Jerusalem

VIEW:33 DATA:01-04-2020

vision of peace
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary


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’ (Isa_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’ (2Ki_20:20, 2Ch_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’ (Gen_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 Psa_110:1-7 (Psa_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 Tyropœon 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 Gen_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 (Jos_18:28 [but see RV [Note: Revised Version.] ], Jdg_19:10, 1Ch_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 (Gen_10:16, Exo_23:23, Jos_3:10 etc.), and specially assigned to this city in Jdg_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 Jdg_1:5-7 (see Moore’s Judges, ad loc.). The statement that Judah burnt Jerusalem (Jdg_1:8) is generally rejected as an interpolation; it remained a Jebusite city (Jdg_1:21; Jdg_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 (Jos_15:8; Jos_18:16; Jos_18:28).
2. David and Solomon.—The city remained foreign to the Israelites (Jdg_19:11) until the end of the period of 71/2 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 2Sa_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 (2Sa_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 (2Sa_6:1-23), but his desire to erect a permanent building for its reception was frustrated by Nathan the prophet (2Sa_7:1-29). The site of the Temple was chosen, namely, the threshing-floor of Araunah (2Sa_24:16) or Ornan (1Ch_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 (1Ki_6:1-38). His royal palace occupied thirteen years (1Ki_7:1). These erections were not in the ‘city of David’ (1Ki_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 (1Ki_9:24), and the wall of Jerusalem (1Ki_9:15), and ‘closed up the breach of the city of David’ (1Ki_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 (1Ki_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 (2Ch_21:16) in the time of Jehoram. Shortly afterwards took place the stirring events of the usurpation of Athaliah and her subsequent execution (2Ki_11:1-21). Her successor Joash or Jehoash distinguished himself by his repair of the Temple (2Ki_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 (2Ki_12:18). Soon afterwards, however, Jehoash of Israel came down upon Jerusalem, breached the wall, and looted the royal and sacred treasuries (2Ki_14:14). This event taught the lesson of the weakness of the city, by which the powerful king Uzziah profited. In 2Ch_26:9; 2Ch_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 (2Ki_15:35, 2Ch_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 (2Ki_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 Tyropœon inside them. By another gift from the apparently inexhaustible royal and sacred treasures, Hezekiah endeavoured to keep Sennacherib from an attack on the capital (2Ki_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 (2Ki_19:35). By alliances with Egypt (Isa_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 (2Ch_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 (2Ki_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 (2Ki_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 (Neh_3:11). Then comes the Valley-gate, which has been found half-way down the valley (Neh_3:13). At the bottom of the valley, where it joined the Kidron, was the Dung-gate (Neh_3:15), outside of which was found what appears to have been a cess-pit. Turning northward, we find the Fountain-gate (Neh_3:13) in close proximity to the ‘made pool,’ i.e. the pool of Siloam at the foot of the Tyