaken, and at last was killed by Antony's command. Herod slew the chiefs of the Asmonaeans, and the whole sanhedrim, except the two great founders of the Jewish rival schools, Hillel and Shammai, and finally Hyrcanus, more than 80 years old, the last of the Asmonaeans. Still the old spirit of the Maccabees survived. Every attempt Herod made at Greek and Roman innovations upon Jewish religious feeling was followed by outbreaks. This was the case on his building a theater, with quinquennial games in honour of Caesar, at Jerusalem, and placing around trophies which the Jews believed to contain figures of men.

He enlarged the Baris at the W. end of the N. wall of the temple, built by John Hyrcanus on the foundations of Simon Maccabeus, and named it Antonia after his friend Mark Antony. He occupied the Asmonaean palace at the eastern side of the upper city adjoining the end of the bridge joining it to the S. part of the temple. He built a new palace at the N.W. corner of the upper city (where now stands the Latin convent), next the old wall, on his marriage to a priest Simon's daughter. His most magnificent work was to rebuild the temple from its foundations; two (years were spent in preparations beginning 20 or 19 B.C.), one and a half in building the porch, sanctuary, and holy of holies (16 B.C.). But the court and cloisters were not finished until eight years subsequent to the beginning of the work (9 B.C.). The bridge of Herod between the upper city and what had been the royal cloister of Solomon's palace, S.W. of the temple, was now rebuilt, of which part (Robinson's arch, so-called from its discoverer) still remains. Nor was the temple considered completed until A.D. 64, under Herod Agrippa II and the procurator Albinus.

So in  John 2:20 the Jews said to our Lord, "forty and six years has this temple been in building" (Greek), namely, 20 years from beginning the work to the era A.D. when Christ was in His fourth year, 27 years added brings us to His 30th year when He begun His ministry, so the year when the Jews said it would be the 46th or 47th year from the temple work being begun. Herod also built three great towers on the old wall in the N.W. corner near the palace, and a fourth as an outwork; called Hippicus, Phasaelus, Mariamne, and Psephinus. The Jews were indignant at his fixing a golden eagle, the symbol of Roman authority, over the sanctuary, in violation of the second commandment, and two rabbis instigated disciples to pull it down; the rabbis were burnt alive. Herod died some months after Christ's birth. (See Archelaus , on his cruelty in cutting up the clamoring Jews assembled for the Passover, and his appointment at Rome as ethnarch of Judea.) Judea was now become a Roman province, the procurator of which resided at Caesarea on the coast, not at Jerusalem. Coponius first was procurator, accompanied by Cyrenius or Quirinus, now a second time prefect of Syria, charged with carrying out the assessment ( Luke 2:2-3) which had already been prepared for in his first tenure of office at Christ's birth. (See Cyrenius .)

Coponius took possession of the high priest's state robes, which were to be put after use in a stone chamber under the seal of the priests, in charge of the captain of the guard. Christ's visit to the temple ( Luke 2:42) took place while Coponius ruled. Ambivius, Annius Rufus, and Val. Gratus successively held the office, then Pontius Pilate, Joseph Caiaphas being high priest. Pilate transferred the winter quarters of the Roman army from Caesarea to Jerusalem. The Jews resented his introduction of the eagles and images of the emperor, and they were withdrawn; also his applying the sacred revenue from redeeming vows (Corban) to an aqueduct bringing water 200 or 400 stadia (Jos. Ant. 18:3, section 2; B. J. 2:9, section 4) into the city. In A.D. 27 our Lord attended the first Passover recorded since His childhood ( John 2:13). At the Passover A.D. 30 our Lord's crucifixion and resurrection took place. Pilate was recalled in A.D. 37, and Vitellius, prefect of Syria, let the Jews again keep the high priest's vestments, and removed Caiaphas, and gave the high priesthood to Jonathan, Annas' son. Petronius superseded Vitellius, who brought an imperial order for erecting in the temple Caligula's statue.

The Jews protested against this order, and by Agrippa's intercession it was countermanded. Claudius' accession brought an edict of toleration to the Jews. (See Agrippa 'S first act in taking possession of his kingdom was to visit the temple, and sacrifice, and dedicate the golden chain with which the late emperor had presented him after his release from captivity; it was hung over the treasury. Outside the second wall, which enclosed the northern part of the central valley of the city, lay the Bezetha or new town, this Agrippa enclosed with a new and third wall, which ran from the tower Hippicus at the N.W. corner of the city northward, then by a circuit to the E., then southward until it joined the S. wall of the temple at the W. bank of Kedron valley. In A.D. 45 commenced a famine which lasted two years, and which was alleviated by Helena, queen of Adiabene, a convert to Judaism, who visited Jerusalem A.D. 46. Her tomb, three stadia from the city, formed one of the points in the course of the new wall (B.J., 5:4, section 2). Felix succeeded Cumanus at the request of the high priest, Jonathan. (See Felix .)

The Sicarii , whose creed it was to rob and murder all whom they deemed enemies of Judaism, were employed by Felix to assassinate Jonathan for remonstrating with him respecting his wicked life. The murder was committed while the high priest was sacrificing! A riot at Caesarea caused the recall of Felix, A.D. 60. Porcius Festus succeeded, who is described as upright (B.J., 2:14, section 1). (See Porcius FESTUS.) But as time went on "all things grew from worse to worse" (Ant. 20:9, section 4). Gessius Florus (A.D. 65) tested the Jews' endurance to the last point, desolating whole cities and openly allowing robbers to buy impunity in crime. He tried to get the treasure from the temple, but after plundering the upper city failed. Young Eleazar, son of Ananias, led a party which withheld the regular offerings from the Roman emperor, virtually renouncing allegiance. So the last Roman war began, in spite of the remonstrances of the peace party, who took possession of the upper city.

The insurgents from the temple and lower city, reinforced by the Sicarii, drove them out, and set on fire the Asmonaean palace, the high priest's house, and the archives repository, "the nerves of the city" (B.J., 2:17, section 6); next they slew the Roman garrison, and burnt Antonia; then they murdered treacherously the soldiers in the three great towers who had been forced out of Herod's palace after a resistance of three weeks. Next the high priest and his brother were found in the aqueduct and slain. Cestius Gallus marched from Scopus on the city through the Bezetha, but was obliged to retire from the N. wall of the temple, E. of and behind Antonia, back to Scopus, where he was utterly defeated in November, A.D. 66. C. Gallus' first advance and retreat gave the Christians the opportunity of fleeing as Christ counselled them, "when ye see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains" ( Matthew 24:16). Vespasian, until the fall of Gistala, in October or November, A.D. 67, was subduing the northern country. John son of Levi escaped to Jerusalem, and in two years and a half (A.D. 70) Titus began the siege, the Zealots then having overcome the moderate party.

The Zealots were in two parties: one under John of Giscala and Eleazar, holding the temple and Antonia, 8,400 men; the other under Simon Burgioras in the tower Phasaelus, holding the upper city, from the Coenaculum to the Latin convent, the lower city in the valley, and the Acre N. of the temple, 10,000 men and 5,000 Idumeans. Strangers and pilgrims swelled the number to 600,000 (Tacitus). Josephus says a million perished in the siege, and 40,000 were allowed to depart into the country, besides an immense number sold to the army, part of the "97,000 carried captive during the whole war" (B.J., 6:9, section 3). This number is thought an exaggeration. Our Lord's prophecy ( Luke 19:41-44) was literally fulfilled: "thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side." Out of 27 sieges this was the only one in which Jerusalem was surrounded by a wall. Titus, with 30,000 men, including four legions and auxiliaries (the 12th and 15th on Scopus far to the N., the 5th a little behind, and the 10th on Olivet), forced an entrance through the first wall by the battering ram called "the conqueror," then through the second.

Then, withdrawing the 10th from Olivet, he gave the Jews time for offering terms of peace, but in vain. Next he attacked the temple at Antonia and the city near the monument of John Hyrcanus simultaneously; but John undermined and fired at one point the Roman banks made for their batteries (catapults, balistae, and rams), and Simon assailed and fired the rams at the other point. Titus then resolved to surround the whole city with a wall, to prevent intercourse with the country on the S. and W. sides. The wall was completed in three days. Then Antonia was taken on June 11. The period of bombarding the temple is named by the Jews "the days of wretchedness." On the 28th of June the daily "sacrifice ( Daniel 9:27) ceased" from want of an officiating priest, and Titus again in vain invited to a surrender. On July 15th a soldier, contrary to Titus' intention, fired the temple, and all Titus' efforts to stop the fire were unavailing, the very same month and (day that Nebuchadnezzar burnt the first temple, God marking the judgment plainly as from Him.

Titus himself recognized this: "we fought with God on our side, it is God who pulled the Jews out of these strongholds, for what could the hands of men or machines have availed against these towers?" The infatuation and divisions of the Jews "shortened those days" in order that "the elect," the seed of future Israel "might be saved" ( Matthew 24:22). On September 11th at last the Romans gained the upper city; even still John and Simon might have made terms, had they held the three great towers which were deemed impregnable; but they fled, and were taken to grace the Roman conqueror's triumph at Rome. The city and temple were wholly burnt and destroyed, excepting the W. wall of the upper city and Herod's three great towers, which were left as memorials of the strength of the defenses. The old and weak were killed, the children under 17 sold as slaves, the rest were sent to the Egyptian mines, the amphithe tres, and Rome, where they formed part of Titus' triumphal train. The 10th legion under Terentius Rufus "so thoroughly leveled and dug up, that no one visiting Jerusalem would believe it had ever been inhabited" (Josephus B.J. 7:1, section 1), fulfilling Christ's words, cf6 "they shall lay thee even with the ground and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation" (in mercy).

The Jews revolted again under Barchochab ("son of a star") who pretended to be the Messiah prophesied of by Balaam ( Numbers 24:17), "there shall come a star out of Jacob," when the emperor Hadrian tried to colonize Jerusalem with h

Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament

1. The name .-Two forms occur in the NT: ( a ) Ιερουσαλήμ, the ‘genuinely national form,’ ‘hieratic and Hebraising,’ used ‘where a certain sacred significance is intended, or in solemn appeals’; it occurs forty times in Acts, and is also found in the letters of St. Paul, in Hebrews, and in the Apocalypse; it is indeclinable, and without the article except when accompanied by an adjective; ( b ) Ιεροσόλυμα, the hellenized form, favoured by Josephus, and occurring over twenty times in Acts, and in the narrative section of Galatians. As a rule it is a neuter plural, with or without the article. In each case the aspirate is doubtful. For a discussion of the forms see G. A. Smith, Jerusalem , i. 259ff.; W. M. Ramsay, Luke the Physician , London, 1908, p. 51ff.; and T. Zahn, Introduction to the NT , Eng. translation, Edinburgh, 1909, ii, 592ff.

2. Topography .-The chief authority for Jerusalem in the 1st cent. a.d.-its topography no less than its history-is the Jewish writer Josephus. His historical works cover the period with which we have here to deal, and it is to the details there furnished that we owe most of our knowledge of the fortunes and aspect of the city in the Apostolic Age. Any account of the topography of Jerusalem at this time must necessarily follow the descriptions of Josephus, as interpreted by the majority of modern scholars. It has always to be kept in mind, however, that there is considerable difference of opinion on many points, and that the views of the minority, or even of an individual, although we may not be able to accept them, are to be regarded with respect.

i. The City Walls, as they existed at the time of the siege in a.d. 70, first claim attention.

( a ) First Wall .-In historical order, but not according to the standpoint of the besiegers, for whom the first wall was the third, the walls of Jerusalem on the north side proceed from the interior to the exterior of the city. At all times the south side of the city had only one encompassing wall, but during most of our period there were three walls-the third only in part-upon the north side. The first of these northern walls commenced on the W. of Jerusalem near the modern Jaffa Gate, and ran in an easterly direction along the northern face of the so-called S. W. Hill, crossing the Tyropœon Valley, which then markedly divided the city from N. to S., and joining the W. wall of the Temple enclosure. At its W. extremity it was marked by the three towers of Herod the Great-Hippicus, Phasaël, and Mariamne (or Mariamme); and at the Temple end it ran near to the bridge which gave access from the S. W. Hill to the outer court of the Temple. This point is now marked by the modern Bab es-Silsileh , and Wilson’s Arch found here stands over the remains of an older bridge which is doubtless the viaduct of Josephus’s time. From the Tower of Hippicus the wall ran southwards and followed approximately the line of the modern W. wall, but it extended further south, turning S. E. along Maudslay’s Scarp and proceeding in a straight course to the Pool of Siloam, at the mouth of the Tyropaeon Valley. At this time the pool possibly lay outside the wali (F. J. Bliss and A. C. Dickie, Excavations at Jerusalem, 1894-1897 , pp. 304, 325), although G. A. Smith places it inside ( Jerusalem , i. 224). After crossing the Tyropaeon, at some point or other, the wall was continued in a N.E. direction, running along the slope of Ophel to join the Temple enclosure at its S.E. angle. A considerable part of this wall upon the S. side of the city has been excavated by Warren, Guthe, Bliss, and Dickie. The last two explorers found remains of two walls with a layer of debris between. Bliss is of opinion that the under wall is the one destroyed by Titus, and he says further: ‘There is no evidence, nor is it probable, that the south line was altered between the time of Nehemiah and that of Titus’ ( Excav. at Jerus. , p. 319).

We are here concerned with the subsequent history of the wall upon the S. side only in so far as after the destruction by Titus it appears to have been rebuilt on a new line to form the S. side of the Roman camp upon the S.W. Hill, this being the line of the modern city wall on the S. The part upon the W., together with Herod’s three towers, was spared by Titus and utilized by him for the ‘Camp.’ So also, we may infer, was the wall skirting the W. side of the Tyropaeon, running N. and S. from the neighbourhood of the bridge to the region of the Pool of Siloam to form the E. boundary of the S.W. Hill. This wall is not mentioned by Josephus, but its presence may be concluded from the fact that Titus had to commence siege operations anew against that division of the city which stood on the S.W. Hill (‘the Upper City’). According to C. W. Wilson, the ground enclosed by the walls of the Upper City extended to 74½ acres. The new wall drawn on the S. side over the summit of the hill reduced the area to about 48½ acres, only a little short of the normal dimensions of a ‘Camp’ ( Golgotha and the Holy Sepulchre , p. 143f.

( b ) Second Wall .-According to Josephus, this commenced at the Gate Genath (or Gennath) in the First Wall, and circled round the N. quarter of the city, running up to Antonia, the castle situated at the N.W. corner of the Temple area. It had fourteen*[Note: τέσσαρας καὶ δέκα (Niese); Whiston reads ‘forty’ (BJ v. iv. 3).]towers, compared with sixty on the First Wall and ninety on the Third. Its extent was therefore limited in comparison with the others. There is much discussion as to its actual line in view of the importance of this for the determination of the site of Golgotha and the Holy Sepulchre. This is a question that falls to be treated under the Gospel Age, although we have an interest in the projection of the wall towards the N., since upon this depends the view taken of the line of the Third Wall. With the majority of modern investigators we decide for a limited compass, no part being further N. than the extremity which went up from the Tyropaeon to Antonia. The Gate Genath has not been located, but it must have been in the neighbourhood of the three great towers, and perhaps lay inside of all three. C. M. Watson concludes from a study of the records and from personal investigation of the site that the Second Wall was most probably built by Antipater, father of Herod the Great. He interprets Josephus as speaking of ‘a new construction necessitated by the growth of the new suburb on the northwestern hill’ ( The Story of Jerusalem , p. 85). The Second Wall is usually identified with the North Wall of Nehemiah (Smith, Jerusalem , i. 204). In the opinion of Smith ‘we do not know how the Second Wall ran from the First to the Tyropaeon; we do not know whether it ran inside or outside the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre’ ( ib. p. 249). Wilson also leaves the question open ( Golgotha , p. 137).

(c) Third Wall .-As already noted, the line of the Third Wall is bound up with the question of the line of the Second Wall. Following Robinson, both Merrill ( Ancient Jerusalem , ch. xxiv.) and Paton ( Jerusalem in Bible Times , pp. 111-115) place it a considerable distance N. of the modern city wall. Most other students of the subject are content to accept the present North Wall as marking the site of the Third or Agrippa’s Wall. Conder ( The City of Jerusalem , pp. 162-166) occupies an intermediate position, giving a northerly extension beyond the present limits only on the side W. of the Damascus Gate. The wall was commenced about a.d. 41 on a colossal plan; but, suspicion having been aroused, operations had to be suspended by order of Claudius. The wall was hurriedly completed before the days of the siege. The main purpose of the Third Wall was to enclose within the fortified area of the city the new suburb of Bezetha, which had grown up since Herod the Great’s time on the ridge N. of the Temple and Antonia. The most conspicuous feature on the wall was the Tower of Psephinus at the N.W. corner, which is named in conjunction with the three great towers of Herod, and may have existed at an earlier time (Smith, Jerusalem , ii. 487), being also the work of Herod ( Encyclopaedia Biblica ii. 2428). The W. extremity of the wall was at Hippicus; the N.W. point at Psephinus; the N.E. point, according to Josephus, at the Tower of the Corner, opposite the ‘Monument of the Fuller’; and the E. extremity at the old wall in the Kidron Valley, i.e. the N.E. point of the Temple enclosure. Merrill’s view ( Anc. Jerus. , pp. 44, 51) is that the line of this wall in its southerly trend would cut the line of the present wall a little E. of Herod’s Gate; in other words, the present N.E. corner of the city was not within the walls of Jerusalem before its destruction by Titus. This view has much to commend it, although it is not admitted by those who advocate that the Third Wall followed the line of the present wall in its entire course (Smith, Jerusalem , i. 245ff.).

ii. Temple Walls.-The remainder of the perimeter of the outer wall of Jerusalem was made up by the E. wall of the Temple, which in Herod’s time coincided with the city wall (Smith, Jerusalem , i. 234f.). The enclosure of the sanctuary did not, however, extend so far N. as it does to-day. Warren’s Scarp, as it is called, marks the N. limit of the outer court of Herod’s temple ( Expository Times xx. [1903-09] 66). This would cut the E. wall only slightly N. of the present Golden Gate. An extension to the N. was perhaps made by Agrippa I. (Smith, Jerusalem , i. 237f.), but even then the N. boundary must have fallen considerably short of the present wall. The fore-court of Antonia must therefore have projected some distance into the present Ḥaram area, and the rock on which the castle stood, while scarped on the other three sides, must on the S. have formed part of the same ridge as that on which the Temple lay. The N. Temple area wall presumably joined this rock, while the W. Temple area wall started from the S.W. point of the fore-court of Antonia and ran S. to meet the S. wall lower down the Tyropaeon Valley. Examination of the rock levels has proved that the S.W. corner of the Temple area is upon the far side of the valley, i.e. upon the S.W. Hill.

A proper understanding of this complex of walls is essential to an appreciation of Josephus’s narrative of the siege of a.d. 70, which in turn gives the key to the whole situation within Jerusalem in the time of the apostles. The city was fortified in virtue of its complete circuit of walls. When the most northerly wall was breached it still was fortified by the second N. wall and all that remained. When the second wall was taken, access was given to the commercial suburb (προάστειον) in the Upper Tyropaeon Valley. Antonia formed a fortress by itself, likewise the Temple both in its outer court and in the inner sanctuary. After the Temple was taken the way was open to the ‘Lower City’ and the Akra, which is almost synonymous with the ‘Lower City,’ i.e. the Lower Tyropaeon Valley from the First Wall to the Pool of Siloam together with the S.E. Hill, of which Ophlas formed a part. Lastly, the S.W. Hill, on which stood the ‘Upper City’ with the ‘Upper Agora,’ was completely fortified, and doubtless the Palace of Herod at the N.W. corner of the ‘Upper City’ also was a strong place within four walls, with the three great towers upon the N. side.

iii. Changes in the City during the Apostolic Age.-While there was nothing to equal the great building achievements of Herod the Great, activity was by no means stayed during the interval between the Death of Christ and the Destruction of Jerusalem (circa, abouta.d. 30-70). This we judge from the fact that it was not until c. [Note: . circa, about.]a.d. 64 that operations in the courts of the Temple were at an end. Even then the cessation of work involved about 18,000 men. To prevent disaffection and privation, they were transferred with the sanction of Agrippa II. to the work of paving the streets of the city (Jos. Ant. XX. ix. 7). Reference has already been made to the building of the Third Wall during the reign of Agrippa I., and this was necessitated by the growth of the suburb Bezetha, or New Town, lying north of Antonia and the Temple on the N.E. ridge. The Lower Aqueduct, which brought water to the Temple enclosure from a distance of 200 stadia, is ascribed to Pontius Pilate during the years preceding his recall and was in a way responsible for his demission of office (a.d. 36). Several palaces were built at this time-all overlooking the Tyropaeon: that of Bernice, near the Palace of the Hasmonaeans (see below); of Helena, Queen of Adiabene, who was resident in Jerusalem during the great famine ( Acts 11:28); of Monobazus, her son; and of Grapte, a near relative. Agrippa II. enlarged the Hasmonaean Palace, which was situated on the S.W. Hill near the bridge over the Tyropaeon, and when finished overlooked the sanctuary. This was a cause of friction, and led to the building of a screen within the sacred area ( Ant. XX. viii. 11). Most of these notable buildings were destroyed or plundered during the faction fights on the eve of the siege ( Bellum Judaicum (Josephus) ii. xvii. 6, IV. ix. 11) and during its course (vi. vii. 1).

While stone was freely used in construction, it ought to be realized that timber also played a large part-much more so than at the present day (Merrill, Anc. Jerus. , pp. 136, 150, 152). The Timber Market was in Bezetha, the new suburb. For ordinary building purposes wood was brought from a distance, but during the siege the Romans availed themselves of the trees growing in the environs, totally altering the external aspect of the city. Still more fatal to its beauty was the havoc wrought by fire within the Temple area, and in the various quarters of the city after the victory of the Romans, and most of all in the execution of Titus’s order to raze the city to the ground. In spite of Josephus’s testimony, all writers are not of one mind regarding the extent of the ruin. Thus Wilson says of the ‘Upper City’ at least: ‘Many houses must have remained intact. The military requirements of the Roman garrison necessitated some demolition; but there is no evidence that a plough was passed over the ruins, or that Titus ever intended that the city should never be rebuilt’ ( Golgotha , p. 52; cf. Merrill, Anc. Jerus. , p. 179).

iv. Sacred sites pertaining to the Apostolic Age.-For this department of our subject we must call in the aid of tradition, in so far as this appears to be in any measure worthy of credence. The sites to be dealt with are mostly suggested by the narrative of the Book of Acts.

( a ) The Caenaculum .-Outside the present S. city wall on the S.W. Hill lies a complex of buildings, which since the 16th cent. have been in Moslem possession and are termed en-Nebi Dâ’ûd . Underground is supposed to be the Tomb of David, but this part is not open to the inspection of Christians. Immediately above this is a vaulted room (showing 14th cent. architecture), which is now identified with the ‘large upper room’ in which the Last Supper was held, where Christ appeared to His disciples, in which the early Christians assembled, and where the Holy Ghost was given. It is supposed to be the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark. According to a later tradition-which probably arose from a confusion of this Mary with the Mother of Jesus-this is also the scene of the death of the Virgin. Here also Stephen was thought to be martyred (still later). The earliest tradition with which we are here concerned dates from the 4th cent, a.d., being preserved by Epiphanius ( de Mens. et Pond . xiv. [Migne, Patr. Graeca , xliii. col. 259ff.]; cf. Wilson, Golgotha , p. 173):

‘He [Hadrian] found the whole city razed to the ground, and the Temple of the Lord trodden under foot, there being only a few houses standing, and the Church of God, a small building, on the place where the disciples on their return from the Mount of Olives, after the Saviour’s Ascension, assembled in the upper chamber. This was built in the part of Sion which had escaped destruction, together with some buildings round about Sion, and seven synagogues that stood alone in Sion like cottages.’

Since then there have been many changes in the buildings themselves and in their owners, but the tradition has been constant. What it is worth still awaits the test, but, as Stanley says: ‘there is one circumstance which, if proved, would greatly endanger the claims of the “Caenaculum.” It stands above the vault of the traditional Tomb of David, and we can hardly suppose that any residence, at the time of the Christian era, could have stood within the precincts of the Royal Sepulchre’ ( Sinai and Palestine , new ed., London, 1877, p. 456). It may be noted that the Tomb of David is now sought, although it has not been found, on the S.E. Hill, where, in the opinion of most, the ‘City of David,’ or Zion, lay (Paton, Jerusalem , p. 74f.). From the language of  Acts 2:29 the tomb was evidently in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem (cf. Ant. XIII. viii. 4, XVI. vii. 1, Bellum Judaicum (Josephus) I. ii. 5). Sanday is prepared to give the tradition about the Caenaculum ‘an unqualified adhesion’ ( Sacred Sites of the Gospels , p. 78), and proceeds to argue the matter at length (pp. 78-88). His argument is contested by G. A. Smith ( Jerusalem , ii. 567ff.), whose opinion is that ‘while the facts alleged (by Dr. Sanday) are within the bounds of possibility, they are not very probable’ (p. 568). Wilson is more favourable, and thinks that here ‘amidst soldiers and civilians drawn from all parts of the known world, the Christians may have settled down on their return from Pella, making many converts and worshipping in a small building [see Epiphanius, as above] which in happier times was to become the “Mother Church of Sion,” the “mother of all the churches” ’ ( Golgotha , p. 54; cf. T. Zahn, Introduction to the NT , ii. 447f.).

( b ) The Temple and its precincts .-Although tradition has fixed on one spot as being the special meeting-place of the first Christians, there can be no doubt they still continued to frequent the Temple. While they had indeed become Christians they did not cease to be Jews, at least not that section which remained in Jerusalem during the years preceding the Fall of the city. Accordingly we find in the Book of Acts a considerable body of evidence regarding the presence of Christians in and about the Temple. A detailed notice of all these references properly belongs to another article (Temple), but a brief mention of those concerning the environs may here be made.

(α) ‘Peter and John were going up into the temple at the hour of prayer’ ( Acts 3:1). This is topographically exact, whether we take the outer court or the sanctuary proper, which only Jews could enter ( Acts 21:28 ff.). There were ramps and stairs and steps at many points. An exception would have to be made if we accepted Conder’s identification of the Beautiful Door or Gate ( Acts 3:2;  Acts 3:10) as being the main entrance on the W., ‘probably at the end of the bridge leading to the Royal Cloister’ ( The City of Jerusalem , p. 129). But for several reasons this cannot be entertained. A. R. S. Kennedy has shown ( Expository Times xx. 270ff.; cf. Schürer, History of the Jewish People (Eng. tr. of GJV).] ii i. [1885] 280) that the Beautiful Door is to be sought in the inner courts, and preferably on the E. side of the Court of the Women. Little value can be attached to the tradition that the Golden Gate above the Kidron Valley is the gate referred to in  Acts 3:2.

(β) The porch or portico along the E. side of the Temple area is the Solomon’s Porch of  Acts 3:11;  Acts 5:12. Its appearance may be realized from the frontispiece (by P. Waterhouse) of Sacred Sites of the Gospels , where a full view is given of the so-called Royal Porch on the S. side. This is generally supposed to have had an exit on the W. by a bridge crossing the Tyropaeon (see Conder, above) at Robinson’s Arch, but Kennedy has shown that nearly all moderns are in error about this ( Expository Times xx. 67; cf. Jos. Ant. XV. xi. 5). On the W. and N. sides there were also porches or cloisters which met at the entrance to Antonia.

( c ) Antonia .-This fortress is about the most certainly defined spot within the walls of Jerusalem. To-day it is occupied in part by the Turkish barracks, on the N.W. of the Ḥaram area. In Herod the Great’s time the castle was re-built on a grand scale and strongly fortified. Later it was occupied as a barracks (παρεμβολή,  Acts 21:34;  Acts 21:37, etc.) by the Romans, who here maintained a legion (τάγμα [ Bellum Judaicum (Josephus) v. v. 8], understood by Schürer [ History of the Jewish People (Eng. tr. of GJV).] I. ii. (1890) 55] as = ‘cohort’; this is not accepted by Merrill [ Anc. Jerus . 216f.]). As shown above, it is probable that some slight re-adjustment of the forecourt of Antonia and of the N. side of the Temple area had taken place in the interval following Herod the Great’s reign. From the vivid narrative of  Acts 21:27 ff. it is evident that the Temple area was at a lower level than the Castle, for stairs led down to the court. According to Josephus ( Bellum Judaicum (Josephus) v. v. 8), on the corner where Antonia joined the N. and W. cloisters of the Temple it had gangways down to them both for the passage of the guard at the Jewish festivals. While the exact plan of the ground can hardly be determined, there seems to be no justification for ‘a valley’ and ‘a double bridge,’ as supposed by Sunday and Water-house ( Sacred Sites , p. 108 and plan [p. 116]; cf. Smith, Jerusalem , ii. 499 n.[Note: . note.]). By cutting down the cloisters a barricade could be erected to prevent entrance to the Temple courts from the Castle, as was done by the Jews in the time of Florus (a.d. 66 [ Bellum Judaicum (Josephus) II. xv. 6; cf. VI. ii. 9, iii. 1]). Opinion is divided as to whether the Roman procurator made his headquarters in Antonia or in Herod’s Palace on the S.W. Hill, but the evidence seems to be in favour of the latter. This appears most clearly from the proceedings in the time of Florus ( Bellum Judaicum (Josephus) II. xiv. 8, 9; see Wilson, Golgotha , p. 41f.; Smith, Jerusalem , ii. 573ff.). Antonia was certainly used as a place of detention, as is plain from  Acts 22:30. This leads us to remark on the position of-

( d ) The Council House .-The meeting-place of the Sanhedrin in apostolic times is of some importance in view of the experience of St. Peter, St. John, and St. Paul. From data provided by Josephus we judge that it lay between the Xystus and the W. porch of the Temple, i.e. near the point where the bridge crossed the Tyropaeon. From Josephus ( Bellum Judaicum (Josephus) VI. vi. 3) we also infer that it was in the ‘Lower City,’ for it perished together with Akra and the place called Ophlas. It is reasonable to seek in proximity to the Council House the prison of  Acts 4:3;  Acts 5:18; that of  Acts 12:4 was probably in connexion with the Palace of Herod, where presumably Agrippa I. lived and maintained his own guard (see Ant. XIX. vii. 3). The traditional spot was shown in the 12th cent. E. of where this palace stood, in the heart of the ‘Upper City,’ while the present Zion Gate upon the S. was taken to be the iron gate of  Acts 12:10 (Conder, The City of Jerusalem , p. 16).

( e ) Sites associated with the proto-martyrs .-(1) St. Stephen.-The association of St. Stephen with the Caenaculum dates from the 8th cent., and with the modern Bâb Sitti Maryam (St. Stephen’s Gate) from the 15th century. These traditions may be ignored, and attention fixed on the site N. of the city, where Eudocia’s Church was built as early as the 5th century. Its site was recovered in 1881. It must be recalled that when St. Stephen perished (between a.d. 33 and 37) the Third wall was not in existence, and the total irregularity of the proceedings at his stoning leads us to think that he was killed at the readiest point outside the city. If on the N. side, as the tradition bound up with Eudocia’s Church seems to imply, it would probably be outside the gate of the Second Wall.

(2) James the Great, the brother of John, is supposed to have been beheaded in a prison now marked by the W. aisle of the Church of St. James in the Armenian Quarter-a tradition of no value. It is worthy of note, however, that, as in the case of St. Peter, the spot is not remote from the Palace of Herod.

(3) James the Just, ‘the brother of Jesus, who was called the Christ’ ( Ant. XX. ix. 1), according to Hegesippus (preserved in Eusebius, HE [Note: E Historia Ecclesiastica (Eusebius, etc.).]ii. xxiii. 4ff.) also suffered a violent death (circa, abouta.d. 62) after a mode which is very improbable (see Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) , article‘James,’ § 3), the stoning excepted, to which Josephus testifies. The Grotto of St. James near the S.E. corner of the Temple area, on the E. side of Kidron, is supposed to be his tomb (15th cent. tradition), or preferably his hiding-place (6th cent. tradition). While the tomb is as old as the days of the Apostle, or even older, the inscription above its entrance bears reference to the B e nê Ḥezir (S. R. Driver, Notes on Heb. Text of Books of Samuel 2, 1913, p. xxi).

( f ) The tree (with the bridge) where Judas hanged himself , and Akeldama , the field of blood ( Acts 1:19), are shown, but there are rival sites for the latter, and the former has often changed (Conder, The City of Jerusalem , p. 18f.).

( g ) Sites associated with the Virgin .-Besides the tradition of the Dormitio Sanctae Mariae , the scene of the Virgin’s death, in proximity to the Caenaculum, the Tomb of the Virgin is marked by a church, originating in the 5th cent., in the valley of the Kidron, outside St. Stephen’s Gate (Sanday, Sacred Sites , p. 85).

( h ) The scene of the Ascension .-Discarding  Luke 24:50, Christian tradition early laid hold upon the summit of the Mount of Olives (cf.  Acts 1:12) as the scene of the Ascension. The motive for this will he understood from what has been written by Eusebius ( Demons. Evang . vi. 18 [Migne, Patr. Graeca , xxii. col. 457f.]; cf. Wilson, Golgotha , p. 172):

‘All believers in Christ flock together from all quarters of the earth, not as of old to behold the beauty of Jerusalem, or that they may worship in the former Temple which stood in Jerusalem, but that they may abide there, and both hear the story of Jerusalem, and also worship in the Mount of Olives over against Jerusalem, whither the glory or the Lord removed itself, leaving the earlier city. There, also, according to the published record, the feet of our Lord and Saviour, who was Himself the Word, and, through it, took upon Himself human form, stood upon thy Mourn of Olives near the cave which is now pointed out there.’

Constantine erected a basilica on the summit, where the Chapel of the Ascension now stands. His mother, the Empress Helena, built a church at the same point, and another, called the Eleona, to mark the cave where Christ taught His disciples (Watson, Jerusalem , p. 124). The latter has recently been discovered and excavated ( Revue Biblique , 1911, pp. 219-265).

3. History

i. Jerusalem under Roman Procurators; Agrippa i and Agrippa ii. (a.d. 30-70).-The writings of Josephus afford evidence that it is possible to narrate the history of events in Jerusalem during the Apostolic Age without reference to the Christians. From our point of view we must sit loose to the fortunes of the Jews as such, in whom Josephus was interested; but for a due appreciation of the history of the Christian Church in Jerusalem a sketch of contemporary events must first be given, special note being made of points of contact with the narrative of Acts.

Pontius Pilate continued in office for some years after the Death of Christ. At the beginning of his term (a.d. 26) he had shown marked disregard for the feelings of the Jews by introducing ensigns bearing images of Caesar into Jerusalem. Later, he gave further offence by appropriating the Corban in order to carry out his scheme for the improvement of the water-supply of the city and of the Temple. Even though the work proceeded, Pilate’s cruelty in this instance was not forgotten and helped to swell the account against him, which resulted in his recall for trial (a.d. 36). Vitellius , governor of Syria, paid a visit to Jerusalem at the Passover of the same year, and adopted a more conciliatory policy, remitting the market-toll and restoring the high-priestly vestments to the custody of the Jews. The procurators of Caligula’s reign (a.d. 37-41) may be left out of account.

The government now passed into the hands of King Agrippa i. , who ruled in Jerusalem during the last years that the apostles as a body continued there (a.d. 41-44). Agrippa had already rendered service to the nation of the Jews by preventing Caligula from setting up his statue in the Temple. He was promoted by Claudius to be King of Judaea , as his grandfather Herod had been. He journeyed to Jerusalem, and as a thank-offering dedicated and deposited in the Temple a chain of gold, the gift of Caligula, in remembrance of the term he had passed in prison before good fortune attended him.

While keeping the favour of the Emperor, he also took measures further to ingratiate himself with the Jews. According to Josephus, so good a Jew was he that he omitted nothing that the Law required, and he loved to live continually at Jerusalem ( Ant. XIX. vii. 3). His Jewish, or rather his Pharisaical, policy seems to have been at the root of his scheme for building the Third Wall, and also explains his persecution of the Christians ( Acts 12:3). His coins circulating in Jerusalem bore no image, as an accommodation to Jewish scruples. Outside the Holy City, however, he was as much under the influence of the Graeco-Roman culture of the age as his grandfather had been. After his death, in the manner described in  Acts 12:23 (cf. Ant. XIX. viii. 2; see articleJosephus), Palestine reverted to the rule of procurators, so far as civil administration was concerned. In religious matters control was entrusted to Agrippa’s brother, Herod the King of Chalcis, whom the younger Agrippa succeeded. Hence the intervention of the latter at the trial of St. Paul (Ac 25:13ff-26). With one or two exceptions the procurators who followed were distasteful to the Jews, whose discontent worked to a head in a.d. 66, when the open breach with Rome occurred.

Under Cuspius Fadus (a.d. 44-46) the custody of the high-priestly vestments was resumed by the Roman authorities, and once more they were guarded in Antonia, but this was countermanded upon a direct application of the Jews to Claudius. During the rule of Fadus and his successor Tiberius Alexander (a.d. 46-48) the people of Jerusalem, like their brethren throughout Judaea , were oppressed by the great famine ( Acts 11:28 ff.), which Queen Helena of Adiabene, now resident in Jerusalem (see above), did much to relieve ( Ant. XX. ii. 5, v. 2; cf. articleFamine). In the time of Ventidius Cumanus (a.d. 48-52) the impious act of a Roman soldier at the Passover season led to serious collision with the Roman power and to great loss of life ( Ant. XX. v. 3, Bellum Judaicum (Josephus) II. xii. 1). This was the first of a series of troubles that led to Cumanus being recalled. Antonius Felix (a.d. 52-60) was sent in his stead, and under him matters proceeded from bad to worse. Owing to the violent methods of the Sicarii , life in Jerusalem became unsafe, and even the high priest Jonathan fell a victim to their daggers. Not only against Rome was there revolt, but also on the part of the priests against the high priests ( Ant. XX. viii. 8). The events recorded in Acts 23, 24 fall within the last two years of Felix’s rule. Porcius Festus (60-62) succeeded Felix, and died in office. In the confusion following his death, which was fomented by Ananus the high priest, Agrippa II. intervened, and Ananus was displaced, but not before James, the brother of Christ, had suffered martyrdom at his hands ( Ant. XX, ix. 1). The date (a.d. 62) is regarded as doubtful by Schürer ( History of the Jewish People (Eng. tr. of GJV).] i. ii. 187). Albinus (a.d. 62-64) devoted his energies to making himself rich, and under him anarchy prevailed, which became even worse under Gessius Florus (a.d. 64-66). His appropriation of the Temple treasures precipitated the great revolt from Rome, which ended with the Destruction of Jerusalem (Sept., a.d. 70).

Agrippa ii . enters into the history of Jerusalem during the procuratorship of Festus, whose services he enlisted against the priests in their building of a wall within the Temple area counter to his heightened Palace (see above). Along with his sister Bernice he sought in other ways, outwardly at least, to conciliate the Jews. While Bernice performed a vow according to prescribed ritual ( Bellum Judaicum (Josephus) II. xv. 1), Agrippa showed some zeal, but little discretion, in matters affecting the Temple. His efforts at mediation upon the outbreak of hostilities were in vain; he was forced to take sides with Rome, and appears in attendance upon Titus after he assumed the command.

The harrowing details of the last four years preceding the Fall of Jerusalem, the factions, privations, bloodshed, and ruin, lie apart from the history of the Apostolic Church, and are here omitted. At an early stage of the war the Christians escaped to Pella beyond Jordan ( Historia Ecclesiastica (Eusebius, etc.)iii. v. 3), where they remained till peace was concluded and a return made possible. This is usually dated fully half a century later, after the founding of the Roman city aelia Capitolina in the reign of Hadrian (a.d. 136), but nothing is known for certain beyond the fact of the return (Epiphanius, de Mens. et Pond. xv. [Migne, Patr. Graeca , xliii. col. 261f.]). Some would date the return as early as a.d. 73 (see Wilson, Golgotha , p. 54f.).

ii. The Christians in Jerusalem.-Apart from the Book of Acts there is little information regarding the Christians during the years that they tarried in Jerusalem. A not unlikely tradition gives twelve years as the period that the Twelve remained at the first centre of the Church. After that arose persecution and consequent dispersion. This may be dated in the short reign of Agrippa I. (a.d. 41-44). Subsequent to this the Church in Jerusalem, which from the first had been Jewish-Christian, became pronouncedly Judaistic, perhaps an essential to its own preservation. Up to the time of the revolt (a.d. 66], while there were indeed conflicts with the Jewish authorities, more or less coincident with interregna in the procuratorship, there was no open breach. The sect was tolerated, as others were, by the Jewish leaders, so long as there was outward conformity to the ritual of the Temple. The progressive movement in Christianity was external to Jerusalem and even to Palestine; the Church in the metropolis of the faith became increasingly conservative, and in the end ceased to have any standing within the Church Catholic. But this did not take place until the post-Apostolic Age. Attention must be fixed chiefly on the first few decades following the Death of Christ, years in which originated much that became permanent within the Church as well as features that were destined to pass away.

( a ) The disciples and the Lord .-Throughout the Book of Acts emphasis is laid upon the fact that Christ had risen from the dead. So far as can be discovered, the first Christians had no concern for the scene of the Crucifixion nor yet for the empty tomb. It was not until the 4th cent. a.d. that these spots, so venerated in after ages, came to be marked by a Christian edifice. The thoughts of the early Christians were upon the living and not the dead. They cherished the hope of the speedy return of Christ to earth in all the glory of His Second Coming, and reckoned that they lived in the time of the end, when the fullness of Messiah’s Kingdom was about to be ushered in. This being the case, they made no provision for posterity in the way of erecting memorials to the Christ who had sojourned among them in the flesh, and, as the extracts from Patristic writers (see small type above) reveal, after ‘sacred sites’ began to be marked, they were those associated with the post-resurrection life of the Lord.

( b ) Relation of the Christians to other dwellers in the city .-The desire to make converts to the faith must have brought the Christians into contact with their fellow-citizens and with those of the Dispersion who chanced to be present in the city. Their assembling in the Temple, for instance, was not simply to fulfil the Law ( Acts 3:1), nor yet for the sake of meeting with each other (5:12), but to work upon the mass of the people through the words and wonders of the apostles. Only by public activity could the numbers have grown with the rapidity and to the extent they did. Of necessity this propaganda was attended by a measure of opposition from those who were the traditional enemies of the Lord. But, so long as Roman rule was exercised, persecution could not make headway. While thus mixing to some extent with other elements in the city, the Christians also lived a life apart for purposes of instruction and fellowship, and for the performance of the simple ritual of the faith ( Acts 2:42;  Acts 12:12, etc.). There is no evidence that they possessed any special building like a synagogue. A private house, such as that of Mary, the mother of John Mark, would have served their purpose, and according to tradition (see above) this was the recognized centre. Even at the time of the so-called Council ( Acts 15:6) no indication is given that the assembly was convened in an official building.

( c ) Organization .-Those who had companied with Jesus in the days of His public ministry were from the outset regarded as leaders in the Church, and were in possession of special gifts and powers. To the Twelve, who were Hebrews, there were shortly added the Seven, perhaps as an accommodation to the Hellenists ( Acts 6:1). This step probably marks the first cleavage in the ranks of the Christians, as they began to be called, and paved the way for the wider breach which in a few years severed those at the ancient centre of Jewish faith and practice from the numerically stronger division of Gentile believers in other places. Harnack regards it as possible that the Seven were ‘Hellenistic rivals of the Twelve’ ( The Constitution and Law of the Church , 30), the chief being St. Stephen, whose adherents were persecuted after his death, the apostles themselves being let alone ( The Mission and Expansion of Christianity 2, i. 50f.; cf.  Acts 8:1).

The appointment of the Seven reveals the fact that in one respect the initial practice of the Christians had been tentative and could not be sustained. The community of goods, which theoretically was an ideal system, ultimately proved unworkable, and was not imitated in other Christian communities. The poverty of the mother Church, which continued after Gentile churches had been planted at many points, has been regarded as the outcome of this experiment, but it is likely that the causes of this poverty in Jerusalem lay deeper than that. G. A. Smith ( Jerusalem , ii. 563) has shown that Jerusalem is naturally a poor city, and he attributes her chronic poverty to the inadequacy of her own resources and the many non-productive members her population contained. These conditions were not altered in apostolic times. In view of the circumstance that at a comparatively late stage the further commission was given to St. Paul and Barnabas to remember the poor ( Galatians 2:10), i.e. at Jerusalem, this may conceivably be grounded not upon special need but upon the analogy of the tribute paid by those of the Diaspora to headquarters. ‘The church at Jerusalem, together with the primitive apostles, considered themselves the central body of Christendom, and also the representatives of the true Israel’ (Harnack, Mission and Expansion 2, i. 330f.).

( d ) The position of James, the Lord’s brother .-More than any of the Twelve, who at first were so prominent, is James, the Lord’s brother, associated with the Church in Jerusalem. He appears suddenly in Acts as possessed of authority equal to that of the greatest of the apostles, and at the Council he occupies the position of president. When St. Paul visited the city for the last time he reported himself to James and the elders. From extracts of Hegesippus preserved by Eusebius, and from Eusebius himself, we learn that James owed his outstanding position to his personal worth, as also to his relationship to Jesus, and it seems evident that he was the leading representative of Judaistic Christianity, of that section which by its adherence to the Law and the Temple was able to maintain itself in Jerusalem after others, even the chief apostles, had been compelled to leave the city. But James also suffered martyrdom (see above, 2, iv. ( e )). He was followed by his cousin Symeon, whom Hegesippus (Euseb.) styles ‘second bishop.’

There is great diversity of opinion as to when this appointment was made (Wilson, Golgotha , p. 55n.). The date of his death is placed c. [Note: . circa, about.]a.d. 107. As Eusebius learned that until the siege of Hadrian (a.d. 135) there were fifteen bishops, all said to be of Hebrew descent ( HE [Note: E Historia Ecclesiastica (Eusebius, etc.).]iv. v. 2), the tradition is hard to believe. Harnack thinks that relatives of Jesus or presbyters may be included in the number ( Mission and Expansion 2, ii. 97).

( e ) Effect of the Fall of Jerusalem upon the Church there .-The final destruction of the city in a.d. 70 is generally regarded as crucial not only for the Jews but also for the Christians, not because the latter were present at the time, but because there had perforce to be a severance from the former ways now that the Temple had ceased to be. But the importance of this event has been over-rated (A. C. McGiffert, The Apostolic Age , p. 546). As regards the Church Catholic, the centre, or centres, had already been moved, while the local church, which escaped the terrors of the siege, was small, tending indeed to extinction. The Church in aelia Capitolina was Gentile-Christian, with Mark as first bishop. It fashioned for itself a new Zion, on the S.W. Hill; and when in the 3rd cent. Jerusalem became a resort of pilgrims, the ‘sacred sites’ did not include the Temple area, the Jewish Zion, which indeed was regarded by the Christians ‘with an aversion which is really remarkable, and which increased as years passed by’ (Watson, Jerusalem , p. 119).

Literature.-( a ) Contemporary authorities and Patristic works are frequently cited in the article, and need not be repeated.-( b ) Dictionary articles are numerous: Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) , Hastings’ Single-vol. Dictionary of the Bible , Dict. of Christ and the Gospels , Encyclopaedia Biblica , Jewish Encyclopedia , etc.-( c ) Of topographical works those found of most service are: C. W. Wilson, Golgotha and the Holy Sepulchre , London, 1906; G. A. Smith, Jerusalem , do. 1907-08; L. B. Paton, Jerusalem in Bible Times , Chicago and London, 1908; C. R. Conder, The City of Jerusalem , London, 1909; S. Merrill, Ancient Jerusalem , London and New York, 1908; C. M. Watson, The Story of Jerusalem , do. 1912; F. J. Bliss and A. C. Dickie, Excavations at Jerusalem, 1894-97 , London, 1898; W. Sanday and P. Waterhouse, Sacred Sites of the Gospels , Oxford, 1903. Other works not already cited: K. Baedeker, Palestine and Syria , Leipzig, 1912, pp. 19-90; F. Bnhl, Geog. des alten Palästina , Freiburg and Leipzig, 1896, pp. 144-154; H. Vincent, Jérusalem antique , Paris, 1913ff.-( d ) Historical works  : E. Schürer, History of the Jewish People (Eng. tr. of GJV).] , Edinburgh, 1885-91; A. C. McGiffert, A History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age , do. 1897, pp. 36-93, 549-568; C. von Weizsäcker, The Apostolic Age of the Christian Church 2, Eng. translation, London, 1897-98, bk. i. chs. i.-iv., bk. ii. ch. iii., bk. iv. ch. i., bk. v. ch. ii.; A. Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries 2, Eng. translation, do. 1908, i. 44-64, 182-184, ii. 97-99, The Constitution and Law of the Church in the First Two Centuries , Eng. translation, do. 1910, pp. 1-39.

W. Cruickshank.

Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary

formerly called Jebus, or Salem,  Joshua 18:28;  Hebrews 7:2 , the capital of Judea, situated partly in the tribe of Benjamin, and partly in that of Judah. It was not completely reduced by the Israelites till the reign of David,  2 Samuel 5:6-9 . As Jerusalem was the centre of the true worship,  Psalms 122:4 , and the place where God did in a peculiar manner dwell, first in the tabernacle,  2 Samuel 6:7;  2 Samuel 6:12;  1 Chronicles 15:1;  1 Chronicles 16:1;  Psalms 132:13;  Psalms 135:2 , and afterward in the temple,  1 Kings 6:13; so it is used figuratively to denote the church, or the celestial society, to which all that believe, both Jews and Gentiles, are come, and in which they are initiated,  Galatians 4:26;  Hebrews 12:22;  Revelation 3:12;  Revelation 21:2;  Revelation 21:10 . Jerusalem was situated in a stony and barren soil, and was about sixty furlongs in length, according to Strabo. The territory and places adjacent were well watered, having the fountains of Gihon and Siloam, and the brook Kidron, at the foot of its walls; and, beside these, there were the waters of Ethan, which Pilate had conveyed through aqueducts into the city. The ancient city of Jerusalem, or Jebus, which David took from the Jebusites, was not very large. It was seated upon a mountain southward of the temple. The opposite mountain, situated to the north, is Sion, where David built a new city, which he called the city of David, whereto was the royal palace, and the temple of the Lord. The temple was built upon Mount Moriah, which was one of the little hills belonging to Mount Sion.

Through the reigns of David and Solomon, Jerusalem was the metropolis of the whole Jewish kingdom, and continued to increase in wealth and splendour. It was resorted to at the festivals by the whole population of the country; and the power and commercial spirit of Solomon, improving the advantages acquired by his father David, centred in it most of the eastern trade, both by sea, through the ports of Elath and Ezion-Geber, and over land, by the way of Tadmor or Palmyra. Or, at least, though Jerusalem might not have been made a depot of merchandise, the quantity of precious metals flowing into it by direct importation, and by duties imposed on goods passing to the ports of the Mediterranean, and in other directions, was unbounded. Some idea of the prodigious wealth of Jerusalem at this time may be formed by stating, that the quantity of gold left by David for the use of the temple amounted to £21,600,000 sterling, beside £3,150,000 in silver; and Solomon obtained £3,240,000 in gold by one voyage to Ophir, while silver was so abundant, "that it was not any thing accounted of." These were the days of Jerusalem's glory. Universal peace, unmeasured wealth, the wisdom and clemency of the prince, and the worship of the true God, marked Jerusalem, above every city, as enjoying the presence and the especial favour of the Almighty. But these days were not to last long: intestine divisions and foreign wars, wicked and tyrannical princes, and, last of all, the crime most offensive to Heaven, and the one least to be expected among so favoured a people, led to a series of calamities, through the long period of nine hundred years, with which no other city or nation can furnish a parallel. After the death of Solomon, ten of the twelve tribes revolted from his successor Rehoboam, and, under Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, established a separate kingdom: so that Jerusalem, no longer the capital of the whole empire, and its temple frequented only by the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, must have experienced a mournful declension. Four years after this, the city and temple were taken and plundered by Shishak, king of Egypt,  1 Kings 14:26-27;  2 Chronicles 12:2-9 . One hundred and forty-five years after, under Amaziah, they sustained the same fate from Joash, king of Israel, 2 Kings 14; 2 Chronicles 25. One hundred and sixty years from this period, the city was again taken, by Esar-haddon, king of Assyria; and Manasseh, the king, carried a prisoner to Babylon, 2 Chronicles 33. Within the space of sixty-six years more it was taken by Pharaoh-Necho, king of Egypt, whom Josiah, king of Judah, had opposed in his expedition to Carchemish; and who, in consequence, was killed at the battle of Megiddo, and his son Eliakim placed on the throne in his stead by Necho, who changed his name to Jehoiakim, and imposed a heavy tribute upon him, having sent his elder brother, Jehoahaz, who had been proclaimed king at Jerusalem, a prisoner to Egypt, where he died, 2 Kings 23; 2 Chronicles 35. Jerusalem was three times besieged and taken by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon within a very few years. The first, in the reign of the last mentioned king, Jehoiakim, who was sent a prisoner to Babylon, and the vessels of the temple transported to the same city, 2 Chronicles 36. The second, in that of his son Jehoiachin; when all the treasures of the palace and the temple, and the remainder of the vessels of the latter which had been hidden or spared in the first capture, were carried away or destroyed, and the best of the inhabitants, with the king, led into captivity, 2 Kings 24; 2 Chronicles 36. And the third, in the reign of Zedekiah, the successor of Jehoiachin; in whose ninth year the most formidable siege which this ill fated city ever sustained, except that of Titus, was commenced. It continued two years; during a great part of which the inhabitants suffered all the horrors of famine: when, on the ninth day of the fourth month, in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, which answers to July in the year B.C. 588, the garrison, with the king, endeavoured to make their escape from the city, but were pursued and defeated by the Chaldeans in the plains of Jericho; Zedekiah taken prisoner; his sons killed before his face at Riblah, whither he was taken to the king of Babylon; and he himself, after his eyes were put out, was bound with fetters of brass, and carried prisoner to Babylon, where he died: thus fulfilling the prophecy of Ezekiel, which declared that he should be carried to Babylon, but should not see the place, though he should die there,  Ezekiel 12:13 . In the following month, the Chaldean army, under their general, Nebuzaradan, entered the city, took away every thing that was valuable, and then burned and utterly destroyed it, with its temple and walls, and left the whole razed to the ground. The entire population of the city and country, with the exception of a few husbandmen, were then carried captive to Babylon.

During seventy years, the city and temple lay in ruins: when those Jews who chose to take immediate advantage of the proclamation of Cyrus, under the conduct of Zerubbabel, returned to Jerusalem, and began to build the temple; all the vessels of gold and silver belonging to which, that had been taken away by Nebuchadnezzar, being restored by Cyrus. Their work, however, did not proceed far without opposition; for in the reign of Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, who in Scripture is called Ahasuerus, the Samaritans presented a petition to that monarch to put a stop to the building,  Ezra 4:6 . Cambyses appears to have been too busily engaged in his Egyptian expedition to pay any attention to this malicious request.

His successor, Smerdis, the Magian, however, who in Scripture is called Artaxerxes, to whom a similar petition was sent, representing the Jews as a factious and dangerous people, listened to it, and, in the true spirit of a usurper, issued a decree putting a stop to the farther building of the temple,  Ezra 4:7 , &c; which, in consequence, remained in an unfinished state till the second year, according to the Jewish, and third, according to the Babylonian and Persian account, of Darius Hystaspes, who is called simply Darius in Scripture. To him also a representation hostile to the Jews was made by their inveterate enemies, the Samaritans; but this noble prince refused to listen to it, and having searched the rolls of the kingdom, and found in the palace at Acmetha the decree of Cyrus, issued a similar one, which reached Jerusalem in the subsequent year, and even ordered these very Samaritans to assist the Jews in their work; so that it was completed in the sixth year of the same reign,  Ezra 4:24; Ezra 5;  Ezra 6:1-15 . But the city and walls remained in a ruinous condition until the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, the Artaxerxes Longimanus of profane history; by whom Nehemiah was sent to Jerusalem, with a power granted to him to rebuild them. Accordingly, under the direction of this zealous servant of God, the walls were speedily raised, but not without the accustomed opposition on the part of the Samaritans; who, despairing of the success of an application to the court of Persia, openly attacked the Jews with arms. But the building, notwithstanding, went steadily on; the men working with an implement of work in one hand, and a weapon of war in the other; and the wall, with incredible labour, was finished in fifty-two days, in the year B.C. 445; after which, the city itself was gradually rebuilt, Nehemiah 2, 4, 6. From this time Jerusalem remained attached to the Persian empire, but under the local jurisdiction of the high priests, until the subversion of that empire by Alexander, fourteen years after. See Alexander .

At the death of Alexander, and the partition of his empire by his generals, Jerusalem, with Judea, fell to the kings of Syria. But in the frequent wars which followed between the kings of Syria and those of Egypt, called by Daniel, the kings of the north and south, it belonged sometimes to one and sometimes to the other,—an unsettled and unhappy state, highly favourable to disorder and corruption,—the high priesthood was openly sold to the highest bidder; and numbers of the Jews deserted their religion for the idolatries of the Greeks. At length, in the year B.C. 170, Antiochus Epiphanes, king of Syria, enraged at hearing that the Jews had rejoiced at a false report of his death, plundered Jerusalem, and killed eighty thousand men. Not more than two years afterward, this cruel tyrant, who had seized every opportunity to exercise his barbarity on the Jews, sent Apollonius with an army to Jerusalem; who pulled down the walls, grievously oppressed the people, and built a citadel on a rock adjoining the temple, which commanded that building, and had the effect of completely overawing the seditious. Having thus reduced this unfortunate city into entire submission, and rendered resistance useless, the next step of Antiochus was to abolish the Jewish religion altogether, by publishing an edict which commanded all the people of his dominions to conform to the religion of the Greeks: in consequence of which, the service of the temple ceased, and a statue of Jupiter Olympus was set up on the altar. But this extremity of ignominy and oppression led, as might have been expected, to rebellion; and those Jews who still held their insulted religion in reverence, fled to the mountains, with Mattathias and Judas Maccabeus; the latter of whom, after the death of Mattathias, who with his followers and successors, are known by the name of Maccabees, waged successful war with the Syrians; defeated Apollonius, Nicanor, and Lysias, generals of Antiochus; obtained possession of Jerusalem, purified the temple, and restored the service, after three years' defilement by the Gentile idolatries.

From this time, during several succeeding Maccabean rulers, who were at once high priests and sovereigns of the Jews, but without the title of king, Jerusalem was able to preserve itself from Syrian violence. It was, however, twice besieged, first by Antiochus Eupator, in the year 163, and afterward by Antiochus Sidetes, in the year B.C. 134. But the Jews had caused themselves to be sufficiently respected to obtain conditions of peace on both occasions, and to save their city; till, at length, Hyrcanus, in the year 130 B.C., shook off the Syrian yoke, and reigned, after this event, twenty-one years in independence and prosperity. His successor, Judas, made an important change in the Jewish government, by taking the title of king which dignity was enjoyed by his successors forty-seven years, when a dispute having arisen between Hyrcanus II, and his brother Aristobulus, and the latter having overcome the former, and made himself king, was, in his turn, conquered by the Romans under Pompey, by whom the city and temple were taken, Aristobulus made prisoner, and Hyrcanus created high priest and prince of the Jews, but without the title of king. By this event Judea was reduced to the condition of a Roman province, in the year 63

B.C. Nor did Jerusalem long after enjoy the dignity of a metropolis, that honour being transferred to Caesarea. Julius Caesar, having defeated Pompey, continued Hyrcanus in the high priesthood, but bestowed the government of Judea upon Antipater, an Idumaean by birth, but a Jewish proselyte, and father of Herod the Great. For the siege and destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, See Jews .

Jerusalem lay in ruins about forty-seven years, when the Emperor AElius Adrian began to build it anew, and erected a Heathen temple, which he dedicated to Jupiter Capitolinus. The city was finished in the twentieth year of his reign, and called, after its founder, AElia, or AElia Capitolina, from the Heathen deity who presided over it. In this state Jerusalem continued, under the name of AElia, and inhabited more by Christians and Pagans than by Jews, till the time of the Emperor Constantine, styled the Great; who, about the year 323, having made Christianity the religion of the empire, began to improve it, adorned it with many new edifices and churches, and restored its ancient name. About thirty-five years afterward, Julian, named the Apostate, not from any love he bore the Jews, but out of hatred to the Christians, whose faith he had abjured, and with the avowed design of defeating the prophecies, which had declared that the temple should not be rebuilt, wrote to the Jews, inviting them to their city, and promising to restore their temple and nation. He accordingly employed great numbers of workmen to clear the foundations; but balls of fire bursting from the earth, soon put a stop to their proceeding. This miraculous interposition of Providence is attested by many credible witnesses and historians; and, in particular, by Ammianus Marcellinus, a Heathen, and friend of Julian; Zemuch David, a Jew; Nazianzen, Chrysostom, Ambrose Ruffinus, Theodoret, Sozomen, and Socrates, who wrote his account within fifty years after the transaction, and while many eye-witnesses of it were still living. So stubborn, indeed, is the proof of this miracle, that even Gibbon, who strives to invalidate it, is obliged to acknowledge the general fact.

Jerusalem continued in nearly the same condition till the beginning of the seventh century, when it was taken and plundered by the celebrated Chosroes, king of Persia, by whom many thousands of the Christian inhabitants were killed, or sold for slaves. The Persians, however, did not hold it long, as they were soon after entirely defeated by the Emperor Heraclius, who rescued Jerusalem, and restored it, not to the unhappy Jews, who were forbidden to come within three miles of it, but to the Christians. A worse calamity was, however, speedily to befall this ill fated city. The Mohammedan imposture arose about this time; and the fanatics who had adopted its creed carried their arms and their religion with unprecedented rapidity over the greater part of the east. The Caliph Omar, the third from Mohammed, invested the city, which, after once more suffering the horrors of a protracted siege, surrendered on terms of capitulation in the year 637; and has ever since, with the exception of the short period that it was occupied by the crusaders, been trodden under foot by the followers of the false prophet.

2. The accounts of modern Jerusalem by travellers are very numerous. Mr. Gender, in his "Palestine," has abridged them with judgment; and we give the following extract: The approach to Jerusalem from Jaffa is not the direction in which to see the city to the best effect. Dr. E. D. Clarke entered it by the Damascus gate: and he describes the view of Jerusalem, when first descried from the summit of a hill, at about an hour's distance, as most impressive. He confesses, at the same time, that there is no other point of view in which it is seen to so much advantage. In the celebrated prospect from the Mount of Olives, the city lies too low, is too near the eye, and has too much the character of a bird's eye view, with the formality of a topographical plan. "We had not been prepared," says this lively traveller, "for the grandeur of the spectacle which the city alone exhibited. Instead of a wretched and ruined town, by some described as the desolated remnant of Jerusalem, we beheld, as it were, a flourishing and stately metropolis, presenting a magnificent assemblage of domes, towers, palaces, churches, and monasteries; all of which, glittering in the sun's rays, shone with inconceivable splendour. As we drew nearer, our whole attention was engrossed by its noble and interesting appearance. The lofty hills surrounding it give the city itself an appearance of elevation less than it really has." Dr. Clarke was fortunate in catching this first view of Jerusalem under the illusion of a brilliant evening sunshine; but his description is decidedly overcharged. M. Chateaubriand, Mr. Buckingham, Mr. Brown, Mr. Jolliffe, Sir F. Henniker, and almost every other modern traveller, confirm the representation of Dr. Richardson. Mr. Buckingham says, "The appearance of this celebrated city, independent of the feelings and recollections which the approach to it cannot fail to awaken, was greatly inferior to my expectations, and had certainly nothing of grandeur or beauty, of stateliness or magnificence, about it. It appeared like a walled town of the third or fourth class, having neither towers, nor domes, nor minarets within it, in sufficient numbers to give even a character to its impressions on the beholder; but showing chiefly large flat-roofed buildings of the most unornamented kind, seated amid rugged hills, on a stony and forbidding soil, with scarcely a picturesque object in the whole compass of the surrounding view." Chateaubriand's description is very striking and graphical. After citing the language of the Prophet Jeremiah, in his lamentations on the desolation of the ancient city, as accurately portraying its present state,   Lamentations 1:1-6;  Lamentations 2:1-9;  Lamentations 2:15 , he thus proceeds: "When seen from the Mount of Olives, on the other side of the Valley of Jehoshaphat, Jerusalem presents an inclined plane, descending from west to east. An embattled wall, fortified with towers, and a Gothic castle, encompasses the city all round; excluding, however, part of Mount Zion, which it formerly enclosed. In the western quarter, and in the centre of the city, the houses stand very close; but, in the eastern part, along the brook Kedron, you perceive vacant spaces; among the rest, that which surrounds the mosque erected on the ruins of the temple, and the nearly deserted spot where once stood the castle of Antonia and the second palace of Herod. The houses of Jerusalem are heavy square masses, very low, without chimneys or windows: they have flat terraces or domes on the top, and look like prisons or sepulchres. The whole would appear to the eye one uninterrupted level, did not the steeples of the churches, the minarets of the mosques, the summits of a few cypresses, and the clumps of nopals, break the uniformity of the plan. On beholding these stone buildings, encompassed by a stony country, you are ready to inquire if they are not the confused monuments of a cemetery in the midst of a desert. Enter the city, but nothing will you there find to make amends for the dulness of its exterior. You lose yourself among narrow, unpaved streets, here going up hill, there down, from the inequality of the ground; and you walk among clouds of dust or loose stones. Canvas stretched from house to house increases the gloom of this labyrinth. Bazaars, roofed over, and fraught with infection, completely exclude the light from the desolate city. A few paltry shops expose nothing but wretchedness to view; and even these are frequently shut, from apprehension of the passage of a cadi. Not a creature is to be seen in the streets, not a creature at the gates extent now and then a peasant gliding through the gloom, concealing under his garments the fruits of his labour, lest he should be robbed of his hard earnings by the rapacious soldier. Aside, in a corner, the Arab butcher is slaughtering some animal, suspended by the legs from a wall in ruins: from his haggard and ferocious look, and his bloody hands, you would suppose that he had been cutting the throat of a fellow creature, rather than killing a lamb. The only noise heard from time to time in the city is the galloping of the steed of the desert: it is the janissary who brings the head of the Bedouin, or who returns from plundering the unhappy Fellah. Amid this extraordinary desolation, you must pause a moment to contemplate two circumstances still more extraordinary. Among the ruins of Jerusalem, two classes of independent people find in their religion sufficient fortitude to enable them to surmount such complicated horrors and wretchedness. Here reside communities of Christian monks, whom nothing can compel to forsake the tomb of Christ; neither plunder, nor personal ill treatment, nor menaces of death itself. Night and day they chant their hymns around the holy sepulchre. Driven by the cudgel and the sabre, women, children, flocks, and herds, seek refuge in the cloisters of these recluses. What prevents the armed oppressor from pursuing his prey, and overthrowing such feeble ramparts? The charity of the monks: they deprive themselves of the last resources of life to ransom their suppliants. Cast your eyes between the temple and Mount Zion; behold another petty tribe cut off from the rest of the inhabitants of this city. The particular objects of every species of degradation, these people bow their heads without murmuring; they endure every kind of insult without demanding justice; they sink beneath repeated blows without sighing; if their head be required, they present it to the scimitar. On the death of any member of this proscribed community, his companion goes at night, and inters him by stealth in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, in the shadow of Solomon's temple. Enter the abodes of these people, you will find them, amid the most abject wretchedness, instructing their children to read a mysterious book, which they in their turn will teach their offspring to read. What they did five thousand years ago, these people still continue to do. Seventeen times have they witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem, yet nothing can discourage them, nothing can prevent them from turning their faces toward Sion. To see the Jews scattered over the whole world, according to the word of God, must doubtless excite surprise. But to be struck with supernatural astonishment, you must view them at Jerusalem; you must behold these rightful masters of Judea living as slaves and strangers in their own country; you must behold them expecting, under all oppressions, a king who is to deliver them. Crushed by the cross that condemns them, skulking near the temple, of which not one stone is left upon another, they continue in their deplorable infatuation. The Persians the Greeks, the Romans, are swept from the earth; and a petty tribe, whose origin preceded that of those great nations, still exists unmixed among the ruins of its native land." To the same effect are the remarks of Dr. Richardson: "In passing up to the synagogue, I was particularly struck with the mean and wretched appearance of the houses on both sides of the streets, as well as with the poverty of their inhabitants. The sight of a poor Jew in Jerusalem has in it something peculiarly affecting. The heart of this wonderful people, in whatever clime they roam, still turns to it as the city of their promised rest. They take pleasure in her ruins, and would kiss the very dust for her sake. Jerusalem is the centre around which the exiled sons of Judah build, in imagination, the mansions of their future greatness. In whatever part of the world he may live, the heart's desire of a Jew is to be buried in Jerusalem. Thither they return from Spain and Portugal, from Egypt and Barbary, and other countries among which they have been scattered: and when, after all their longings, and all their struggles up the steeps of life, we see them poor, and blind, and naked, in the streets of their once happy Zion, he must have a cold heart that can remain untouched by their sufferings. without uttering a prayer that God would have mercy on the darkness of Judah; and that the Day Star of Bethlehem might arise in their hearts."

"Jerusalem," remarks Sir Frederick Henhiker, "is called, even by Mohammedans, the Blessed City ( El Gootz, El Koudes. ) The streets of it are narrow and deserted, the houses dirty and ragged, the shops few and forsaken; and throughout the whole there is not one symptom of either commerce, comfort, or happiness. The best view of it is from the Mount of Olives: it commands the exact shape and nearly every particular; namely, the church of the holy sepulchre, the Armenian convent, the mosque of Omar, St. Stephen's gate, the round-topped houses, and the barren vacancies of the city. Without the walls are a Turkish burial ground, the tomb of David, a small grove near the tombs of the kings, and all the rest is a surface of rock, on which are a few numbered trees. The mosque of Omar is the St. Peter's of Turkey, and the respective saints are held respectively by their own faithful in equal veneration. The building itself has a light pagoda appearance; the garden in which it stands occupies a considerable part of the city, and, contrasted with the surrounding desert, is beautiful. The burial place of the Jews is over the valley of Kedron, and the fees for breaking the soil afford a considerable revenue to the governor. The burial place of the Turks is under the walls, near St. Stephen's gate. From the opposite side of the valley, I was witness to the ceremony of parading a corpse round the mosque of Omar, and then bringing it forth for burial. I hastened to the grave, but was soon driven away: as far as my on dit tells me, it would have been worth seeing. The grave is strown with red earth, supposed to be of the Ager Damascenes of which Adam was made; by the side of the corpse is placed a stick, and the priest tells him that the devil will tempt him to become a Christian, but that he must make good use of his stick; that his trial will last three days, and that he will then find himself in a mansion of glory," &c.

The Jerusalem of sacred history is, in fact, no more. Not a vestige remains of the capital of David and Solomon; not a monument of Jewish times is standing. The very course of the walls is changed, and the boundaries of the ancient city are become doubtful. The monks pretend to show the sites of the sacred places; but neither Calvary, nor the holy sepulchre, much less the Dolorous Way, the house of Caiaphas, &c, have the slightest pretensions to even a probable identity with the real places to which the tradition refers. Dr. E. D. Clarke has the merit of being the first modern traveller who ventured to speak of the preposterous legends and clumsy forgeries of the priests with the contempt which they merit. "To men interested in tracing, within its walls, antiquities referred to by the documents of sacred history, no spectacle," remarks the learned traveller, "can be more mortifying than the city in its present state. The mistaken piety of the early Christians, in attempting to preserve, has either confused or annihilated the memorials it was anxious to render conspicuous. Viewing the havoc thus made, it may now be regretted that the Holy Land was ever rescued from the dominion of Saracens, who were far less barbarous than their conquerors. The absurdity, for example, of hewing the rocks of Judea into shrines and chapels, and of disguising the face of nature with painted domes and gilded marble coverings, by way of commemorating the scenes of our Saviour's life and death, is so evident and so lamentable, that even Sandys, with all his credulity, could not avoid a happy application of the reproof conveyed by the Roman satirist against a similar violation of the Egerian fountain." Dr. Richardson remarks, "It is a tantalizing circumstance for the traveller who wishes to recognize in his walks the site of particular buildings, or the scenes of memorable events, that the greater part of the objects mentioned in the description both of the inspired and the Jewish historian, are entirely removed, and razed from their foundation, without leaving a single trace or name behind to point out where they stood. Not an ancient tower, or gate, or wall, or hardly even a stone, remains. The foundations are not only broken up, but every fragment of which they were composed is swept away, and the spectator looks upon the bare rock with hardly a sprinkling of earth to point out her gardens of pleasure, or groves of idolatrous devotion. And when we consider the places, and towers, and walls about Jerusalem, and that the stones of which some of them were constructed were thirty feet long, fifteen feet broad, and seven and a half feet thick, we are not more astonished at the strength, and skill, and perseverance, by which they were constructed, than shocked by the relentless and brutal hostility by which they were shattered and overthrown, and utterly removed from our sight. A few gardens still remain on the sloping base of Mount Zion, watered from the pool of Siloam; the gardens of Gethsemane are still in a sort of ruined cultivation; the fences are broken down, and the olive trees decaying, as if the hand that pressed and fed them were withdrawn; the Mount of Olives still retains a languishing verdure, and nourishes a few of those trees from which it derives its name; but all round about Jerusalem the general aspect is blighted and barren; the grass is withered; the bare rock looks through the scanty sward; and the grain itself, like the staring progeny of famine, seems in doubt whether to come to maturity, or die in the ear. The vine that was brought from Egypt is cut off from the midst of the land; the vineyards are wasted; the hedges are taken away; and the graves of the ancient dead are open and tenantless."

3. On the accomplishment of prophecy in the condition in which this celebrated city has lain for ages, Keith well remarks:—It formed the theme of prophecy from the death bed of Jacob; and, as the seat of the government of the children of Judah, the sceptre departed not from it till the Messiah appeared, on the expiration of seventeen hundred years after the death of the patriarch, and till the period of its desolation, prophesied of by Daniel, had arrived. It was to be trodden down of the Gentiles, till the time of the Gentiles should be fulfilled. The time of the Gentiles is not yet fulfilled, and Jerusalem is still trodden down of the Gentiles. The Jews have often attempted to recover it: no distance of space or of time can separate it from their affections: they perform their devotions with their faces toward it, as if it were the object of their worship as well as of their love; and, although their desire to return be so strong, indelible, and innate, that every Jew, in every generation, counts himself an exile, yet they have never been able to rebuild their temple, nor to recover Jerusalem from the hands of the Gentiles. But greater power than that of a proscribed and exiled race has been added to their own, in attempting to frustrate the counsel that professed to be of God. Julian, the emperor of the Romans, not only permitted but invited the Jews to rebuild Jerusalem and their temple; and promised to reestablish them in their paternal city. By that single act, more than by all his writings, he might have destroyed the credibility of the Gospel, and restored his beloved but deserted Paganism. The zeal of the Jews was equal to his own; and the work was begun by laying again the foundations of the temple. It was never accomplished, and the prophecy stands fulfilled. But even if the attempt of Julian had never been made, the truth of the prophecy itself is unassailable. The Jews have never been reinstated in Judea. Jerusalem has ever been trodden down of the Gentiles. The edict of Adrian was renewed by the successors of Julian; and no Jews could approach unto Jerusalem but by bribery or by stealth. It was a spot unlawful for them to touch. In the crusades, all the power of Europe was employed to rescue Jerusalem from the Heathens, but equally in vain. It has been trodden down for nearly eighteen centuries by its successive masters; by Romans, Grecians, Persians, Saracens, Mamelukes, Turks, Christians, and again by the worst of rulers, the Arabs and the Turks. And could any thing be more improbable to have happened, or more impossible to have been foreseen by man, than that any people should be banished from their own capital and country, and remain expelled and expatriated for nearly eighteen hundred years? Did the same fate ever befall any nation, though no prophecy existed respecting it? Is there any doctrine in Scripture so hard to be believed as was this single fact at the period of its prediction? And even with the example of the Jews before us, is it likely, or is it credible, or who can foretel, that the present inhabitants of any country upon earth shall be banished into all nations, retain their distinctive character, meet with an unparalleled fate, continue a people, without a government and without a country, and remain for an indefinite period, exceeding seventeen hundred years, till the fulfilment of a prescribed event which has yet to be accomplished? Must not the knowledge of such truths be derived from that prescience alone which scans alike the will and the ways of mortals, the actions of future nations, and the history of the latest generations?

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

JERUSALEM

I. Situation. Jerusalem is the chief town of Palestine, situated in 31° 46′ 45″ N. lat. and 35° 13′ 25″ E. long. It stands on the summit of the ridge of the Judæan mountains, at an elevation of 2500 feet above the sea-level. The elevated plateau on which the city is built is intersected by deep valleys, defining and subdividing it.

1 . The defining valleys are: (1) the Wady en-Nâr , the Biblical Valley of the Kidron or of Jehoshaphat , which, starting some distance north of the city, runs at first (under the name of Wady el-Jôz ) in a S. E.direction; it then turns southward and deepens rapidly, separating the Jerusalem plateau from the ridge of the Mount of Olives on the east; finally, it meanders through the wild mountains of the Judæan desert, and finds its exit on the W. side of the Dead Sea. (2) A deep cleft now known as the Wady er-Rabâbi , and popularly identified with the Valley of the son of Hinnom , which commences on the west side of the city and runs down to and joins the Wady en-Nâr about half a mile south of the wall of the present city. In the fork of the great irregular Y which these two valleys form, the city is built.

2 . The chief intersecting valley is one identified with the Tyropœon of Josephus, which commences in some olive gardens north of the city (between the forks of the Y ), runs, ever deepening, right through the modern city, and finally enters the Wady en-Nâr , about 1 / 8 mils above the mouth of the Wady er-Rabâbi . There is also a smaller depression running axially across the city from West to East, intersecting the Tyropœon at right angles. These intersecting valleys are now almost completely filled up with the accumulated rubbish of about four thousand years, and betray themselves only by slight depressions in the surface of the ground.

3 . By these valleys the site of Jerusalem is divided into four quarters, each on its own hill. These hills are traditionally named Acra, Bezetha, Zion , and Ophel , in the N. W., N. E., S. W., and S. E.respectively; and Ophel is further subdivided (but without any natural line of division) into Ophel proper and Moriah , the latter being the northern and higher end. But it must be noticed carefully at the outset that around these names the fiercest discussions have raged, many of which are as yet not within sight of settlement.

4 . The site of Jerusalem is not well provided with water . The only natural source is an intermittent spring in the Kidron Valley, which is insufficient to supply the city’s needs. Cisterns have been excavated for rain-storage from the earliest times, and water has been led to the city by conduits from external sources, some of them far distant. Probably the oldest known conduit is a channel hewn in the rock, entering Jerusalem from the north. Another (the ‘low-level aqueduct’) is traditionally ascribed to Solomon: it brings water from reservoirs beyond Bethlehem; and a third (the ‘high-level aqueduct’) is of Roman date. Several conduits are mentioned in the OT: the ‘conduit of the upper pool, in the highway of the fuller’s field ’ (  Isaiah 7:3 ), which has not been identified; the conduit whereby Hezekiah ‘brought the waters of Gihon straight down on the west side of the city of David,’ also referred to as the ‘conduit’ whereby he ‘brought water into the city’ (  2 Kings 20:20 ,   2 Chronicles 32:30 ), is probably to be identified with the Siloam tunnel, famous for its (unfortunately undated) Old Hebrew inscription.

II. History

1. Primitive period . The origin of the city of Jerusalem is lost in obscurity, and probably, owing to the difficulties in the way of excavation, must continue to be matter of speculation. The first reference that may possibly be connected with the city is the incident of the mysterious ‘Melchizedek, king of Salem’ (  Genesis 14:18 ), who has been the centre of much futile speculation, due to a large extent to misunderstanding of the symbolic use of his name by the authors of   Psalms 110:1-7 (  Psalms 110:4 ) and Hebrews (chs. 5 7). It is not even certain that the ‘ Salem ’ over which this contemporary of Hammurabi ruled is to be identified with Jerusalem (see Salem); there is no other ancient authority for this name being applied to the city. We do not touch solid ground till some eight or nine hundred years later, when, about 1450, we find ‘Abd-khiba, king of Urusalim , sending letters to his Egyptian over-lord, which were discovered with the Tell el-Amarna correspondence. The contents of these letters are the usual meagre record of mutual squabbles between the different village communities of Palestine, and to some extent they raise questions rather than answer them. Some theories that have been based on expressions used by ‘Abd-khiba, and supposed to illuminate the Melchizedek problem, are now regarded as of no value for that desirable end. The chief importance of the Tell el-Amarna correspondence, so far as Jerusalem is concerned, is the demonstration of the true antiquity of the name ‘Jerusalem.’

Where was the Jerusalem of ‘Abd-khiba situated? This question, which is bound up with the authenticity or otherwise of the traditional Zion , and affects such important topographical and archæological questions as the site of David’s tomb, is one of the most hotly contested of all the many problems of the kind which have to be considered by students of Jerusalem. In an article like the present it is impossible to enter into the details of the controversy and to discuss at length the arguments on both sides. But the majority of modern scholars are now coming to an agreement that the pre-Davidic Jerusalem was situated on the hill known as Ophel , the south-eastern of the four hills above enumerated, in the space intercepted between the TyropÅ“on and Kidron valleys. This is the hill under which is the only natural source of water in the whole area of Jerusalem the ‘ Virgin’s Fountain ,’ an intermittent spring of brackish water in the Kidron Valley and upon which is the principal accumulation of ancient débris , with ancient pottery fragments strewn over the surface. This hill was open for excavation till three or four years ago, though cumbered with vegetable gardens which would make digging expensive; but lately houses have commenced to be built on its surface. At the upper part of the hill, on this theory, we cannot doubt that the high place of the subjects of ‘Abd-khiba would be situated; and the tradition of the sanctity of this section of the city has lasted unchanged through all the varying occupations of the city Hebrew, Jewish, Byzantine, Arab, Crusader, and modern Mohammedan. Whether his be the ‘land of Moriah ’ of   Genesis 22:2 is doubtful: it has been suggested that the name is here a copyist’s error for ‘land of Midian,’ which would be a more natural place for Jahweh worship in the days of Abraham than would the high place of the guardian numen of Jerusalem.

In certain Biblical passages ( Joshua 18:28 [but see RV [Note: Revised Version.] ],   Judges 19:10 ,   1 Chronicles 11:4 ) an alternative name, Jebus , is given for the city; and its inhabitants are named Jebusites , mentioned in many enumerations with the rest of the Amorites (  Genesis 10:16 ,   Exodus 23:23 ,   Joshua 3:10 etc.), and specially assigned to this city in   Judges 1:21 . Until the discovery of the Tell el-Amarna correspondence it was supposed that Jebus was the primitive name of the city, changed on the Israelite conquest to Jerusalem; but this has been rendered untenable, and it now seems probable that the name of Jebus is a mere derivative, of no authority, from the ethnic Jebusites , the meaning and etymology of which are still to seek.

Cf. art. Jebus.

At the Israelite immigration the king of Jerusalem was Adoni-zedek, who headed a coalition against Gibeon for having made terms with Joshua. This king is generally equated with the otherwise unknown Adoni-bezek, whose capture and mutilation are narrated in  Judges 1:5-7 (see Moore’s Judges, ad loc .). The statement that Judah burnt Jerusalem (  Judges 1:8 ) is generally rejected as an interpolation; it remained a Jebusite city (  Judges 1:21;   Judges 19:11 ) until its conquest by David. According to the cadastre of Joshua, it was theoretically just within the south border of the tribe of Benjamin (  Joshua 15:8;   Joshua 18:16;   Joshua 18:28 ).

2. David and Solomon . The city remained foreign to the Israelites (  Judges 19:11 ) until the end of the period of 7 1 /2 years which David reigned in Hebron, when he felt himself powerful enough to attack the Jebusite stronghold. The passage describing his capture of the city is   2 Samuel 5:4-10 , and few passages in the historical books of the Old Testament are more obscure, owing partly to textual corruption and partly to topographical allusions clear to the writer, but veiled in darkness for us. It appears that the Jebusites, trusting in the strength of their gates, threw taunts to the Israelite king that ‘the blind and the lame would be enough to keep him out’; and that David retorted by applying the term to the defenders of the city: ‘Go up the drain,’ he said to his followers, ‘and smite those blind and lame ones.’ He evidently recognized the impregnability of the defences themselves; but discovered and utilized a convenient drain, which led underground into the middle of the city. A similar drain was found in the excavation at Gezer, with a device in the middle to prevent its being used for this purpose. During the revolt of the fellahîn against Ibrahim Pasha in 1834, Jerusalem, once more besieged, was entered through a drain in the same way. It need hardly be said that David’s, ‘ gutter ’ has not yet been identified with certainty.

If the identification of the Jebusite city with Ophel be admitted, we cannot fail to identify it also with the ‘ city of David ,’ in which he dwelt (  2 Samuel 5:9 ). But when we read further that David ‘built round about from Millo and inward’ we are perplexed by our total ignorance as to what Millo may have been, and where it may have been situated. The word is by the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] rendered Acra, and the same word is used by Josephus. The position of the Acra is a question as much disputed as the position of the Jebusite city, and it is one for which far less light can be obtained from an examination of the ground than in the case of the other problem mentioned. As soon as David had established himself in his new surroundings, his first care was to bring the ark of Jahweh into the city (  2 Samuel 6:1-23 ), but his desire to erect a permanent building for its reception was frustrated by Nathan the prophet (  2 Samuel 7:1-29 ). The site of the Temple was chosen, namely, the threshing-floor of Araunah (  2 Samuel 24:16 ) or Ornan (  1 Chronicles 21:15 ), one of the original Jebusite inhabitants, and preparations were made for its erection.

As soon as Solomon had come to the throne and quelled the abortive attempts of rivals, he commenced the work of building the Temple in the second month of the fourth year of his reign, and finished it in the eighth month of his eleventh year ( 1 Kings 6:1-38 ). His royal palace occupied thirteen years (  1 Kings 7:1 ). These erections were not in the ‘city of David’ (  1 Kings 9:24 ), which occupied the lower slopes of Ophel to the south, but on the summit of the same hill, where their place is now taken by the Mohammedan ‘Noble Sanctuary.’ Besides these works, whereby Jerusalem received a glory it had never possessed before, Solomon built Millo, whatever that may have been (  1 Kings 9:24 ), and the wall of Jerusalem (  1 Kings 9:15 ), and ‘closed up the breach of the city of David’ (  1 Kings 11:27 ), the latter probably referring to an extension of the area of the city which involved the pulling down and rebuilding elsewhere of a section of the city walls.

3. The Kings of Judah . In the fifth year of Rehoboam, Jerusalem sustained the first siege it had suffered after David’s conquest, being beleaguered by Shishak, king of Egypt (  1 Kings 14:25 ), who took away the treasures of the Temple and of the royal house. Rehoboam provided copper substitutes for the gold thus lost. The royal house was again pillaged by a coalition of Philistines and Arabs (  2 Chronicles 21:16 ) in the time of Jehoram. Shortly afterwards took place the stirring events of the usurpation of Athaliah and her subsequent execution (  2 Kings 11:1-21 ). Her successor Joash or Jehoash distinguished himself by his repair of the Temple (  2 Kings 12:1-21 ); but he was obliged to buy off Hazael, king of Syria, and persuaded him to abandon his projected attack on the capital by a gift of the gold of the Temple (  2 Kings 12:18 ). Soon afterwards, however, Jehoash of Israel came down upon Jerusalem, breached the wall, and looted the royal and sacred treasuries (  2 Kings 14:14 ). This event taught the lesson of the weakness of the city, by which the powerful king Uzziah profited. In   2 Chronicles 26:9;   2 Chronicles 26:15 is the record of his fortifying the city with additional towers and ballistas; the work of strengthening the fortifications was continued by Jotham (  2 Kings 15:35 ,   2 Chronicles 27:3 ). Thanks probably to these precautions, an attack on Jerusalem by the kings of Syria and of Israel, in the next reign (Ahaz’s), proved abortive (  2 Kings 16:5 ). Hezekiah still further prepared Jerusalem for the struggle which he foresaw from the advancing power of Assyria, and to him, as is generally believed, is due the engineering work now famous as the Siloam Tunnel , whereby water was conducted from the spring in the Kidron Valley outside the walls to the reservoir at the bottom of the TyropÅ“on inside them. By another gift from the apparently inexhaustible royal and sacred treasures, Hezekiah endeavoured to keep Sennacherib from an attack on the capital (  2 Kings 18:13 ); but the attack, threatened by insulting words from the emissaries of Sennacherib, was finally averted by a mysterious calamity that befell the Assyrian army (  2 Kings 19:35 ). By alliances with Egypt (  Isaiah 36:6 ) and Babylon (ch. 39) Hezekiah attempted to strengthen his position. Manasseh built an outer wall to the ‘city of David,’ and made other fortifications (  2 Chronicles 33:14 ). In the reign of Josiah the Book of the Law was discovered, and the king devoted himself to the repairs of the Temple and the moral reformation which that discovery involved (  2 Kings 22:1-20 ). The death of Josiah at Megiddo was disastrous for the kingdom of Judah, and he was succeeded by a series of petty kinglings, all of them puppets in the hands of the Egyptian or Babylonian monarchs. The fall of Jerusalem could not be long delayed. Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon captured and looted it, and carried away captive first Jehoiachin (  2 Kings 24:12 ), and finally Zedekiah, the last king of Judah (ch. 25).

The aspect and area of the Jerusalem captured by Nebuchadnezzar must have been very different from that conquered about 420 years before by David. There is no direct evidence that David found houses at all on the hill now known as Zion; but the city must rapidly have grown under him and his wealthy successor; and in the time of the later Hebrew kings included no doubt the so-called Zion hill as well. That it also included the modern Acra is problematical, as we have no information as to the position of the north wall in preexilic times; and it is certain that the quite modern quarter commonly called Bezetha was not occupied. To the south a much larger area was built on than is included in modern Jerusalem: the ancient wall has been traced to the verge of the Wady er-Rabâbi . The destruction by Nebuchadnezzar and the deportation of the people were complete: the city was left in ruins, and only the poorest of the people were left to carry on the work of agriculture.

4. The Return . When the last Semitic king of Babylon, Nabonidus, yielded to Cyrus, the representatives of the ancient kingdom of Judah were, through the favour of Cyrus, permitted to re-establish themselves in their old home and to rebuild the Temple. The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah are the record of the works then undertaken, the former being specially concerned with the restoration of the Temple and the religious observances, the latter with the reconstruction of the fortifications of the city.

The Book of Nehemiah contains the fullest account that we have of the fortifications of Jerusalem , and it has been the most carefully studied of any source of information on the subject. A paper by Prof. H. G. Mitchell on the ‘Wall of Jerusalem according to Nehemiah’ (in the JBL [Note: BL Journ. of Biblical Literature.] for 1903, p. 85) is a model of exhaustive treatment. Careful comparison is made therein between the statements of Nehemiah and the results of excavation. We cannot here go into all the arguments brought forward for the identifications, but they seem conclusive. Starting at the head of the Wady er-Rabâbi (Valley of Hinnom so-called), we find at the S. W. corner of the wall a rock-scarp which seems to have been prepared for a strong tower, identified with the tower of the furnaces (  Nehemiah 3:11 ). Then comes the Valley-gate , which has been found half-way down the valley (  Nehemiah 3:13 ). At the bottom of the valley, where it joined the Kidron, was the Dung-gate (  Nehemiah 3:15 ), outside of which was found what appears to have been a cess-pit. Turning northward, we find the Fountain-gate (  Nehemiah 3:13 ) in close proximity to the ‘made pool,’ i.e. the pool of Siloam at the foot of the TyropÅ“on Valley; and the Water-gate on Ophel, over the ‘Virgin’s Fountain.’ The gates on the north-east and north sides of the wall cannot be identified, as the course of that part has not been definitely determined. They seem to have been, in order, the Horse-gate the East-gate , the gate Hammiphkad (‘the appointed’?), after which came the corner of the wall. Then on the north side followed the Sheep-gate , the Fish-gate , and, somewhere on the north or north-west side, the Old-gate . Probably the Ephraim- and Corner-gates (  2 Kings 14:13 ) were somewhere in this neighbourhood. Besides these gates, the Temple was provided with entrances, some of whose names are preserved; but their identification is an even more complex problem than that of the city-gates. Such were the gate Sur and the Gate of the guard (  2 Kings 11:6 ), the Shallecheth-gate at the west (  1 Chronicles 26:16 ), Parbar (26:18), and the East-gate (  Ezekiel 11:1 ). The Beautiful-gate , of   Acts 3:10 was probably the same as the Nicanor-gate, between the Women’s and the Priests’ Court: it is alluded to in the epitaph of the donor, Nicanor, recently-discovered at Jerusalem.

5. From Alexander the Great to the Maccabees . By the battle of Issus (b.c. 333) Alexander the Great became master of Palestine; and the Persian suzerainty, under which the Jews had enjoyed protection and freedom to follow their own rites, came to an end. Alexander’s death was the signal for the long and complicated struggle between the Seleucids and the Ptolemys, between whom Jerusalem passed more than once. One result of the foreign influences thus brought to bear on the city was the establishment of institutions hitherto unknown, such as a gymnasium. This leaven of Greek customs, and, we cannot doubt, of Greek religion also, was disquieting to those concerned for the maintenance of Deuteronomic purity, and the unrest was fanned into revolt in 168, when Antiochus Epiphanes set himself to destroy the Jewish religion. The desecration of the Temple, and the attempt to force the Jews to sacrifice to pagan deities ( 1M  Malachi 1:2 ), led to the rebellion headed by the Maccabæan family, wherein, after many vicissitudes, the short-lived Hasmonæan dynasty was established at Jerusalem. Internal dissensions wrecked the family. To settle a squabble as to the successor of Alexander Jannæus, the Roman power was called in. Pompey besieged Jerusalem, and profaned the Temple, which was later pillaged by Crassus; and in b.c. 47 the Hasmonæans were superseded by the Idumæan dynasty of the Herods, their founder Antipater being established as ruler of Palestine in recognition of his services to Julius Cæsar.

6. Herod the Great . Herod the Great and his brother Phasael succeeded their father in b.c. 43, and in 40 Herod became governor of Judæa. After a brief exile, owing to the usurpation of the Hasmonæan Antigonus, he returned, and commenced to rebuild Jerusalem on a scale of grandeur such as had never been known since Solomon. Among his works, which we can only catalogue here, were the royal palace; the three towers Hippicus, Phasaelus (named after his brother), and Antonia; a theatre; and, above all, the Temple. Of these structures nothing remains, so far as is known, of the palace or the theatre, or the Hippicus tower: the base of Phasaelus, commonly called David’s tower, is incorporated with the citadel; large fragments of the tower Antonia remain incorporated in the barracks and other buildings of the so-called Via Dolorosa, the street which leads through the city from the St. Stephen’s gate, north of the Temple enclosure: while of the Temple itself much remains in the substructures, and probably much more would be found were excavation possible. See Temple.

7. From the time of Christ to the destruction of Jerusalem . The events in the life of Christ, in so far as they affect Jerusalem, are the only details of interest known to us for the years succeeding the death of Herod in b.c. 4. These we need not dwell upon here, but a word may fitly be spoken regarding the central problem of Jerusalem topography, the site of the Holy Sepulchre . The authenticity of the traditional site falls at once, if it lie inside the north wall of Jerusalem as it was in Christ’s time, for Christ suffered and was buried without the walls. But this is precisely what cannot be determined, as the line of the wall, wherever it may have been, is densely covered with houses; and it is very doubtful whether such fragments of wall as have from time to time been found in digging foundations have anything to do with each other, or with the city rampart. A priori it does not seem probable that the traditional site of the Holy Sepulchre should have been without the walls, for it assumes that these made a deep re-entrant angle for which the nature of the ground offers no justification, and which would be singularly foolish strategically. The identification of the site cannot with certainty be traced back earlier than Helena; and, though she visited Jerusalem as early as 326, yet it must not be forgotten that in endeavouring then to find the tomb of Christ, without documents to guide her, she was in as hopeless a position as a man who under similiar circumstances should at the present year endeavour to find the tomb of Shakespeare, if that happened to be unknown. Indeed, Helena was even worse off than the hypothetical investigator, for the population, and presumably the tradition, have been continuous in Stratford-on-Avon, which certainly was not the case with Jerusalem from a.d. 30 to 326. A fortiori these remarks apply to the rival sites that in more recent years have been suggested. The so-called ‘Gordon’s Calvary’ and similar fantastic identifications we can dismiss at once with the remark that the arguments in their favour are fatuous; that powerful arguments can be adduced against them; that they cannot even claim the minor distinction of having been hallowed by the devotion of sixteen centuries; and that, in short, they are entirely unworthy of the smallest consideration. The only documents nearly contemporary with the crucifixion and entombment are the Gospels, which supply no data sufficient for the identification of the scenes of these events. Except in the highly improbable event of an inscription being at some time found which shall identify them, we may rest in the certainty that the exact sites never have been, and never will be, identified.

In a.d. 35, Pontius Pilate was recalled; Agrippa (41 44 a.d.) built an outer wall, the line of which is not known with certainty, on the north side of the city, and under his rule Jerusalem grew and prospered. His son Agrippa built a palace, and in a.d. 64 finished the Temple courts. In 66 the Jews endeavoured to revolt against the Roman yoke, and brought on themselves the final destruction which was involved in the great siege and fall of Jerusalem in a.d. 70.

8. From the destruction of Jerusalem to the Arab conquest . The events following must be more briefly enumerated. In 134 the rebellion of the Jews under Bar Cochba was crushed by Hadrian, and the last traces of Judaism extinguished from the city, which was rebuilt as a pagan Roman town under the name of Ælia Capitolina. By 333 the Jews had acquired the right of visiting annually and lamenting over the pierced stone on which their altar had been erected. Under Constantine, Christianity was established, and the great flood of pilgrimage began. Julian in 362 attempted to rebuild the Temple; some natural phenomenon ingeniously explained as the explosion of a forgotten store of naphtha, such as was found some years ago in another part of the city prevented him. In 450 the Empress Eudocia retired to Jerusalem and repaired the walls; she built a church over the Pool of Siloam, which was discovered by excavation some years ago. In 532 Justinian erected important buildings, fragments of which remain incorporated with the mosque; but these and other Christian buildings were ruined in 614 by the destroying king Chosroës ii. A short breathing space was allowed the Christians after this storm, and then the young strength of Islam swept over them. In 637 Omar conquered Jerusalem after a four months’ siege.

9. From the Arab conquest to the present day . Under the comparatively easy rule of the Omeyyad Califs, Christians did not suffer severely; though excluded from the Temple area (where ‘Abd el-Melek built his beautiful dome in 688), they were free to use the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre. This, however, could not last under the fanatical Fatimites, or the Seljuks who succeeded them; and the sufferings of the Christians led to that extraordinary series of piratical invasions, commonly called the Crusades, by which Palestine was harried for about a hundred years, and the undying tradition of which will retard indefinitely the final triumph of Christianity over the Arab race. The country was happily rid of the degraded and degrading Latin kingdom in 1187, when Jerusalem fell to Saladin. For a brief interval, from 1229 to 1244, the German Christians held the city by treaty; but in 1244 the Kharezmian massacre swallowed up the last relics of Christian occupation. In 1517 it was conquered by Sultan Selim i., and since then it has been a Turkish city. The present walls were erected by Suleiman the Magnificent (1542). In recent years the population has enormously increased, owing to the establishment of Jewish refugee colonies and various communities of European settlers; there has also been an extraordinary development of monastic life within and around the city.

R. A. S. Macalister.

People's Dictionary of the Bible

Jerusalem ( Je-Ru'Sa-Lĕm ). The religious and political capital of Israel; called also "the Holy City,"  Nehemiah 11:1; "City of the Great King,"  Psalms 48:2 : "City of David" and "Zion."  1 Kings 8:1;  2 Kings 14:20. Jewish writers held that it was the same as Salem.  Genesis 14:18;  Psalms 76:2. The first notice of it as Jerusalem is in  Joshua 10:1. It was a boundary mark between Benjamin and Judah.  Joshua 15:8;  Joshua 18:16;  Joshua 18:28, where it is called Ha-jebusi, that is, the Jebusite—In A. V. Jebusi—and in  Judges 19:10-11, "Jebus, which is Jerusalem," because it was then a city inhabited by Jebusites. Jerusalem is in latitude 31° 47' north, and in longitude 35° 18' east from Greenwich, or about the latitude of Savannah, Ga. It is 35 miles east from the Mediterranean sea, and 18 miles west of the north end of the Dead sea. It stands on four peaks of the mountain ridge of Western Palestine, at a general elevation of about 2600 feet above the sea, the English survey placing the height of Moriah at 2440 feet, Mount Zion 2550 feet, Mount of Olives 2665 feet. The hill on which the temple stood is 2440 feet high, "dropping abruptly," Bays Selah Merrill, "at the northeast corner 100 feet, at the southeast corner 250 feet, at the southwest corner 140 feet, and on the west side about 100 feet, while toward the north, beyond what afterward became the temple area, the ridge rose gradually about 100 feet, its highest point being at the spot now known as Jeremiah's Grotto. Excluding the extension of the ridge to Jeremiah's Grotto, the horizontal area thus bounded is the same as the present Haram Area. Zion was 100 feet higher than the temple mount, and the distance across from summit to summit was less than one-third of a mile; but the descent to the bottom of the ravine separating the two was 100 feet on the side of the temple mount, and 200 feet on the side of Zion. Olivet is 90 feet higher than the highest point of Jerusalem, 143 feet higher than Mount Zion, and 243 feet higher than the temple mount. But the distance from the highest point of Jerusalem to the top of Olivet is scarcely more than a mile. Thus Olivet overlooks Jerusalem, and from its summit the best view of the city is obtained." "In several respects," says Dean Stanley, "its situation is singular among the cities of Palestine. Its elevation is remarkable; occasioned, not from its being on the summit of one of the numerous hills of Judæa, like most of the towns and villages, but because it is on the edge of one of the highest table-lands of the country. Hebron, indeed, is higher still by some hundred feet, and from the south, accordingly (even from Bethlehem), the approach to Jerusalem is by a slight descent. But from any other side the ascent is perpetual; and to the traveller approaching the city from the east or west it must always have presented the appearance, beyond any other capital of the then known world—we may say beyond any important city that has ever existed on the earth—of a mountain city; breathing, as compared with the sultry plains of Jordan, a mountain air; enthroned, as compared with Jericho or Damascus, Gaza, or Tyre, on a mountain fastness." Sinai And Palestine, 170, 1. The elevation of Jerusalem is a subject of constant reference and exultation by the Jewish writers. Their fervid poetry abounds with allusions to its height, to the ascent thither of the tribes from all parts of the country. It was the habitation of Jehovah, from which "He looked upon all the inhabitants of the world,"  Psalms 33:14; its kings were "higher than the kings of the earth."  Psalms 89:27. Jerusalem, if not actually in the centre of Palestine, was yet virtually so. This central position as expressed in the words of  Ezekiel 5:5, "I nave set Jerusalem in the midst of the nations and countries round about her," led in later ages to a definite belief that the city was actually in the centre of the earth.

Roads .—There were 3 main approaches to the city: 1. From the Jordan valley by Jericho and the Mount of Olives. This was the route commonly taken from the north and east of the country—as from Galilee by our Lord,  Luke 17:11;  Luke 18:35;  Luke 19:1;  Luke 19:29;  Luke 19:37, etc., from Damascus by Pompey, to Mahanaim by David.  2 Samuel 15:1-37;  2 Samuel 16:1-23. It was also the route from places in the central districts of the country, as Samaria.  2 Chronicles 28:15. The latter part of the approach, over the Mount of Olives, as generally followed at the present day, is identical with what it was, at least in one memorable instance, in the time of Christ. 2. From the great maritime plain of Philistia and Sharon. This road led by the two Bethhorons up to the high ground at Gibeon, whence it turned south, and came to Jerusalem by Ramah and Gibeah, and over the ridge north of the city. 3. There was also the route from Hebron, Bethlehem, and Solomon's pools on the south.

To the four hills, Zion, Ophel, Acra, and Moriah, in the ancient city may be added the hill of Goath, and Bezetha, the new town. The precise topography of the city has long been in dispute, and while recent explorations have added much to our knowledge of the city, many points are yet unsettled. The western hill was called Mount Zion, and it is also clear that Zion and the city of David were identical. "David took the castle of Zion, which is the city of David." "And David dwelt in the castle, therefore they called it the city of David. And he built the city round about, even from Millo round about, and Joab repaired the rest of the city."  2 Samuel 5:7-9;  1 Chronicles 11:5-8. Mount Moriah was the eastern hill,  2 Chronicles 3:1, and the site of the temple. It was situated in the southwest angle of the area, now known as the Haram area, and was, Josephus tells us, an exact square of a stadium, or 600 Greek feet, on each side. At the northwest angle of the temple was the Antonia, a tower or fortress. North of the side of the temple is the building now known to Christians as the Mosque of Omar, but by Moslems it is called the Dome of the Rock. Ophel was the southern continuation of the eastern bill, which gradually came to a point at the junction of the valleys Tyropœon and Jehoshaphat. Bezetha, "the New City," noticed by Josephus, was separated from Moriah by an artificial ditch, and overlooked the valley of Kidron on the east; this hill was enclosed within the walls of Herod Agrippa. Lastly, Acra lay westward of Moriah and northward of Zion, and formed the "Lower City" in the time of Josephus.

Gates.— The following list of gates, named In the Bible and Josephus, are given by Smith: 1. Gate of Ephraim.  2 Chronicles 25:23;  Nehemiah 8:16;  Nehemiah 12:39. This is probably the same as the 2. Gate of Benjamin.  Jeremiah 20:2;  Jeremiah 37:13;  Zechariah 14:10. If so, it was 400 cubits distant from the 3. Corner gate.  2 Chronicles 25:23;  2 Chronicles 26:9;  Jeremiah 31:38;  Zechariah 14:10. 4 Gate of Joshua, governor of the city.  2 Kings 23:8. 5. Gate between the two walls.  2 Kings 25:4;  Jeremiah 39:4. 6. Horse gate.  Nehemiah 3:28;  2 Chronicles 23:15;  Jeremiah 31:40. 7. Ravine gate, R. V., valley gate, I.E., opening on ravine of Hinnom.  2 Chronicles 26:9;  Nehemiah 2:13;  Nehemiah 2:15;  Nehemiah 3:13. 8. Fish gate.  2 Chronicles 33:14;  Nehemiah 12:39. 9. Dung gate.  Nehemiah 2:13;  Nehemiah 3:1-32;  Nehemiah 13:10. Sheep gate.  Nehemiah 3:1;  Nehemiah 3:32;  Nehemiah 12:39. 11. East gate.  Nehemiah 3:29. 12. Miphkad. R. V., "Hammiplikod."  Nehemiah 3:31. 13. Fountain gate (Siloam?).  Nehemiah 12:37. 14. Water gate.  Nehemiah 12:37. 15. Old gate.  Nehemiah 12:39. 16. Prison gate.  Nehemiah 12:39. 17. Gate Harsith (perhaps the Sun), A. V., East gate.  Jeremiah 19:2. 18. First gate.  Zechariah 14:10. 19. Gate Gennath (gardens). Joseph. ''B. J'' v. 4, 34. 20. Essenes' gate. Joseph. ''B. J'' 4, § 2. To these should be added the following gates of the temple: Gate Sur.  2 Kings 11:6. Called also Gate of foundation.  2 Chronicles 23:5. Gate of the guard, or behind the guard.  2 Kings 11:6;  2 Kings 11:19; called the High gate, R. V., "upper gate."  2 Chronicles 23:20;  2 Chronicles 27:3;  2 Kings 15:35. Gate Shallecheth.  1 Chronicles 26:16. It is impossible to say which or how many of these names designate Different gates. The Chief gates of Jerusalem, now are four: the Damascus gate on the north, the Jaffa gate on the west, David or Zion gate on the south, and St. Stephen's gate on the east. The Mohammedans have other names for these gates. Only during the past six centuries have traditions connected the martyr Stephen with the present St. Stephen's gate; before that they were located to the north about the Damascus gate. The small door in the gate, to admit persons to enter after the gate was locked at night, is in the Jaffa sate, but it was built only 30 years ago. There is no evidence that there was such a door in our Lord's time, and to use it, as illustrating "the needle's eye,"  Luke 8:25, is without warrant from ancient history.

Walls.— According to Josephus, the first or old wall began on the north at the tower called Hippicus, the ruins now called Kasi-Jalud at the northwest angle of the present city, and, extending to the Xystus, joined the council house, and ended at the west cloister of the temple. The second wall began at the gate Gennath, in the old wall, probably near the Hippicus, and passed round the northern quarter of the city, enclosing the great valley of the Tyropœon, which leads up to the Damascus gate; and then, proceeding southward, joined the fortress Antonia. The points described by Josephus in the course of this wall have not been identified, and have given rise to sharp disputes, as the course of this wall goes far towards deciding the true site of Calvary.  John 19:20;  Luke 23:33. The third wall was built by King Herod Agrippa; and was intended to enclose the suburbs on the northern sides of the city, which before this had been left exposed.

Extent. —After describing the walls, Josephus adds that the whole circumference of the city was 33 stadia, or nearly four English miles, which is as near as may be the extent indicated by the localities. He then adds that the number of towers in the old wall was 60, the middle wall 40, and the new wall 99. Jerusalem of today as walled in would require about an hour to walk around it. The walls, measuring straight from point to point, are about 12,000 feet in length; the north wall being 3930 feet, the east wall 2754 feet, the south wall 3245 feet, and the west wall 2086 feet. The area in the present city is about 210 acres. The ancient city included the southern slopes of Zion and Ophel, which in modern times have been under cultivation, thus fulfilling the prediction, "Zion shall be ploughed Like a field."  Jeremiah 26:18.

The Pools of Gihon, Siloam, Hezekiah, Bethesda, En-rogel, etc., will be noticed under their proper titles.

The king's garden,  Nehemiah 3:15, was probably outside the city at the south, as Gethsemane,  Matthew 26:36, was eastward at the foot of the Mount of Olives. Of the various so-called streets, as the "east street," R.V., "the broad place on the east,"  2 Chronicles 29:4; the "street of the city," I.E., the city of David, R. V., "broad place at the gate of the city,"  2 Chronicles 32:6; the "street," R. V., "broad place facing the water gate,"  Nehemiah 8:1;  Nehemiah 8:3, or, according to the parallel account in  1 Esdras 9:38, the "broad place of the temple towards the east;" the "street of the house of God,"  Ezra 10:9, R. V., "broad place;" the "street," R. V., "broad place of the gate of Ephraim,"  Nehemiah 8:16; and the "open place of the first gate toward the east" could not have been "streets," in our sense of the word, but rather open spaces found in eastern towns near the inside of the gates. Streets, properly so called, there were, however,  Jeremiah 5:1;  Jeremiah 11:13, etc.; but the name of only one, "the bakers' street,"  Jeremiah 37:21, is preserved to us.

History. —Only a brief notice of its history can be given. We catch our earliest glimpse of Jerusalem in  Joshua 10:1, and in  Judges 1:1-36. which describes how the "children of Judah smote it with the edge of the sword, and set the city on fire;" and almost the latest mention of it in the New Testament is contained in the solemn warnings in which Christ foretold how Jerusalem should be "compassed with armies,"  Luke 21:20, and the "abomination of desolation" be seen standing in the Holy Place,  Matthew 24:15. In the 15 centuries which elapsed between those two periods, the city was besieged no fewer than 17 times; twice it was razed to the ground; and on two other occasions its walls were levelled. In this respect it stands without a parallel in any city, ancient or modern. David captured the city, b.c. 1046, and made it his capital, fortified and enlarged it.  2 Samuel 5:7;  2 Samuel 6:2-16;  1 Kings 11:36. Solomon adorned the city with beautiful buildings, including the temple, but made no additions to its walls.  1 Kings 7:2-7;  1 Kings 8:1-66;  1 Kings 10:7;  2 Chronicles 9:1-12. The city was taken by the Philistines and Arabians in the reign of Jehoram, b.c. 886, and by the Israelites in the reign of Amaziah, b.c. 826. The books of Kings and of Chronicles give the history of Jerusalem under the monarchy. It was thrice taken by Nebuchadnezzar, in the years b.c. 607, 597, and 586, in the last of which it was utterly destroyed. Its restoration commenced under Cyrus, b.c. 536, and was completed under Artaxerxes I., who issued commissions for this purpose to Ezra, b.c. 457, and Nehemiah, b.c. 445.  Nehemiah 4:7-22;  Nehemiah 6:1-16. In b.c. 332 it was captured by Alexander the Great, and again under Antiochus Epiphanes, b.c. 170. Under the Maccabees Jerusalem became independent and retained its position until its capture by the Romans under Pompey, b.c. 63. The temple was subsequently plundered by Crassus, b.c. 54, and the city by the Parthians, b.c. 40. Herod took up his residence there, and restored the temple with great magnificence. It was taken and destroyed by the Romans under Titus, when it had held out nearly five months, a.d. 70, fulfilling Christ's prophecy,  Matthew 24:1-51. Hadrian restored it as a Roman colony, a.d. 135. The emperor Constantine erected a church on the supposed site of the holy sepulchre, a.d. 336, and Justinian added several churches and hospitals, about a.d. 532. It was taken by the Persians under Chosroes II. in a.d. 614. In a.d. 637 the patriarch Sophronius surrendered to the khalif Omar, and the Holy City passed into the hands of the Fatimite dynasty. About 1084 it was bestowed upon Ortok, whose severity to the Christians became the proximate cause of the Crusades. It was taken by the Crusaders in 1099, and for 88 years Jerusalem remained in the hands of the Christians. In 1187 it was retaken by Saladin after a siege of several weeks. In 1277 Jerusalem was nominally annexed to the kingdom of Sicily. In 1517 it passed under the sway of the Ottoman sultan Selim I., whose successor, Suliman, built the present walls of the city in 1542. Mohammed Ali, the pasha of Egypt, took possession of it in 1832; and in 1840, after the bombardment of Acre, it was again restored to the sultan and has since remained in the hands of the Turks. A steam railway was opened from Jaffa (Joppa) to Jerusalem in October, 1892.

Population.— It is estimated that modern Jerusalem has from 50,000 to 75,000 inhabitants, of whom 12,000 are Mohammedans, 8000 Christians, and 25,000 to 30,000 (Conder says 40,000) Jews, nearly 30,000 depending largely for their living upon benevolent gifts from religious brethren elsewhere. The population of Jerusalem in ancient times probably did not exceed 75,000 at any period of Bible history.

Recent Explorations.— Besieged 17 times, twice destroyed, ancient Jerusalem is now buried under 80 feet of earth and rubbish. Of the explorations and present condition of the city, Selah Merrill, United States consul at Jerusalem (in Jackson's concise Dictionary), says: "One would suppose that in a place like Jerusalem, which has always teen a centre of special interest, there would be many remains of antiquity and a large number of historical sites whose genuineness no person would question. The truth is just the contrary of this. Very many things are doubtless buried which will, from time to time, be brought to light, as has been the case during the past 25 years. Thanks to recent excavations, certain points and objects have been recovered which "may be accepted as authentic beyond dispute. Thus we have the actual site of the Herodian temple, together with portions of the wall which supported its area, also the remains of a bridge of the same period which led from the temple to Mount Zion. We have the point of the native rock over which the altar was built, and from this are able to determine the site of the Holy of Holies. We can point to the spot where the castle of Antonia stood, and thus fix the eastern terminus of the 'second wall.'" Near the Jaffa gate Dr. Merrill "discovered, in 1885, a section of this wall, whose position has been so long in dispute. One hundred and twenty feet of it were exposed, consisting of one, two, and in a single place of three layers of massive stones, and from this the position of the Gennath Gate can be determined within a few yards. The lower portion of the so-called 'Castle of David' belongs to the time of Herod, if not to an earlier period. In the northwest corner of the city the foundations of one of the great towers of ancient Jerusalem have been uncovered, and massive work of the same age is found at the Damascus Gate. Under the mosque El Aksa are the columns of the Double Gate and the Porch belonging to it, through which our Lord must have often entered the temple. There is no question about the valleys Hinnom, Jehoshaphat, and the Tyropœan, or the pool of Siloam. The rock-cut conduit, leading for 1700 feet under Ophel, connecting the Pool of Siloam with the Virgin's Fountain, in which the Siloam inscription was discovered in 1880, dates from the time of the Hebrew kings. North of the city we have the tomb of Helena, the mother of Izates, built in the last century before Christ; and there are a few other objects, as the Tomb of Absalom and that of Jehoshaphat, which certainly belong to ancient times, but whose exact date cannot be determined." The old Pool of Bethesda was lately discovered by Conrad Schick, under the Church of St. Anne. Beyond these, our knowledge of the various places in ancient Jerusalem, noticed in the Bible and Josephus, is indefinite if not chaotic. Jerusalem is not a centre of trade, and it has few manufactures or business by which wealth can be acquired. Moneychangers are numerous because people from many other countries are found there, most of whom bring with them coin that is not current in the city. Shopkeepers are seldom able to make change themselves, and it is understood that the purchaser must come prepared to pay the exact amount of his purchase. Upward of 40 different languages and dialects are spoken in Jerusalem. Society is of a low order. The people are slow to adapt themselves to new conditions. There is, however, reason to hope for improvement under better religious and educational influences, and under a wise and helpful government.

In Scripture And Prophecy. Jerusalem is named 799 times in the Bible, and many times alluded to in sacred history and prophecy. Its strength and beauty are noticed,  Psalms 48:2;  Psalms 48:11-13;  Psalms 122:2-5; its peace is prayed for,  Psalms 51:18;  Psalms 122:6-8; its glory noticed,  Psalms 87:1-6. The siege and desolation of the city for sins were predicted,  Isaiah 29:1-3;  Isaiah 27:10;  Jeremiah 4:11;  Jeremiah 19:8;  Jeremiah 21:10; especially its destruction by the Chaldeans,  Jeremiah 13:9;  Jeremiah 13:18;  Jeremiah 34:22;  Ezekiel 24:2;  Amos 2:5. These predictions were literally fulfilled. See  1 Kings 14:25-26;  Jeremiah 51:50-51;  Lamentations 2:13;  Lamentations 5:11-22. Its preservation and restoration at times promised and performed,  2 Kings 19:10;  2 Chronicles 32:9-20;  Isaiah 37:17;  Isaiah 37:20;  Isaiah 37:33-35;  Psalms 69:35, where it is called Zion: compare  Isaiah 11:9-10;  Jeremiah 31:1;  Jeremiah 31:4;  Jeremiah 31:38-40;  Zechariah 8:3-5. Again its destruction by the Romans was predicted,  Zechariah 14:2;  Luke 19:41-44; and  Luke 21:9-10;  Luke 21:20;  Luke 21:24; and Josephus' description of the siege and destruction of the city under Titus ( Wars, Bk. vi.) shows how terrible was the fulfillment of this prophecy of Christ. It is still the "Sacred City," however, to the Jew, the Christian, and the Moslem, hallowed by the footsteps and sufferings of the Son of God.

Smith's Bible Dictionary

Jeru'salem. (The Habitation Of Peace). Jerusalem stands in latitude 31 degrees 46' 35" north and longitude 35 degrees 18' 30" east of Greenwich. It is 32 miles distant from the sea and 18 from the Jordan, 20 from Hebron and 36 from Samaria.

"In several respects," says Dean Stanley, "its situation is singular among the cities of Palestine. Its elevation is remarkable; occasioned not from its being on the summit of one of the numerous hills of Judea, like most of the towns and villages, but because it is on the edge of one of the highest table-lands of the country. Hebron indeed is higher still by some hundred feet, and from the south, accordingly (even from Bethlehem).

The approach to Jerusalem is by a slight descent. But from any other side the ascent is perpetual; and to the traveller approaching the city from the east or west, it must always have presented the appearance beyond any other capital of the then known world - we may say beyond any important city that has ever existed on the earth - of a mountain city; breathing, as compared with the sultry plains of Jordan, a mountain air; enthroned, as compared with Jericho or Damascus, Gaza or Tyre, on a mountain fastness." - S. & P. 170,

Jerusalem, if not actually in the centre of Palestine, was yet virtually so. "It was on the ridge, the broadest and most strongly-marked ridge, of the backbone of the complicated hills which extend through the whole country from the plain of Esdraelon to the desert."

Roads. - There appear to have been but two main approaches to the city: -

i. From the Jordan valley by Jericho and the Mount of Olives. This was the route commonly taken from the north and east of the country.

ii. From the great maritime plain of Philistia and Sharon. This road led by the two Beth-horons up to the high ground at Gibeon, whence it turned south, and came to Jerusalem by Ramah and Gibeah, and over the ridge north of the city.

Topography. - To convey an idea of the position of Jerusalem, we may say, roughly, that the city occupies the southern termination of the table-land, which is cut off from the country round it on its west, south and east sides by ravines more than usually deep and precipitous. These ravines leave the level of the table-land, the one on the west and the other on the northeast of the city, and fall rapidly until they form a junction below its southeast corner.

The eastern one - the Valley Of The Kedron , commonly called the Valley Of Jehoshaphat - runs nearly straight from north by south.

But the western one - the Valley Of Hinnom - runs south for a time, and then takes a sudden bend to the east until it meets the Valley Of Jehoshaphat , after which the two rush off as one to the Dead Sea.

How sudden is their descent may be gathered from the fact that the level at the point of junction - about a mile and a quarter from the starting-point of each - is more than 600 feet below that of the upper plateau from which they began their descent.

So steep is the fall of the ravines, so trench-like their character, and so close do they keep to the promontory at whose feet they run, as to leave on the beholder almost the impression of the ditch at the foot of a fortress rather than of valleys formed by nature.

The promontory thus encircled is itself divided by a longitudinal ravine running up it from south to north, called the Valley Of The Tyropoeon , rising gradually from the south, like the external ones, till at last it arrives at the level of the upper plateau, dividing the central mass into two unequal portions.

Of these two, that on the west is the higher and more massive, on which the city of Jerusalem now stands, and in fact always stood. The hill on the east is considerably lower and smaller, so that to a spectator from the south the city appears to slope sharply toward the east.

Here was the Temple, and here stands now the great Mohammedan sanctuary with its mosques and domes. The name of Mount Zion has been applied to the western hill from the time of Constantine to the present day. The eastern hill, called Mount Moriah in  2 Chronicles 3:1 was, as already remarked, the site of the Temple. It was situated in the southwest angle of the area, now known as the Haram Area , and was, as we learn from Josephus, an exact square of a stadium, or 600 Greek feet, on each side.

(Conder, "Bible Handbook," 1879) states that, by the latest surveys, the Haram Area is a quadrangle with unequal sides. The west wall measures 1601 feet, the south 922, the east 1530, the north 1042. It is thus nearly a mile in circumference, and contains 35 acres. - Editor).

Attached to the northwest angle of the Temple was the Antonia , a tower or fortress. North of the side of the Temple is the building now known to Christians as the Mosque Of Omar , but by Moslems called the Dome Of The Rock . The southern continuation of the eastern hill was named Ophel , which gradually came to a point at the junction of the Valleys Of Tyropoeon and Jehoshaphat ; and the northern Bezetha , "the new city," first noticed by Josephus, which was separated from Moriah by an artificial ditch, and overlooked the valley of Kedron on the east; this hill was enclosed within the walls of Herod Agrippa. Lastly, Acra lay westward of Moriah and northward of Zion, and formed the "lower city" in the time of Josephus.

Walls. - These are described by Josephus. The First or Old Wall was built by David and Solomon, and enclosed Zion and part of Mount Moriah. (The second wall enclosed a portion of the city called Acra or Millo , on the north of the city, from the Tower Of Mariamne to the Tower Of Antonia . It was built as the city enlarged in size; begun by Uzziah 140 years after the first wall was finished, continued by Jotham 50 years later, and by Manasseh 100 years later still. It was restored by Nehemiah. Even the latest explorations have failed to decide exactly what was its course. (See Conder's Handbook of the Bible, art. Jerusalem).

The third wall was built by King Herod Agrippa, and was intended to enclose the suburbs which had grown out on the northern sides of the city, which before this had been left exposed. After describing these walls, Josephus adds that the whole circumference of the city was 33 stadia, or nearly four English miles, which is as near as may be the extent indicated by the localities. He then adds that the number of towers in the old wall was 60, the middle wall 40, and the new wall 99.

Water Supply. - (Jerusalem had no natural water supply, unless we so consider the "Fountain of the Virgin," which wells up with an intermittent action from under Ophel . The private citizens had cisterns, which were supplied by the rain from the roofs; and the city had a water supply "perhaps the most complete and extensive ever undertaken by a city," and which would enable it to endure a long siege.

There were three aqueducts, a number of pools and fountains, and the Temple area was honeycombed with great reservoirs, whose total capacity is estimated at 10,000,000 gallons. Thirty of these reservoirs are described, varying from 25 to 50 feet in depth; and one, called The Great Sea , would hold 2,000,000 gallons. These reservoirs and the pools were supplied with water by the rainfall and by the aqueducts. One of these, constructed by Pilate, has been traced for 40 miles, though in a straight line the distance is but 13 miles. It brought water from the spring Elam , on the south, beyond Bethlehem, into the reservoirs under the Temple enclosure. - Editor).

Pools and fountains. - A part of the system of water supply. Outside the walls, on the west side, were The Upper And Lower Pools Of Gihon , the latter close under Zion, the former more to the northwest on the Jaffa road. At the junction of the Valleys Of Hinnom and Jehoshaphat was Enrogel , the "Well Of Job", in the midst of the king's gardens. Within the walls, immediately north of Zion, was the "Pool of Hezekiah." A large pool existing beneath the Temple (referred to in  Sirach 1:3 was probably supplied by some subterranean aqueduct.

The "King's Pool" was probably identical with the "Fountain of the Virgin," at the southern angle of Moriah. It possesses the peculiarity that it rises and falls at irregular periods; it is supposed to be fed form the cistern below the Temple. From this a subterranean channel cut through solid rock leads the water to The Pool of Siloah, or Siloam , which has also acquired the character of being an intermittent fountain. The pool of which tradition has assigned the name of Bethesda is situated on the north side of Moriah; it is now named Birket Israil .

Burial-grounds. - The main cemetery of the city seems from an early date to have been where it is still - on the steep slopes of the valley of the Kedron. The tombs of the kings were in the city of David, that is, Mount Zion. The royal sepulchres were probably chambers containing separate recesses for the successive kings.

Gardens. - The king's gardens of David and Solomon seem to have been in the bottom formed by the confluence of the Kedron and Himmon.  Nehemiah 3:15. The Mount Of Olives , as its name, and the names of various places upon it seem to imply, was a fruitful spot. At its foot was situated the Garden Of Gethsemane . At the time of the final siege, the space north of the wall of Agrippa was covered with gardens, groves and plantations of fruit trees, enclosed by hedges and walls; and to level these was one of Titus' first operations. We know that the Gennath (that is, "of gardens") opened on this side of the city.

Gates. - The following is a complete list of the gates named in the Bible and by Josephus, with the reference to their occurrence: -

Gate Of Ephraim.  2 Chronicles 25:23;  Nehemiah 8:16;  Nehemiah 12:39. This is probably the same as the... -

Gate Of Benjamin.  Jeremiah 20:2;  Jeremiah 37:13;  Zechariah 14:10. If so, it was 400 cubits distant from the... -

Corner Gate.  2 Chronicles 25:23;  2 Chronicles 26:9;  Jeremiah 31:38;  Zechariah 14:10.

Gate Of Joshua, governor of the city.  2 Kings 23:8.

Gate Between The Two Walls.  2 Kings 25:4;  Jeremiah 39:4.

Horse Gate.  Nehemiah 3:28;  2 Chronicles 23:15;  Jeremiah 31:40.

Ravine Gate, (that is, opening on ravine of Hinnom).  2 Chronicles 26:9;  Nehemiah 2:13;  Nehemiah 2:15;  Nehemiah 3:13.

Fish Gate.  2 Chronicles 33:14;  Nehemiah 3:13;  Zephaniah 1:10.

Dung Gate.  Nehemiah 2:13;  Nehemiah 3:13.

Sheep Gate.  Nehemiah 3:1;  Nehemiah 3:32;  Nehemiah 12:39.

East Gate.  Nehemiah 3:29.

Miphkad Gate or Inspection Gate or Muster Gate  Nehemiah 3:31.

Fountain Gate, (Siloam?)  Nehemiah 12:37.

Water Gate.  Nehemiah 12:37.

Old Gate.  Nehemiah 12:39.

Prison Gate.  Nehemiah 12:39.

Gate Harsith, (perhaps the Sun Gate ; Authorized Version, East Gate ).  Jeremiah 19:2.

First Gate.  Zechariah 14:10.

Gate Gennath (gardens). Jos B.J. V 4, - 4.

Essenes' Gate. Jos. B.J. 4, - 2.

To these should be added the following gates to the Temple: -

Gate Sur,  2 Kings 11:6 called also Gate Of Foundation.  2 Chronicles 23:5.

Gate Of The Guard , or Gate Behind The Guard,  2 Kings 11:6;  2 Kings 11:19;

called the High Gate.  2 Kings 15:35;  2 Chronicles 23:20;  2 Chronicles 27:3.

Gate Shallecheth.  1 Chronicles 26:16.

At present, the chief gates are -

The Zion'S Gate and

the Dung Gate, in the south wall;

St. Stephen'S Gate and

the Golden Gate (now walled up), in the east wall;

The Damascus Gate and

Herod'S Gate, in the north wall; and

The Jaffa Gate, in the west wall.

Population. - Taking the area of the city enclosed by the two old walls at 750,000 yards, and that enclosed by the wall of Agrippa at 1,500,000 yards, we have 2,250,000 yards for the whole. Taking the population of the Old City at the probable number of the one person to 50 yards, we have 15,000 and at the extreme limit of 30 yards, we should have 25,000 inhabitants for the Old City, and at 100 yards to each individual in the New City, about 15,000 more; so that the population of Jerusalem, in its days of greatest prosperity, may have amounted to from 30,000 to 45,000 souls, but could hardly ever have reached 50,000; and assuming that in times of festival one-half was added to this amount, which is an extreme estimate, there may have been 60,000 or 70,000 in the city when Titus came up against it.

(Josephus says that at the siege of Jerusalem the population was 3,000,000; but Tacitus' statement that it was 600,000 is nearer the truth. This last is certainly within the limits of possibility.)

Streets, houses, etc. - Of the nature of these in the ancient city, we have only the most scattered notices. The "east street,"  2 Chronicles 29:4, the "street of the city," that is, the city of David,  2 Chronicles 32:6, the "street facing the water gate,"  Nehemiah 8:1,  Nehemiah 8:3, or, according to the parallel account in  1 Esdras 9:38, the "broad place of the Temple towards the east;" the "street of the house of God,"  Ezra 10:9, the "street of the gate of Ephraim,"  Nehemiah 8:16, and the "open place of the first gate toward the east," must have been not "streets," in our sense of the word, so much as the open spaces found in easter towns round the inside of the gates.

Streets, properly so called, there were,  Jeremiah 5:1;  Jeremiah 11:13; etc.; but the name of only one, "the bakers' street,"  Jeremiah 37:21, is preserved to us. The Via Dolorosa , or Street Of Sorrows , is a part of the street thorough which Christ is supposed to have been led on his way to his crucifixion.

To the houses, we have even less clue; but there is no reason to suppose that, in either houses or streets, the ancient Jerusalem differed very materially from the modern. No doubt the ancient city did not exhibit that air of mouldering dilapidation which is now so prominent there. The whole of the slopes south of the Haram Area (the ancient Ophel ), and the modern Zion, and the west side of the Valley Of Jehoshaphat , presents the appearance of gigantic mounds of rubbish. In this point at least, the ancient city stood in favorable contrast with the modern, but in many others, the resemblance must have been strong.

Annals of the City. - If, as is possible, Salem is the same with Jerusalem, the first mention of Jerusalem is in  Genesis 14:18 about B.C. 2080. It is next mentioned in  Joshua 10:1 B.C. 1451. The first siege appears to have taken place almost immediately after the death of Joshua - circa 1400 B.C. Judah and Simeon "fought against it and took it, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and set the city on fire."  Judges 1:8. In the fifteen centuries which elapsed between this siege and the siege and destruction of the city by Titus, A.D. 70, the city was besieged no fewer than seventeen times; twice, it was razed to the ground, on two other occasions, its walls were levelled. In this respect, it stands without a parallel in any city, ancient or modern.

David captured the city B.C. 1046, and made it his capital, fortified and enlarged it. Solomon adorned the city with beautiful buildings, including the Temple, but made no additions to its walls. The city was taken by the Philistines and Arabians, in the reign of Jehoram, B.C. 886, and by the Israelites, in the reign of Amaziah, B.C. 826. It was thrice taken by Nebuchadnezzar, in the years B.C. 607, 597 and 586, in the last of which, it was utterly destroyed. Its restoration commenced under Cyrus, B.C. 538, and was completed under Artaxerxes I, who issued commissions for this purpose to Ezra, B.C. 457, and Nehemiah, B.C. 445.

In B.C. 332, it was captured by Alexander the Great. Under the Ptolemies and the Seleucidae, the town was prosperous, until Antiochus Epiphanes sacked it, B.C. 170. In consequence of his tyranny, the Jews rose under the Maccabees, and Jerusalem became again independent, and retained its position until its capture by the Romans under Pompey, B.C. 63. The Temple was subsequently plundered by Crassus, B.C. 545, and the city by the Parthians, B.C. 40.

Herod took up his residence there as soon as he was appointed sovereign, and restored the Temple with great magnificence. On the death of Herod, it became the residence of the Roman procurators, who occupied the fortress of Antonia. The greatest siege that it sustained, however, was at the hands of the Romans under Titus, when it held out nearly five months, and when the town was completely destroyed, A.D. 70. Hadrian restored it as a Roman colony, A.D. 135, and among other buildings, erected a temple of Jupiter Capitolinus on the site of the Temple. He gave to it the name of Aelia Capitolina , thus combining his own family name with that of the Capitoline Jupiter.

The emperor Constantine established the Christian character by the erection of a church on the supposed site of the Holy Sepulchre, A.D. 336. Justinian added several churches and hospitals about A.D. 532. It was taken by the Persians, under Chosroes II, in A.D. 614. The dominion of the Christians in the Holy City was now rapidly drawing to a close. In A.D. 637, the patriarch Sophronius surrendered to the khalif Omar in person.

With the fall of the Abassides, the Holy City passed into the hands of the Fatimite dynasty, under whom, the sufferings of the Christians in Jerusalem reached their height. About the year 1084, it was bestowed upon Ortok, chief of a Turkman horde. It was taken by the Crusaders in 1099, and for eighty-eight years, Jerusalem remained in the hand of the Christians. In 1187, it was retaken by Saladin after a siege of several weeks. In 1277, Jerusalem was nominally annexed to the kingdom of Sicily. In 1517, it passed under the sway of the Ottoman sultan Selim I, whose successor, Suliman, built the present walls of the city in 1542. Mohammed Aly, the pasha of Egypt, took possession of it in 1832; and in 1840, after the bombardment of Acre, it was again restored to the sultan.

( Modern Jerusalem, called by the Arabs, el-Khuds , is built upon the ruins of ancient Jerusalem. The accumulated rubbish of centuries is very great, being 100 feet deep on the hill of Zion. The modern wall, built in 1542, forms an irregular quadrangle about 2 1/2 miles in circuit, with seven gates and 34 towers. It varies in height from 20 to 60 feet. The streets within are narrow, ungraded, crooked, and often filthy. The houses are of hewn stone, with flat roofs and frequent domes. There are few windows toward the street.

The most beautiful part of modern Jerusalem is the former Temple area (Mount Moriah), "with its lawns and cypress tress, and its noble dome rising high above the wall." This enclosure, now called Haram Esh-Sherif, is 35 acres in extent, and is nearly a mile in circuit. On the site of the ancient Temple stands the Mosque Of Omar, "perhaps the very noblest specimen of building-art in Asia." "It is the most prominent as well as the most beautiful building in the whole city."

The mosque is an octagonal building, each side measuring 66 feet. It is surmounted by a dome, whose top is 170 feet from the ground. The Church Of The Holy Sepulchre, which is claimed, but without sufficient reason, to be upon the site of Calvary, is "a collection of chapels and altars of different ages and a unique museum of religious curiosities from Adam to Christ ." The present number of inhabitants in Jerusalem is variously estimated. Probably Pierotti's estimate is very near the truth, - 20,330; of whom 5068 are Christians, 7556 Mohammedans (Arabs and Turks), and 7706 Jews. - Editor).

Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology

The Name . The name "Jerusalem" occurs 806 times in the Bible, 660 times in the Old Testament and 146 times in the New Testament; additional references to the city occur as synonyms.

Jerusalem was established as a Canaanite city by the Chalcolithic period (ca. 4000-3100 b.c.), occupying the southeast hill that currently bears the name "City of David." Steep slopes on each side of the hill provided a defensible site, and a spring at the foot of the hill provided necessary water. The earliest probable occurrence of the name appears in the Execration Texts of Egypt (nineteenth to eighteenth centuries b.c.) as Rusalimum . The Amarna Letters from Late Bronze Age Egypt (fourteenth century b.c.), written in the Akkadian language, include the name Urusalim . In Assyrian and Babylonian texts relating to the kingdom of Judah, Ursalimmu or a similar form appears.

The archaeological investigation of Jerusalem is hampered by continued occupation; thus, even though no evidence exists for the sanctity of the site in Canaanite thought, human nature supports the assumption that the city had a religious center. The name consists of two elements: yrw and salem []. yrw may signify "foundation" or "city, " while salem [] is the name of a deity. The name means either "the foundation of ( the god ) Shalem, " the patron-god of the city, or "the city of Shalem." Thus, a certain sanctity adhered to the city long before David acquired it.

Jerusalem in the Old Testament. Salem . The first occurrence of Jerusalem is in  Joshua 10:1 , but an allusion to Jerusalem appears in  Genesis 14:18 with the reference to Melchizedek, king of Salem. Poetic parallel construction in   Psalm 76:2 (  Hebrews 76:3 ) equates Salem with Zion. Theologically, the Canaanite city of Shalem has become the biblical city of Shalom, Peace. Prophetically, Isaiah spoke of the Prince of Peace (Shalom) who would reign on David's throne (in Jerusalem), a reference full of messianic portent ( Isaiah 9:6 ).

Jebus . At the time of the Israelite occupation of Canaan, Jerusalem was known as Jebus, a shortened expression for "City of the Jebusites." References in Joshua, Judges, and 1Chronicles note that Jebus is another name for Jerusalem. The Romans also renamed the city Aelia Capitolina, but in both cases the older name revived.

City of David . Second Samuel recounts David's conquest of Jebus, exploiting the secret watershaft from the spring Gihon outside the city wall to its exit within the city. From that time on David "took up residence in the fortress, and called it the City of David" (5:9). His subsequent construction of a palace made Jerusalem a royal city. His decision to rule from Jerusalem elevated a city, poorly situated for either trade or military activity, to capital status. The politically neutral city, belonging to neither the northern nor southern tribes, also became his personal property.

David transformed Jerusalem into the religious center of his kingdom by bringing into it the ark of the covenant ( 2 Samuel 6:1-19 ). Although David was not allowed to construct a temple, the arrival of the ark forever linked Jerusalem with the cult of Yahweh. Solomon, David's son, enhanced the religious dimension of the city by constructing the temple of the Lord, symbolizing the presence of Yahweh in Jerusalem and Israel. David began the process of establishing the royal and religious nature of Jerusalem, but it was Solomon who transformed the former Jebusite stronghold into a truly capital and national cultic center. The royal and covenantal functions of Jerusalem are linked in  Psalm 2:6 , where God announces that "I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill."

Jerusalem is imbued with an eternal nature in several passages in the Old Testament. As Yahweh's spokesman, Nathan promised David a dynasty that would rule in perpetuity ( 2 Samuel 7:15 ). This promise was extended to Jerusalem because of its function as the royal city. In addition, Solomon described the temple as the place for God to "dwell forever" ( 1 Kings 8:13 ). While both kingship and covenant were to be centered in Jerusalem forever (cf.  Psalm 132 ), the promise was conditional ( 1 Kings 9:6-9 ).

The Bible is full of references to the tension confronting the prophets and people of Jerusalem over the "eternal" nature of the city and the conditions. Isaiah, for example, understood that the Lord would shield Jerusalem (31:5), but he was also aware that certain conditions did apply (1:19-20; 7:9b). Although painfully aware of the transgressions of the city (1:21-23), he nevertheless retained a hopeful vision for its future (2:3). Micah, Isaiah's contemporary, held similar views (3:12; 5:1-4). The prophets knew that the destruction of the city was imminent, for the cult had become corrupt and Jerusalem, the home of the covenant, would have to pay the price. The people's belief in the mere presence of the cult as a talisman against harm was not enough to save them from the discipline of destruction.

The idea that Jerusalem was inviolable persisted, however, no doubt strengthened in part by the deliverance of the city from the siege of Sennacherib ( 2 Kings 19:20-36 ). Nearly a century later, following the apostasy of Manasseh and the reforms of Josiah, Jehoiakim ascended the throne of David in Jerusalem. The prophet Jeremiah, his contemporary, early on dismissed Jehoiakim as a despot worthy of the "burial of a donkey" ( Jeremiah 22:19 ). Jeremiah had supported the reforms of Josiah, but in the end the people were too hardened to change. They were convinced that the indestructible city and temple of the Lord would protect them in spite of their depravity ( Jeremiah 7:4 ). When Jeremiah denied this and predicted the destruction of the temple, a century-old echo of Micah, it nearly cost him his life. Jerusalem did not change and the doom of exile was the result.

The Babylonian exile provided the environment for the transformation of Jerusalem, which lay desolate in ruins, into a spiritual symbol for the Jews. As important as Jerusalem had been as a royal center for the kingdom of Israel and, after Solomon's death, for the kingdom of Judah, through the ages its importance has been as "the city of the Great King, " the Lord ( Psalm 48:2;  Matthew 5:35 ). The demise of the kingdom of Judah brought the political rule of the Davidic dynasty to a close; thereafter the rule of the Davidic house was perceived in messianic and eschatological terms. Upon the return of the Jews from the exile to the ruins of Jerusalem, they rebuilt the temple but not the palace. The true sovereignty of God was spiritual rather than political.

Zion . "Zion" is likely derived from a Semitic root related to a fortified tower atop a mountain. Its earliest appearance in the Bible equates the stronghold of Zion with the City of David ( 2 Samuel 5:7 ). Zion, then, was the fortified hill of Jebus conquered by David.

Zion was originally a geographic term for the City of David, but with the extension of the city northward to incorporate the Temple Mount, Zion came also to signify the dwelling place of Yahweh ( Psalm 9:11; [9:12]). The move of the ark of the covenant from the tent in the city to the temple proper may have prompted the shift of name.

The name "Zion" is seldom used in historical passages, but it occurs frequently in poetic and prophetic compositions as a synonym for all Jerusalem. In time Zion took on figurative as well as geographical connotations. Jerusalem is called the "Daughter of Zion ( Isaiah 1:8 ) and the "Virgin Daughter of Zion" ( 2 Kings 19:21 ). Jerusalem's inhabitants are called "sons of Zion" ( Lamentations 4:2 ), the "women of Zion" ( Isaiah 3:16 ), and the "elders of the Daughter of Zion" ( Lamentations 2:10 ). In these expressions the city has been personified. The extension of a place name to refer to its inhabitants recognizes that the character of a city is determined more by the traits of its population than by its buildings.

A visitor to modern Jerusalem will be shown the western hill rather than the City of David as Mount Zion. Through changing usage over the centuries the name has migrated to the west, but archaeology has shown that the original site was identical with the City of David. No matter where the name rests geographically, Zion's true significance is in the heavens where God's dwelling will be with his people ( Revelation 21:3-4 ).

Moriah . Moriah occurs only twice in the Bible ( Genesis 22:2;  2 Chronicles 3:1 ). The rare use of the name, however, belies its theological significance. Abraham was instructed by God to take his son to the land of Moriah and there to offer him as a sacrifice. The place was three days' journey from Beersheba. The Chronicler, writing in the postexilic period, has connected the place of the offering of Isaac with not only Jerusalem but specifically with the Temple Mount. This is the earliest evidence for this connection which is also attested in Josephus (Ant. 1.13.1f [222-27]; 7.13.4 [329-34]), Bk. Jub. 18:13, rabbinic literature, and Islamic thought (although with Ishmael as Abraham's son). This connection enhanced the sanctity of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount and contributed to the basis for the Islamic name for the city, El-Quds, "The Holy (City)."

After Abraham was prevented from slaying Isaac, and the ram was provided as a substitutionary sacrificial victim, Abraham called the name of the place Yahweh-jireh , "The Lord sees." Even so, the name never attained common usage.

The connection of Jerusalem with the sacred mountain of Yahweh is implicit in many of the references to mountain (Heb. har) in the Old Testament. The concept of a sacred mountain as the abode of deities was common in the ancient Near East. At Ugarit on the North Syrian coast, Mount Zaphon to the north was the sacred mountain. The most active of the gods of Ugarit was called Baal-Zaphon.  Psalm 48:3 (  Hebrews 48:2 ), refers to Jerusalem as "the utmost heights of Zaphon is Mount Zion, the city of the Great King." The poet has drawn on Canaanite imagery to enhance praise of the Lord.

Isaiah saw that ultimately the mountain of the Lord would be the goal of nations. In the last days "Many peoples will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord'" (2:3). The word of the Lord will go out from Jerusalem; nations will convert weapons into agricultural implements and men will not learn war anymore. Then Jerusalem shall become the city of peace indeed.

Ariel . "Ariel" occurs five times as the name of David's city only in  Isaiah 29 . The meaning of the name is obscure. Perhaps it means "the hearth of God, " compared to  Ezekiel 43:15 , or the "lion of God, " or, by a slight emendation, "the city of God." Another emendation would yield "the mountain of God, " congruent with similar references noted above.

Postexilic Jerusalem . The restoration of the Jewish people to Jerusalem was decreed by the Persian ruler Cyrus following his conquest of Babylon in 539 b.c. Sheshbazzar, a prince of Davidic descent, led the first group of exiles back in 538 b.c., but there is no hint of the renewal of the monarchy. Persian political policy dominated the returnees. During this time a meager attempt at rebuilding the temple was undertaken. A second group of returnees arrived with Zerubbabel around 520 b.c. and work on the temple was accelerated through the prodding of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah; the structure was completed and dedicated in 516 b.c. The city's walls were rebuilt under Nehemiah's leadership (ca. 445 b.c.). Ezra instituted religious reforms based on the "Book of the Law of Moses, " probably the Pentateuch, which he brought back with him from Babylon ( Nehemiah 8:1 ). With this, the cult of Yahweh was fully reestablished in Jerusalem.

Jerusalem in the New Testament . New Testament Jerusalem is Herodian Jerusalem, a city four centuries beyond the time of Ezra-Nehemiah. In those four hundred years, Jerusalem witnessed the demise of the Persian Empire and the domination of the Greeks. Under the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt, the attractive influence of Greek culture affected Jerusalem and its people, weakening religious devotion and practices particularly among the priestly ruling elite (cf.  1 Maccabees 1:14 ). The Syrian Seleucid dynasty wrested control of Jerusalem from the Egyptians in 198 b.c. Finally, after Antiochus IV desecrated the temple by sacrificing a hog on the altar, devout Jews led by the Hasmonean family (Maccabees) rose in rebellion to reclaim Jerusalem in 164 b.c. The Hasmoneans attained political independence and became a dynasty of priest-kings who ruled until Herod the Great became king of Judea.

The Romans ended independent Jewish rule in 63 b.c. They place Herod on the throne in 37 b.c., and he began the greatest building program Jerusalem had known. He constructed a new city wall, a theater and amphitheater, athletic fields, and a new palace. His reconstruction of the temple and the expansion of its platform made it the crown jewel of Jerusalem. At the same time, the Dead Sea Scroll community who deemed the Jerusalem temple despised by God, contemplated a New Jerusalem, completely rebuilt as a Holy City and with a new temple as its centerpiece (Temple Scroll). Herodian Jerusalem survived until the war with Rome in 66-70 a.d.; the city then suffered siege and destruction. It is in the context of Jerusalem before the destruction occurred that New Testament references are set.

Jesus and Jerusalem . In the Synoptic Gospels Jerusalem is first mentioned in connection with the birth stories of Jesus: Zechariah's vision in the temple ( Luke 1:5-23 ), the visit of the Magi ( Matthew 2:1-12 ), and the presentation of the infant Jesus ( Luke 2:22-38 ). Luke records the visit of Jesus to the temple at age twelve (2:41-50), and in fact New Testament references to Jerusalem are predominantly in Luke-Acts. Jesus is tempted by Satan at the highest point of the temple just prior to the start of his ministry in Galilee (4:9-13). Further, Luke records the "travel account" (9:51-19:27) in which Jesus sets his face toward Jerusalem and the inevitable events that were to take place there for, as Jesus observed, "surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!" (13:33). Jerusalem and the temple symbolized the covenant between God and his people, but the covenant relationship was askew. Luke records Jesus' tears and sorrow over Jerusalem and his prophecy of its destruction (19:41-44).

Jewish messianism had long anticipated the return of a Davidic king to the city. The arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, described in  Luke 19 , was perceived as a royal procession by followers and adversaries alike. Jesus saw that the temple had become a commercial establishment rather than a center of spirituality. By "cleansing" the temple he reaffirmed its place of honor.

Jesus' role was to put humanity back in line with the will of God. Although the fulfillment of this role through his death upon the cross was to take place outside the city, Jerusalem provided the backdrop for his Passion. Luke records many of the activities of that last week: the Last Supper, the arraignment before the high priest, Peter's denial, the trial before Pilate all took place within Jerusalem. And some postresurrection appearances of Jesus took place in Jerusalem (24:33-49) where his disciples were to await the coming of the Holy Spirit (24:49). Luke's Gospel closes with the call of Jesus to preach in his name to all nations "beginning at Jerusalem" (24:49).

Matthew recalls the sanctity of Jerusalem as the "holy city" (4:5), and Jesus refers to it as "the city of the Great King" (5:35). The name "Zion" in Matthew refers to fulfilled prophecy (21:5; cf.  Romans 11:26 ). New Testament references to Zion mainly recall Old Testament passages; however, the heavenly Jerusalem is identified as Zion in  Hebrews 12:22 and   Revelation 14:1 .

Mark's references to Jerusalem are set mainly in the Passion narrative; however, he notes the "massive stones" of the temple (13:1). All three Synoptic Gospels record the splitting of the curtain in the Jerusalem temple during the crucifixion. The Holy of Holies, the former center of covenant, was opened by this event to the new covenant with Christ.

The Synoptics are largely silent concerning any visits by Jesus to Jerusalem between childhood and his last week, but the Gospel of John supplements the record in this respect. According to John, Jesus cleansed the temple early in his ministry, following the "first sign" at Cana ( John 2:13-16 ). Jesus also attended the Feast of Tabernacles and taught in the temple (7:14). And he healed the blind man at the pool of Siloam (chap. 9). The healing of the lame man at the pool of Bethsaida is also recorded in John (chap. 5).

Paul and Jerusalem .  Acts 1:4 notes that the apostles were to wait for the promised gift of the Father in Jerusalem, and the gospel began to be preached there (chap. 2). In Jerusalem Stephen delineated the differences between Christianity and mainstream Judaism. The city was central to the early Christian community, and its leaders frequented the temple as a place of prayer. In Jerusalem Paul received his commission to preach to the Gentiles (22:17-21). Paul remained in contact with the temple, praying (22:17) and seeking purification there (24:18). Paul expected Gentile Christians to identify with Jerusalem and to develop a sense of kinship with the Jerusalem church. He actively encouraged outlying churches to send support to the "poor among the saints at Jerusalem" (  Romans 15:26 ).

The Heavenly Jerusalem . New Testament Christians held the view that there was a city with foundations whose architect and builder was God ( Hebrews 11:10 ). Further, this was a heavenly Jerusalem "Mount Zion, the city of the living God" (12:22). The population would consist of those whose names are written in heaven. The eschatological view of Jerusalem that developed among Christians, aside from that of Judaism (cf.  Isaiah 60:14 ), looked forward to the fulfillment of the promise of the kingdom in the establishment of a New Jerusalem that would come "down out of heaven from God" ( Revelation 21:2 ). This city is described in contrast to the city allegorically called Sodom and Egypt, that is, the earthly Jerusalem, "where also their Lord was crucified" ( Revelation 11:8 ).

The Bible begins with a bucolic setting in the Garden of Eden; it closes on an urban scene, and that city is the New Jerusalem. For Christians, the identification of earthly Jerusalem as the dwelling place of God, which figures so frequently in the Old Testament, has been transformed into a heavenly Jerusalem, the true sanctuary of the Lord (cf.  Galatians 4:26;  Hebrews 12:22-29 ). Nevertheless, Christians have always been drawn to the earthly Jerusalem, as have Jews and Muslims, for it has retained through the centuries its role as the center of the three monotheistic religions.

Keith N. Schoville

See also New Jerusalem

Bibliography . M. Barker, The Gate of Heaven: The History and Symbolism of the Temple in Jerusalem  ; G. A. Barrois, IDB, 4:959-60; M. Burrows, IDB, 2:843-66; R. E. Clements, Isaiah and the Deliverance of Jerusalem  ; P. J. King, ABD, 4:747-66; W. H. Mare, ABD, 6:1096-97; idem, The Archaeology of the Jerusalem Area  ; B. C. Ollenburger, Zion the City of the Great King  ; J. Simons, Jerusalem in the Old Testament  ; P. W. L. Walker, Jerusalem: Past and Present in the Purposes of God .

American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

The chief city of the Holy Land, and to the Christian the most illustrious in the world. It is situated in 31 degrees 46'43" N. lat., and 35 degrees 13' E. long. on elevated ground south of the center of the country, about thirty-seven miles from the Mediterranean, and about twenty-four from the Jordan. Its site was early hallowed by God's trial of Abraham's faith,  Genesis 22:1-24   2 Chronicles 3:1 . It was on the border of the tribes of Benjamin and Judah, mostly within the limits of the former, but reckoned as belonging to the latter, because conquered by it,  Joshua 15:8   18:16,28   Judges 1:18 . The most ancient name of the city was Salem,  Genesis 14:18   Psalm 76:2; and it afterwards was called Jebus, as belonging to the Jebusites,  Judges 19:10,11 . Being a very strong position, it resisted the attempts of the Israelites to become the sole masters of it, until at length its fortress was stormed by David,  2 Samuel 5:6,9; after which it received its present name, and was also called "the city of David." It now became the religious and political center of the kingdom, and was greatly enlarged, adorned, and fortified. But its chief glory was, that in its magnificent temple the ONE Living And True God dwelt, and revealed himself.

After the division of the tribes, it continued the capital of the kingdom of Judah, was several times taken and plundered, and at length was destroyed at the Babylonian captivity,  2 Kings 14:13   2 Chronicles 12:9   21:16   24:23   25:23   36:3,10   17:1-20:37 . After seventy years, it was rebuilt by the Jews on their return from captivity about 536 B. C., who did much to restore it to its former splendor. About 332 B. C., the city yielded to Alexander of Macedon; and not long after his death, Ptolemy of Egypt took it by an assault on the Sabbath, when it is said the Jews scrupled to fight. In 170 B. C., Jerusalem fell under the tyranny of Antiochus Epiphanes, who razed its walls, set up an image of Jupiter in the temple, and used every means to force the people into idolatry. Under the Maccabees, however, the Jews, in 163 B. C., recovered their independence. Just a century later, it was conquered by the Romans. Herod the Great expended vast sums in its embellishment. To the city and temple thus renovated the ever-blessed Messiah came, in the fullness of time, and made the place of his feet glorious. By his rejection and crucifixion Jerusalem filled up the cup of her guilt; the Jewish nation perished from off the land of their fathers, and the city and temple were taken by Titus and totally destroyed, A. D. 70-71. Of all the structures of Jerusalem, only three towers and a part of the western wall were left standing. Still, as the Jews began to return thither, and manifested a rebellious spirit, the emperor Adrian planted a Roman colony there in A. D. 135, and banished the Jews, prohibiting their return on pain of death. He changed the name of the city to Aelia Capitolina, consecrated it to heathen deities, in order to defile it as much as possible, and did what he could to obliterate all traces both of Judaism and Christianity. From this period the name Aelia became so common, that the name Jerusalem was preserved only among the Jews and better-informed Christians. In the time of Constantine, however, it resumed its ancient name, which it has retained to the present day. Helena, the mother of Constantine, built two churches in Bethlehem and on mount Olivet, about A. D. 326; and Julian, who, after his father, succeeded to the empire of his uncle Constantine, endeavored to rebuild the temple; but his design, and that of the Jews, whom he patronized, was frustrated, as contemporary historians relate, by an earthquake, and by balls of fire bursting forth among the workmen, A. D. 363.

The subsequent history of Jerusalem may be told in a few words. In 613, it was taken by Chosroes king of Persia, who slew, it is said, 90,000 men, and demolished, to the utmost of his power, whatever the Christians had venerated: in 627, Heraclius defeated Chosroes, and Jerusalem was recovered by the Greeks. Soon after command the long and wretched era of Mohammedanism. About 637, the city was taken from the Christians by the caliph Omar, after a siege of four months, and continued under the caliphs of Bagdad till 868, when it was taken by Ahmed, a Turkish sovereign of Egypt. During the space of 220 years, it was subject to several masters, Turkish and Saracenic, and in 1099 it was taken by the crusaders under Godfrey Bouillon, who was elected king. He was succeeded by his brother Baldwin, who died in 1118. In 1187, Saladin, sultan of the East, captured the city, assisted by the treachery of Raymond, count of Tripoli, who was found dead in his bed on the morning of the day in which he was to have delivered up the city. It was restored, in 1242, to the Latin princes, by Saleh Ismael, emir of Damascus; they lost it in 1291 to the sultans of Egypt, who held it till 1382. Selim, the Turkish sultan, reduced Egypt and Syria, including Jerusalem, in 1517, and his son Solyman built or reconstructed the present walls in 1534. Since then it has remained under the dominion of Turkey, except when held for a short time, 1832-4, by Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt. At present, this city is included in the pashalic of Damascus, though it has a resident Turkish governor.

Jerusalem is situated on the central tableland of Judea, about 2,400 feet above the Mediterranean. It lies on ground which slopes gently down towards the east, the slope being terminated by an abrupt declivity, in some parts precipitous, and overhanging the valley of Jehoshaphat or of the Kidron. This sloping ground is also terminated on the south by the deep and narrow valley of Hinnom, which constituted the ancient southern boundary of the city, and which also ascends on its west side, and comes out upon the high ground on the northwest. See Gihon . But in the city itself, there were also two ravines or smaller valleys, dividing the land covered by buildings into three principal parts or hills. ZION, the highest of these, was in the southwest quarter of the city, skirted on the south and west by the deep valley of Hinnom. On its north and east sides lay the smaller valley "of the cheesemongers," or Tyropoeon also united, near the northeast foot of Zion, with a valley coming down from the north. Zion was also called, The city of David; and by Josephus, "the upper city." Surrounded anciently by walls as well as deep valleys, it was the strongest part of the city, and contained the citadel and the king's palace. The Tyropoeon separated it from Acra on the north and Moriah on the northeast. ACRA was less elevated than Zion, or than the ground to the northwest beyond the walls. It is called by Josephus "the lower city." Moriah , the sacred hill, lay northeast of Zion, with which it was anciently connected at its nearest corner, by a bridge over the Tyropoeon, some remnants of which have been identified by Dr. Robinson. Moriah was at first a small eminence, but its area was greatly enlarged to make room for the temple. It was but a part of the continuous ridge on the east side of the city, overlooking the deep valley of the Kidron; rising on the north, after a slight depression, into the hill Bezetha, the "new city" of Joephus, and sinking away on the south into the hill Ophel. On the east of Jerusalem, and stretching from north to south, lies the Mount of Olives, divided from the city by the valley of the Kidron, and commanding a noble prospect of the city and surrounding county. Over against Moriah, or a little further north, lies the garden of Gethsemane, with its olive trees, at the foot of the Mount of Olives. Just below the city, on the east side of the valley of the Kidron, lies the miserable village of Siloa; farther down, this valley unites with that of Hinnon, at a beautiful spot anciently "the king's gardens;" still below, is the well of Nehemiah, anciently En-rogel; and from this spot the united valley winds among mountains southward and eastward to the Dead sea. In the mouth of the Tyropoeon, between Ophel and Zion, is the pool of Siloam. In the valley west and northwest of Zion are the two pools of Gihon, the lower being now broken and dry. In the rocks around Jerusalem, and chiefly in the sides of the valleys of the Kidron and Hinnom opposite the city, are many excavated tombs and caves.

Of the Walls of ancient Jerusalem, the most ancient that of David and Solomon, encircled the whole of Mount Zion, and was also continued around Moriah and Ophel. The depth of the valleys south and east of Jerusalem, rendered it comparatively easy to fortify and defend it on these sides. This southern wall, in the period of kings and of Christ, traversed the outmost verge of those hills, inclosing the pool of Siloam, Ophel, and portions apparently of the valleys of Hinnom and the Kidron,  2 Chronicles 33:14   Nehemiah 2:14   3:15 .

A second wall, built by Jotham, Hezekiah, and Manasseh, made some changes on the southern line, and inclosed a large additional space on the north. It commenced somewhat east of the tower of Hippicus, on the northwest border of Zion, included Acra and part of Bezetha, and united with the old wall on the east. This wall was destroyed, as well as the first, at the captivity, but both were afterwards reerected, it is believed, on nearly the same lines, and were substantially the same at the time of Christ. The precise course of the second wall may perhaps be ascertained by future excavations, but is now more disputed than any other point of the topography of Jerusalem. To ascertain the exact location of "the tower Gennath," where this wall began, and trace its course "in a circuit" to Antonia, would show whether the traditional site of Calvary, now far within the city limits, lay within or without the ancient wall. The arguments from topography are strongly against the tradition; and it would seem that this whole region, if not actually within the wall, must have been at least occupied by the city suburbs at that time.

The third wall, commenced by Herod Agrippa only ten years after the crucifixion of Christ, ran from the tower Hippicus nearly half a mile northwest to the tower of Psephinos, and sweeping round by the "tombs of the kings," passed down east of Bezetha, and joined the old eastern wall. The whole circumference of the city at that time was a little over four miles. Now it is only two and three quarters at the most; and the large space on the north, which the wall of Agrippa inclosed, is proved to have been built upon by the numerous cisterns which yet remain, and the marble fragments which the plough often turns up.

The preceding plan of Ancient Jerusalem exhibits the walls, gates, towers, and other prominent objects in and around the city, with as much accuracy as can be secured, now that it has borne the ravages of so many centuries, been nearly a score of times captured, and often razed to the ground. Fuller descriptions of many of the localities referred to may be found under their respective heads.

Modern Jerusalem called by the Arabs El-Kuds, the holy, occupies unquestionably the site of the Jerusalem of the Bible. It is still "beautiful for situation," and stands forth on its well-defined hills "as a city that is compact together,"  Psalm 48:2,12   122:3,4   125:1,2 . The distant view of its stately walls and numerous domes and minarets is highly imposing. But its old glory has departed; its thronging myriads are no more; desolation covers the barren mountains around it, and the tribes go up to the house of the Lord no longer. She that once sat as a queen among them, now sitteth solitary, "trodden down of the Gentiles," "reft of her sons, and mid her foes forlorn." "Zion is ploughed as a field," and the soil is mixed with the rubbish of ages, to the depth in some places of forty feet.

The modern wall, built in 1542, varies from twenty to sixty feet in height, and is about two and a half miles in circuit. On the eastern and shortest side, its course is nearly straight; and it coincides, in the southern half on this side, with the wall of the sacred area now called El-Haram, the holy. This area, 510 yards long from north to south, and 310 to 350 yards in breadth, is inclosed by high walls, the lower stones of which are in many parts very large, and much more ancient than the superstructure. It is occupied by the great octagonal mosque called Kubbet es-Sukhrah, or Dome of the Rock, and the mosque El-Aksa, with their grounds. It covers the site of the ancient temple and of the great tower Antonia. See Temple . At its southeast corner, where the wall is seventy-seven feet high, the ground at its base is one hundred and fifty feet above the dry bed of the Kidron. From this corner, the wall runs irregularly west by south, crosses mount Zion, leaving the greater part of it uninclosed on the south, and at its western verge turns north to the Jaffa gate, where the lower part of a very old and strong tower still remains. The upper part of this tower is less ancient and massive. It is known as "the tower of David," and is generally thought to have been the Hippicus of Josephus. Thence the wall sweeps irregularly round to the northeast corner. It is flanked at unequal distances by square towers, and has battlements running all around on its summit, with loopholes in them for arrows or muskets. There are now in use only four gates: the Jaffa or Bethlehem gate on the west, the Damascus gate on the north, St. Stephen's gate on the east, and Zion gate on the south. In the eastern wall of El-Haram is the Golden gate, long since blocked up, and in the city wall two smaller gates, more recently closed, namely, Herod's gate on the north-east, and Dung gate in the Tyropoeon on the south.

Within the city walls are seen narrow and often covered streets, ungraded, ill-paved, and in some parts filthy, though less so than in most oriental cities. The houses are of hewn stone, with few windows towards the streets. Their flat roofs are strengthened and ornamented by many small domes. The most beautiful part of the city is the area of the great mosque-from which until recently all Christians have been rigorously excluded for six centuries-with its lawns and cypress trees, and the noble dome rising high above the wall. On mount Zion, much of the space within the wall is occupied by the huge Armenian convent, with the Syrian convent, and the church of St. James. Beyond the wall and far to the south is a Mohammedan mosque, professedly over the tomb of David. This is more jealously guarded against Christians than even the mosque of Omar. Near it is the small cemetery of the American missionaries. At the northwest corner of Zion rises the high square citadel above referred to, ancient and grand. Still farther north is the Latin convent, in the most westerly part of Jerusalem; and between it and the center of the city stands the church of the Holy Sepulchre, over the traditional scenes of the death and the resurrection of our Lord. See Calvary . In various parts of the city the minarets of eight or ten mosques arise, amid an assemblage of about two thousand dwellings, not a few of which are much dilapidated.

The present population of Jerusalem may be about 12,000 souls, of whom about two-fifths are Mohammedans, and the remainder Jews and Christians in nearly equal numbers. There is also a considerable garrison, 800 to 1,000, stationed there; and in April of each year many thousands of pilgrims from foreign lands make a flying visit to the sacred places. The Moslemim reside in the center of the city, and towards the north and east. The Jews' quarter is on the northeast side of Zion. The Greek, Latin, Armenian, Syrian, and Coptic Christians are located chiefly around their respective convents, and their burial-places are on mount Zion, as well as that of the American Protestant mission. The Jews bury on Mount Olivet and the Mohammedans in several places, though preferring the eastern brow of Moriah. Jerusalem is but the melancholy shadow of its former self. The nominal Christians residing there are in a state of degraded and ignorant subjection to the Mohammedans, and their petty discords and superstitions are a reproach to the Christian name. The Jews, 3,000 to 5,000 in number, are still more oppressed and abject. Most of them were born in other lands, and have come here to die, in a city no longer their own. Discouraged by endless exactions, they subsist on the charities of their brethren abroad. It is only as a purchased privilege that they are allowed to approach the foundations of the sacred hill where their fathers worshipped the only true God. Here, in a small area near some huge and ancient stones in the base of the western wall of Moriah, they gather, especially on sacred days, to sit weeping and wailing on the ground, taking up the heart-breaking lamentations of Jeremiah-living witnesses of the truth of God's word fulfilled in them. See WALL.

THE NEW JERUSALEM, is a name given to the church of Christ, and signifying is firm foundations in the love, choice, an covenant of God; its strong bulwarks, living fountains, and beautiful palaces; its thronging thousands, its indwelling God, and its consummated glory in heaven,  Galatians 4:26   Hebrews 12:22   Revelation 3:12   21:1-27 .

Holman Bible Dictionary

The name “Jerusalem” has a long and interesting history. The earliest recorded name of Jerusalem is Urushalim and means “foundation of Shalem,” a Canaanite god of twilight. The Amarna letters in Palestine refer to Beth-Shalem about 1400 B.C. It is first mentioned in the Bible as Salem (  Genesis 14:18 ). Later the author of Hebrews ( Genesis 7:2 ) interpreted “Salem” to mean “peace” because of its similarity to shalom . Jerusalem is also called Zion, Jebus, Mount Moriah, and the city of David. Sometimes “city of David” refers to the whole city, and sometimes, to the part that David built.

The physical characteristics of Jerusalem include mountains, springs, and valleys. Jerusalem is built on a mountain plateau and is surrounded by mountains. Its main water source was the Gihon Spring at the foot of the hill of Zion. The plateau is related to three valleys—the Kidron on the east, the Hinnom on west and south, and the Tyropoeon which cuts into the lower part of the city dividing it into two unequal parts. The lower portion of the eastern part was the original fortress, built by prehistoric inhabitants.

All evidence indicates an early existence of the city. Jerusalem seems to have been inhabited by 3500 B.C., judging from pottery remains found on the hill of Zion. Written mention of Jerusalem may occur in the Ebla tablets (about 2500 B.C.), and certainly, in Egyptian sources (Execration Texts about 1900 B.C. and Amarna Letters). Archaeologists have discovered walls, a sanctuary, a royal palace, and a cemetery dated about 1750 B.C. About this time Abraham, returning from a victory, met Melchizedek, the king of Salem, received gifts from him, and blessed him ( Genesis 14:1 ). Later Abraham was commanded to offer Isaac on one of the mountains in the land of Moriah ( Genesis 22:2 ).  2 Chronicles 3:1 understood Moriah to be where Solomon built the temple (  2 Chronicles 3:1 ) on the former threshingfloor of Araunah that David had purchased for an altar to God ( 2 Samuel 24:18 ). The Muslim mosque, the Dome of the Rock, stands in this area today.

Jerusalem became a Hebrew city under David. After the Hebrews entered Canaan under Joshua, the king of Jerusalem, Adoni-zedek fought them. He was defeated ( Joshua 10:1 ), but Jerusalem was not taken. Later the men of Judah took Jerusalem and torched it ( Judges 1:8; compare  Judges 1:21 ). Apparently the Jebusites reclaimed it, since it had to be conquered by David almost two centuries later. The occupation of the city by the Jebusites accounts for its being referred to as Jebus ( Judges 19:10;  1 Chronicles 11:4 ). See Jebusites .

Soon after being crowned king over all the tribes of Israel, David led his private forces in the capture of Jerusalem ( 2 Samuel 5:1-10 ) and made it his capital, a happy choice since it lay on the border between the northern and southern tribes. Zion, the name of the original fortress, now became synonymous with the city of David. The moving of the ark ( 2 Samuel 6:1 ) made Jerusalem the religious center of the nation. The city began to gather to itself those sacred associations which have made it so important. Here God made an everlasting covenant with the house of David ( 2 Samuel 7:16 ). Here Solomon built the Temple that David had wanted to build. It was understood to be a dwelling place for God ( 1 Kings 8:13 ), and the sacred ark, symbolizing His presence, was placed in the holy of holies. Other extensive building projects made Jerusalem a magnificent city.

To the Temple in Jerusalem the tribes came three times a year, so that “every one of them in Zion appeareth before God” ( Psalm 84:7 ). The name “Zion” was often used to emphasize the religious significance of the city. One group of Psalms came to be known as “Psalms of Zion” ( Psalm 46:1;  Psalm 48:1;  Psalm 76:1;  Psalm 84:1;  Psalm 87:1;  Psalm 122:1;  Psalm 132:1 ). The physical beauty of the city was extolled ( Psalm 48:1 ), and its glorious buildings and walls were described ( Psalm 87:1 ). To be a part of the festival processions there ( Psalm 68:24-27 ) was a source of great joy ( Psalm 149:3 ). Jerusalem, the dwelling place of both the earthly ( Psalm 132:1 ) and the divine king ( Psalm 5:2;  Psalm 24:7 ), was where Israel came to appreciate and celebrate the kingship of God ( Psalm 47:1;  Psalm 93:1;  Psalm 96-99 ), one of the central ideas of the entire Bible.

Jerusalem was threatened during the period of the divided kingdom. When the kingdom of Israel split at the death of Solomon, Jerusalem continued to be the capital of the Southern Kingdom. Egypt attacked it ( 1 Kings 14:25-26 ), as did Syria ( 2 Kings 12:17 ), and northern Israel ( 2 Kings 15:29;  Isaiah 7:1 ). Hezekiah (715-686 B.C.) had a 1750 foot tunnel dug out of solid rock to provide water from the Gihon Spring in time of seige ( 2 Kings 20:20 ). In 701 B.C. the Assyrian general Sennacherib destroyed most of the cities of Judah and shut up King Hezekiah “like a bird in a cage.” The Assyrians would have destroyed Jerusalem had it not been miraculously spared ( 2 Kings 19:35 ). This deliverance, coupled with the covenant with the house of David, led some to the mistaken belief that Jerusalem could never be destroyed ( Jeremiah 7:1-15 ). The true prophets of the Lord knew better. Both Micah ( Jeremiah 3:12 ) and Jeremiah ( Jeremiah 7:14 ) prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem for her unfaithfulness to God's covenant. The prophets also spoke of Jerusalem's exaltation in the “latter days” ( Isaiah 2:2-4 ). They said it would become the center to which all nations would come to learn of the true knowledge of God. This would lead them to “beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruninghooks.”  Isaiah 60:19 speaks of the time when the Lord will be for Jerusalem an everlasting light. The walls will be called salvation, and its gates praise. The Lord Himself will reign there (  Isaiah 24:23 ).

The Babylonians conquered Jerusalem in 598 B.C. taking 10,000 of the leading people into captivity. A further uprising led to the destruction of the city in 587 B.C. The loss was a painful blow to the exiles, but they kept memory of Zion alive deep in their hearts ( Psalm 137:1-6 ). Actually, the Exile served to enhance the theological significance of Jerusalem. Its value was no longer dependent on its physical splendor. It became a religious symbol for the elect people of God, who centered hopes for the future upon it.

When Cyrus the Persian overran the Babylonians (539 B.C.), he encouraged the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple ( Ezra 1:1-4 ). The initial enthusiasm lagged, but Haggai and Zechariah finally motivated the people. The Temple was completed in 516 B.C. ( Ezra 6:15 ). The city itself, however, stood unprotected until Nehemiah came to rebuild the walls. Under the influence of Ezra and Nehemiah, Jerusalem again became the living center of the Jewish faith. Worship in the restored Temple became more elaborate. Continued participation in the sacred traditions deepened the people's appreciation for Jerusalem, the “city of our God” ( Psalm 48:1 ).

The restoration of Jerusalem spoken of by the preexilic prophets had taken place ( Jeremiah 29:10;  Jeremiah 33:7-11 ), but only in part. The glorious vision of the exaltation of Zion ( Micah 4:1-8 ) and the transformation of Jerusalem ( Ezekiel 40-48 ) had not yet been fulfilled. This vision, along with the belief in the kingship of God and the coming of a Davidic messiah, continued to be cherished in the hearts of the faithful. Prophets like Zechariah painted new images concerning the future of Jerusalem ( Zechariah 14:1 ).

Jerusalem played an important role in apocalyptic circles of the intertestamental period. We read of a preexistent heavenly Jerusalem (Syriac  Baruch 4:2 ) that will descend to earth at the end of the age ( 2 Esdras 10:27,2 Esdras 10:27, 10:54;  2 Esdras  13:4-6 ), or, according to another conception, is the place in heaven where the righteous will eventually dwell (Slahyvonic Enoch 55:2). The new Jerusalem/Zion will be a place of great beauty ( Tobit 13:16-17 ), ruled over by God Himself (Sibylline Oracles 3:787). The focus of the city is the new Temple ( Tobit 13:10 ).

While Jewish writers pointed to future hope, Persians continued to rule Jerusalem until Alexander the Great took over in 333 B.C. The Jews finally won their freedom through the Maccabean Revolt (167-164 B.C.), but after a century of independence Jerusalem and the Jewish nation were annexed to the Roman Empire. See Intertestamental History and Literature.

Herod the Great remodeled Jerusalem. The various conquests of Jerusalem had caused much damage. After Rome gained control, the client-king Herod the Great (37-4 B.C.) rebuilt the city extensively. This energetic ruler constructed a theater, amphitheater, hippodrome, a new palace, fortified towers, and an aqueduct to bring water from the Bethlehem area. His outstanding building project was the Temple. Doubling the Temple area, Herod constructed a magnificent building of huge white stones, richly ornamented. Here Jews from all the world came for religious festivals, and here Jesus from Nazareth came to bring His message to the leaders of the Jewish nation. See Temple.

This Jerusalem in which Jesus walked was destroyed by the Roman general Titus in A.D. 70 after zealous Jews revolted against Rome. Not one stone of the Temple building remained standing on another, and widespread destruction engulfed the city. A second revolt in A.D. 135 (the Bar-Kochba Rebellion) resulted in Jews being excluded from the city. From that time until the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948, the major role of Jerusalem in the Hebrew-Christian religion has been one of symbol, hope, and prophecy.

Jerusalem has great theological significance. All four Gospels relate that the central event of the Christian faith—the crucifixion-resurrection of Jesus—took place in Jerusalem. The most recent archaeological investigations indicate that the area now occupied by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is almost certainly the place where these events occurred. The prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem ( Matthew 24:1;  Mark 13:1;  Luke 21:1 ), is mixed with prophecies concerning the coming of the Son of man at the end of the age when forsaken and desolated Jerusalem will welcome the returning Messiah ( Matthew 23:39 ).

Several New Testament writers emphasize Jerusalem. John told us more than any other Gospel writer about Jesus' visits to Jerusalem during His public ministry, but it was Luke who emphasized Jerusalem most. Luke's opening announcement of the birth of John took place in Jerusalem. Jesus visited at age twelve. On the mount of transfiguration He spoke with Moses and Elijah of His departure (exodus) which He was to accomplish at Jerusalem. All of Luke's resurrection appearances took place in or near Jerusalem, and the disciples were instructed to stay there until the Day of Pentecost. Then the Spirit would come upon them and inaugurate the new age, beginning to undo the damage of Babel. Jerusalem is the center of the missionary activity of the church, which must extend to the end of the earth ( Acts 1:8 ).

Paul, though sent out from Antioch, looked to Jerusalem as the center of the earthly church. He kept in contact with the Jerusalem church and brought them a significant offering towards the close of his ministry. He envisioned the “man of sin” who comes before the Day of the Lord as

appearing in Jerusalem ( 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 ). “Out of Zion” would come the deliverer who would enable “all Israel” to be saved after the full number of Gentiles had come in ( Romans 11:25-27 ). The present Jerusalem, however, still serves as the “mother” of those Jews in bondage to the law as contrasted to the “Jerusalem above” which is the mother of those persons who are set free in Christ ( Galatians 4:24-31 ). The author of Hebrews described the heavenly Jerusalem on Mount Zion as the goal of the Christian pilgrimage ( Hebrews 11:10;  Hebrews 12:22 ).

Jerusalem figures in the final vision of Revelation. In Revelation the earthly Jerusalem appears for the last time after the thousand-year reign of Christ when the deceived nations, led by the temporarily loosed Satan, come against the beloved city and are destroyed by fire from heaven ( Revelation 20:7-9 ). Finally, John saw the new Jerusalem descending from heaven to the new earth. This incomparably beautiful city is described in such a way that it is clear that the goal of the whole sweep of biblical revelation (the glory of the nations, the tree of life, a river of life, eternal vision of and communion with God) is fulfilled, and God reigns with His people forever and ever ( Revelation 21-22:5 ). See Revelation.

Joe R. Baskin

Morrish Bible Dictionary

Great interest naturally attaches to this city because of its O.T. and N.T. histories, and its future glory. The signification of the name is somewhat uncertain: some give it as 'the foundation of peace;' others 'the possession of peace.' Its history has, alas, been anything but that of peace; but  Haggai 2:9 remains to be fulfilled: "in this place will I give peace," doubtless referring to the meaning of 'Jerusalem.' The name is first recorded in   Joshua 10:1 when Adoni-zedec was its king, before Israel had anything to do with it, and four hundred years before David obtained full possession of the city.   2 Samuel 5:6-9 . This name may therefore have been given it by the Canaanites, though it was also called JEBUS. Judges 19:10 . It is apparently symbolically called SALEM,'peace,' in  Psalm 76:2;* and ARIEL, 'the lion of God,' in  Isaiah 29:1,2,7; in  Isaiah 52:1 'the holy city,' as it is also in   Matthew 4:5;  Matthew 27:53 . The temple being built there, and Mount Zion forming a part of the city, made Jerusalem typical of the place of blessing on earth, as it certainly will be in a future day, when Israel is restored.

* On the TELLAMARNA TABLETS(see THE Tell Amarna Tablets under 'Egypt') Jerusalem occurs several times as u-ru-sa-lim , the probable signification of which is 'city of peace.'

Jerusalem was taken from the Jebusites and the city burnt,  Judges 1:8; but the Jebusites were not all driven out, for some were found dwelling in a part of Jerusalem called the fort, when David began to reign over the whole of the tribes. This stronghold was taken, and Jerusalem became the royal city; but the great interest that attaches to it arises from its being the city of Jehovah's election on the one hand, and the place of Jehovah's temple, where mercy rejoiced over judgement. See ZIONand MORIAH.In Solomon's reign it was greatly enriched, and the temple built. At the division of the kingdom it was the chief city of Judah. It was plundered several times, and in B.C. 588 the temple and city were destroyed by the king of Babylon. In B.C. 536, after 70 years (from B.C. 606, when the first captivity took place,  Jeremiah 25:11,12;  Jeremiah 29:10 ), Cyrus made a declaration that God had charged him to build Him a house at Jerusalem, and the captives were allowed to return for the purpose. In B.C. 455 the commission to build the city was given to Nehemiah. It existed, under many vicissitudes, until the time of the Lord, when it was part of the Roman empire. Owing to the rebellion of the Jews it was destroyed by the Romans, A.D. 70.

Its ruins had a long rest, but in A.D. 136 the city was rebuilt by Hadrian and called Ælia Capitolina. A temple to the Capitoline Jupiter was erected on the site of the temple. Jews were forbidden, on pain of death, to enter the city, but in the fourth century they were admitted once a year. Constantine after his conversion destroyed the heathen temples in the city. In A.D. 614Jerusalem was taken and pillaged by the Persians. In 628 it was re-taken by Heraclius. Afterwards it fell into the hands of the Turks. In 1099 it was captured by the Crusaders, but was re-taken by Saladin. In 1219 it was ceded to the Christians, but was subsequently captured by Kharezmian hordes. In 1277 it was nominally annexed to the kingdom of Sicily. In 1517 it passed under the sway of the Ottoman Sultan, and became a part of the Turkish empire. It has already sustained about thirty sieges, and although in the hands of the Jews now its desolations are not yet over!

The beautiful situation of Jerusalem is noticed in scripture; it stands about 2593 feet above the sea, and the mountains round about it are spoken of as its security.  Psalm 125:2;  Lamentations 2:15 . Between the mountains and the city there are valleys on three sides: on the east the valley of the Kidron, or Jehoshaphat; on the west the valley of Gihon; and on the south the valley of Hinnom. The Mount of Olives is on the east, from whence the best view of Jerusalem is to be had. On the S.W. lies the Mount of Offence, so called because it is supposed that Solomon practised idolatry there. On the south is the Hill of Evil Counsel; the origin of which name is said to be that Caiaphas had a villa there, in which a council was held to put the Lord to death. But these and many other names commonly placed on maps, have no other authority than that of tradition. To the north the land is comparatively level, so that the attacks on the city were made on that side.

The city, as it now stands surrounded by walls, contains only about one-third of a square mile. Its north wall running S.W. extends from angle to angle, without noticing irregularities, about 3930 feet; the east 2754 feet; the south 3425 feet; and the west 2086 feet; the circumference being about two and a third English miles. Any one accustomed to the area of modern cities is struck with the small size of Jerusalem. Josephus says that its circumference in his day was 33 stadia, which is more than three and three-quarters English miles. It is clear that on the south a portion was included which is now outside the city. Also on the north an additional wall enclosed a large portion, now called BEZETHA; but this latter enclosure was made by Herod Agrippa some ten or twelve years after the time of the Lord. Traces of these additional walls have been discovered and extensive excavations on the south have determined the true position of the wall.

Several gates are mentioned in the O.T. which cannot be traced; it is indeed most probable they do not now exist. On the north is the Damascus gate, and one called Herod's gate walled up; on the east an open gate called St. Stephen's, and a closed one called the Golden gate; on the south Zion gate, and a small one called Dung gate; on the west Jaffa gate. A street runs nearly north from Zion gate to Damascus gate; and a street from the Jaffa gate runs eastward to the Mosque enclosure These two streets divide the city into four quarters of unequal size. Since the formation of the State of Israel a large modern city has built up to the North West of the Old City.

There is a fifth portion on the extreme S.E. called MORIAH, agreeing, as is supposed, with the Mount Moriah of the O.T., on some portion of which the temple was most probably built. It is now called 'the Mosque enclosure,' because on it are built two mosques. It is a plateau of about 35 acres, all level except where a portion of the rock projects near the centre, over which the Mosque of Omar is built. To obtain this large plain, walls had to be built up at the sides of the sloping rock, forming with arches many chambers, tier above tier. Some chambers are devoted to cisterns, and others are called Solomon's stables. That horses have been kept there at some time appears evident from rings being found attached to the walls, to which the horses were tethered.

Josephus speaks of Jerusalem being built upon two hills with a valley between, called the Tyropoeon Valley This lies on the west of the Mosque enclosure and runs nearly north and south. Over this valley the remains of two bridges have been discovered: the one on the south is called the 'Robinson arch,' because that traveller discovered it. He judged that some stones which jutted out from the west wall of the enclosure must have been part of a large arch. This was proved to have been the case by corresponding parts of the arch being discovered on the opposite side of the valley. Another arch was found complete, farther north, by Captain Wilson, and is called the 'Wilson arch.' Below these arches were others, and aqueducts.

Nearly the whole of this valley is filled with rubbish. There may have been another valley running across the above, as some suppose; but if so, that also is choked with debris, indeed the modern city appears to have been built upon the ruins of former ones, as is implied in the prophecy of  Jeremiah 9:11;  Jeremiah 30:18 . The above-named bridges would unite the Mosque enclosure, or Temple area, with the S.W. portion of the city, which is supposed to have included ZION.

The Jews are not allowed in the Temple area, therefore they assemble on a spot near Robinson's arch, called the Jews' Wailing Place where they can approach the walls of the area which are built of very large and ancient stones. On Fridays and feast days they assemble in numbers; they kiss the stones and weep, and pray for the restoration of their city and temple, being, alas, still blind to the only true way of blessing through the Lord Jesus whom they crucified.

The Christian population gave names to the streets, and point out traditional sites of many events recorded in scripture, but of course without the slightest authority. Of these arbitrary identifications the one that appears the most improbable is that of the Church Of The Holy Sepulchre said to cover the spots where the Lord was crucified and where He was buried, which is within the city. See CALVARY.

About a hundred yards east of the Damascus gate is the entrance to a quarry, which extends a long way under the city, and from which a quantity of stone must have been extracted. There are heaps of small chips showing that the stones were dressed there; perhaps the 'great and costly' stones for the temple, built by Solomon were made ready there.  1 Kings 5:17;  1 Kings 6:7 . There are blackened nooks where apparently lamps were placed to give the workmen light; marks of the tools are easily discernible, and some blocks are there which have been only partially separated; everything has the appearance of workmen having but recently left their work, except that there are no tools lying about.

As to the future of Jerusalem, scripture teaches that a portion of the Jews will return in unbelief (and indeed many have now returned), occupy Jerusalem, rebuild the temple, and have a political existence.  Isaiah 6:13;  Isaiah 17:10,11;  Isaiah 18;  Isaiah 66:1-3 . After being under the protection of the future Roman Empire, and having received Antichrist, they will be brought through great tribulation. The city will be taken and the temple destroyed.  Isaiah 10:5,6;  Zechariah 14:1,2 . But this will not be the final destiny of Jerusalem. We read "it shall not be plucked up nor thrown down any more for ever."  Jeremiah 31:38-40 . "Thus saith the Lord of hosts: There shall yet old men and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his hand for very age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof.'  Zechariah 8:4 .  5 . The temple will also be rebuilt, the particulars of which are given in the prophet Ezekiel. See TEMPLE.

The sides of the square space allotted to the future city measure 5000 enlarged cubits (of probably 24-1/2 inches), a little less than 2 miles: the city itself to occupy a square of 4500 cubits each way, with a margin all round of 250 cubits, with large suburbs east and west. The 4500 cubits equal about 1.8 mile, and give about three and a quarter square miles, which, by the dimensions given above, will be seen to be very much larger than the present Old City.  Ezekiel 48:15-20 . The formation of the hills and valleys were thought to be a difficulty, but the New City is already built outside the walls, and there will be physical changes in the country: living waters will flow from the city, half of them running into the western sea and half of them into the eastern sea: cf.  Zechariah 14:8-10 . The new city will have twelve gates, three on each of its sides. "The name of the city from that day shall be THE Lord Is There"  Ezekiel 48:30-35 .

Easton's Bible Dictionary

 2 Chronicles 25:28 Psalm 68:15,16 87:1 125:2 76:1,2 122:3

It is first mentioned in Scripture under the name Salem ( Genesis 14:18; Compare  Psalm 76:2 ). When first mentioned under the name Jerusalem, Adonizedek was its king ( Joshua 10:1 ). It is afterwards named among the cities of Benjamin ( Judges 19:10;  1 Chronicles 11:4 ); but in the time of David it was divided between Benjamin and Judah. After the death of Joshua the city was taken and set on fire by the men of Judah ( Judges 1:1-8 ); but the Jebusites were not wholly driven out of it. The city is not again mentioned till we are told that David brought the head of Goliath thither ( 1 Samuel 17:54 ). David afterwards led his forces against the Jebusites still residing within its walls, and drove them out, fixing his own dwelling on Zion, which he called "the city of David" ( 2 Samuel 5:5-9;  1 Chronicles 11:4-8 ). Here he built an altar to the Lord on the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite ( 2 Samuel 24:15-25 ), and thither he brought up the ark of the covenant and placed it in the new tabernacle which he had prepared for it. Jerusalem now became the capital of the kingdom.

After the death of David, Solomon built the temple, a house for the name of the Lord, on Mount Moriah (B.C. 1010). He also greatly strengthened and adorned the city, and it became the great centre of all the civil and religious affairs of the nation ( Deuteronomy 12:5; comp 12:14; 14:23; 16:11-16;  Psalm 122 ).

After the disruption of the kingdom on the accession to the throne of Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, Jerusalem became the capital of the kingdom of the two tribes. It was subsequently often taken and retaken by the Egyptians, the Assyrians, and by the kings of Israel ( 2 Kings 14:13,14;  18:15,16;  23:33-35;  24:14;  2 Chronicles 12:9;  26:9;  27:3,4;  29:3;  32:30;  33:11 ), till finally, for the abounding iniquities of the nation, after a siege of three years, it was taken and utterly destroyed, its walls razed to the ground, and its temple and palaces consumed by fire, by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon ( 2 Kings 25;  2 Chronicles 36;  Jeremiah 39 ), B.C. 588. The desolation of the city and the land was completed by the retreat of the principal Jews into Egypt ( Jeremiah 4044-44 ), and by the final carrying captive into Babylon of all that still remained in the land (52:3), so that it was left without an inhabitant (B.C. 582). Compare the predictions,  Deuteronomy 28;  Leviticus 26:14-39 .

But the streets and walls of Jerusalem were again to be built, in troublous times ( Daniel 9:16,19,25 ), after a captivity of seventy years. This restoration was begun B.C. 536, "in the first year of Cyrus" ( Ezra 1:2,3,5-11 ). The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah contain the history of the re-building of the city and temple, and the restoration of the kingdom of the Jews, consisting of a portion of all the tribes. The kingdom thus constituted was for two centuries under the dominion of Persia, till B.C. 331; and thereafter, for about a century and a half, under the rulers of the Greek empire in Asia, till B.C. 167. For a century the Jews maintained their independence under native rulers, the Asmonean princes. At the close of this period they fell under the rule of Herod and of members of his family, but practically under Rome, till the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, A.D. 70. The city was then laid in ruins.

The modern Jerusalem by-and-by began to be built over the immense beds of rubbish resulting from the overthrow of the ancient city; and whilst it occupies certainly the same site, there are no evidences that even the lines of its streets are now what they were in the ancient city. Till A.D. 131 the Jews who still lingered about Jerusalem quietly submitted to the Roman sway. But in that year the emperor (Hadrian), in order to hold them in subjection, rebuilt and fortified the city. The Jews, however, took possession of it, having risen under the leadership of one Bar-Chohaba (i.e., "the son of the star") in revolt against the Romans. Some four years afterwards (A.D. 135), however, they were driven out of it with great slaughter, and the city was again destroyed; and over its ruins was built a Roman city called Aelia Capitolina, a name which it retained till it fell under the dominion of the Mohammedans, when it was called el-Khuds, i.e., "the holy."

In A.D. 326 Helena, mother of the emperor Constantine, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem with the view of discovering the places mentioned in the life of our Lord. She caused a church to be built on what was then supposed to be the place of the nativity at Bethlehem. Constantine, animated by her example, searched for the holy sepulchre, and built over the supposed site a magnificent church, which was completed and dedicated A.D. 335. He relaxed the laws against the Jews till this time in force, and permitted them once a year to visit the city and wail over the desolation of "the holy and beautiful house."

In A.D. 614 the Persians, after defeating the Roman forces of the emperor Heraclius, took Jerusalem by storm, and retained it till A.D. 637, when it was taken by the Arabians under the Khalif Omar. It remained in their possession till it passed, in A.D. 960, under the dominion of the Fatimite khalifs of Egypt, and in A.D. 1073 under the Turcomans. In A.D. 1099 the crusader Godfrey of Bouillon took the city from the Moslems with great slaughter, and was elected king of Jerusalem. He converted the Mosque of Omar into a Christian cathedral. During the eighty-eight years which followed, many churches and convents were erected in the holy city. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was rebuilt during this period, and it alone remains to this day. In A.D. 1187 the sultan Saladin wrested the city from the Christians. From that time to the present day, with few intervals, Jerusalem has remained in the hands of the Moslems. It has, however, during that period been again and again taken and retaken, demolished in great part and rebuilt, no city in the world having passed through so many vicissitudes.

In the year 1850 the Greek and Latin monks residing in Jerusalem had a fierce dispute about the guardianship of what are called the "holy places." In this dispute the emperor Nicholas of Russia sided with the Greeks, and Louis Napoleon, the emperor of the French, with the Latins. This led the Turkish authorities to settle the question in a way unsatisfactory to Russia. Out of this there sprang the Crimean War, which was protracted and sanguinary, but which had important consequences in the way of breaking down the barriers of Turkish exclusiveness.

Modern Jerusalem "lies near the summit of a broad mountain-ridge, which extends without interruption from the plain of Esdraelon to a line drawn between the southern end of the Dead Sea and the southeastern corner of the Mediterranean." This high, uneven table-land is everywhere from 20 to 25 geographical miles in breadth. It was anciently known as the mountains of Ephraim and Judah.

"Jerusalem is a city of contrasts, and differs widely from Damascus, not merely because it is a stone town in mountains, whilst the latter is a mud city in a plain, but because while in Damascus Moslem religion and Oriental custom are unmixed with any foreign element, in Jerusalem every form of religion, every nationality of East and West, is represented at one time."

Jerusalem is first mentioned under that name in the Book of Joshua, and the Tell-el-Amarna collection of tablets includes six letters from its Amorite king to Egypt, recording the attack of the Abiri about B.C. 1480. The name is there spelt Uru-Salim ("city of peace"). Another monumental record in which the Holy City is named is that of Sennacherib's attack in B.C. 702. The "camp of the Assyrians" was still shown about A.D. 70, on the flat ground to the north-west, included in the new quarter of the city.

The city of David included both the upper city and Millo, and was surrounded by a wall built by David and Solomon, who appear to have restored the original Jebusite fortifications. The name Zion (or Sion) appears to have been, like Ariel ("the hearth of God"), a poetical term for Jerusalem, but in the Greek age was more specially used of the Temple hill. The priests' quarter grew up on Ophel, south of the Temple, where also was Solomon's Palace outside the original city of David. The walls of the city were extended by Jotham and Manasseh to include this suburb and the Temple ( 2 Chronicles 27:3;  33:14 ).

Jerusalem is now a town of some 50,000 inhabitants, with ancient mediaeval walls, partly on the old lines, but extending less far to the south. The traditional sites, as a rule, were first shown in the 4th and later centuries A.D., and have no authority. The results of excavation have, however, settled most of the disputed questions, the limits of the Temple area, and the course of the old walls having been traced.

Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary

The holy city: and so generally known was Jerusalem by this name, that the eastern part of the world never called it by any other name than the Elkuds, the holy. Not that this would have made it so, but it proves the general consent of nations to the title: no doubt, the thing was from the Lord. That the Lord Jesus distinguished it in a very peculiar manner with his love, his lamentation over it proves. ( Matthew 23:37) And Matthew twice calls it by this name. ( Matthew 4:5; Mat 27:53.)

Jerusalem was anciently Jehus. Some called it Solyma, or Jerosolyma; but the general name by the Hebrews was Jeruschalem, meaning, the vision of peace; from Rahe, to see; and Shalom, peace. Joshua first conquered it, (see  Joshua 18:28) but the Jebusites were not totally drawn out of it until the days of David, (See  2 Samuel 5:5) The history of Jerusalem is truly interesting; but it would form more the subject of a volume than a short notice in a work of this kind, to enter into particulars. If we were to go back to the first account of it in Scripture, we must being with  Genesis 14where we find Melchisedeck king of it, and then called Salem. The church, perhaps on this account, speaks of it as the Lord's tabernacle, ( Psalms 76:2) and when we consider, that all the great events of the church were carried on here, no doubt, it riseth in importance to every believer's view. Here it was the Lord Jesus made his public appearance, when he came into our world for the salvation of his people; here he finished redemption-work; here he made that one offering of himself once offered, by which he perfected for ever them that are sanctified; and here all the great events of salvation were wrought. No wonder, therefore, that Jerusalem hath been called the holy city, and is rendered so dear to all his redeemed. Hence Jerusalem, now in the present moment, means the church on earth, and is prayed for under that name. ( Isaiah 62:1;  Psalms 137:5-6) And hence the church in heaven is called the New Jerusalem. ( Revelation 3:12; Rev 21:2.) Jerusalem is said to be the centre of the earth; and the prophet Ezekiel, ( Ezekiel 38:11-12) describing the insolent threats of Gog concerning his proposed destruction of Jerusalem, calls the people of it, those who dwell in the midst of the land, or as the margin of the Bible renders it, in the navel of the earth.

The tears of Jesus over Jerusalem having been misconstrued, and as such made use of to support an opinion foreign to the general scope of the gospel, I cannot dismiss the article without offering a short observation upon it.

We are told by the Evangelists, that "when Jesus was come near to Jerusalem, he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace: but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou knowest not the time of thy visitation." Whoever attends with any degree of diligence to those several expressions of our Lord, will plainly discover that all that is here spoken refers to the destruction of Jerusalem as a city and nation, and wholly in temporal things. It hath nothing to do with grace, as some have improperly concluded, as if Jerusalem had outlived her day of grace, and, therefore, could find no mercy from the Lord; and all sinners, in like manner, might outlive their day also. There is not a word of the kind in it. Jesus, in that tenderness of heart which distinguished his character, wept over the beautiful and beloved city, in contemplating the overthrow of it by the Roman power, that he knew would sack and destroy it. And knowing that their rejection of him as the Lord of life and glory was the cause; he expresseth himself in tears with this compassionate apostrophe. But what have those expressions to do with the doctrine that some men raise out of it, as if Jesus had limited a day of grace to individuals, and that men might outlive that day, and then the saving means of grace would be hidden from their eyes! Surely, there is not a syllable in the whole passage to justify or give countenance to such a doctrine. The Lord is speaking wholly of Jerusalem in temporal things. Hadst thou known (said Jesus), in this thy day the things which belong to thy peace. It is Jerusalem's day, not the Lord's day of grace. It is thy peace, not God's peace. The promise to all the Lord's people is absolute—"Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power." ( Psalms 110:3) And this secures the day of grace to all whom the Father hath given to the Son; for Jesus saith, "of all thou hast given me I have lost none." ( John 17:12) So that this holds good respecting the gift of grace to all generations of the church; but in temporals, like Jerusalem, the Lord's judgments may, and the Lord's judgments will follow and overthrow nations, where the gospel is preached and rejected. And while the Lord knoweth them that are his, and will save them by his grace, the nations who reject Christ, nationally considered, must perish.

Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types

 Galatians 4:26 (a) This is a type of the true faith of GOD. Also a type of the free life by the Son through His Truth.

 Hebrews 12:22 (a) The name given to our eternal home in glory and also to the present church.

 Revelation 21:2 (a) A description of the place in which we shall live and dwell in happy fellowship with GOD and His Son through eternity.

Webster's Dictionary

(n.) The chief city of Palestine, intimately associated with the glory of the Jewish nation, and the life and death of Jesus Christ.

Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature

Jeru´salem (habitation of peace), the Jewish capital of Palestine. It is mentioned very early in Scripture, being usually supposed to be the Salem of which Melchizedek was king. The Psalmist says : 'In Salem is his tabernacle, and his dwelling-place in Sion.'

The mountain of the land of Moriah, which Abraham reached on the third day from Beersheba, there to offer Isaac, is, according to Josephus, the mountain on which Solomon afterwards built the temple .

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

The course of the southern wall has long been a difficulty; it is certainly not the line of wall before Titus; it has none of the natural advantages of the western and eastern walls, and there are no traces of any great rock fosse, such as is to be found on the north. The eastern end is largely built upon the lower courses of Herod's southern wall for his enlarged temple-platform, and in it are still to be found walled up the triple, single and double g

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Bibliography Information Orr, James, M.A., DD General Editor. Entry for 'Jerusalem'. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/isb/j/jerusalem.html. 1915.

The Nuttall Encyclopedia

The capital of Palestine, holy city of the Jews, belonged originally to the Jebusites, but was captured by David and made his capital; a strong place, built on four hills 2000 ft. above the Mediterranean, enclosed within walls and protected nearly all round by deep valleys and rising grounds beyond; it has been so often besieged, overthrown, and rebuilt that the present city stands on rubbish heaps, the ruins of ancient structures.

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

Bibliography Information McClintock, John. Strong, James. Entry for 'Jerusalem'. Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/tce/j/jerusalem.html. Harper & Brothers. New York. 1870.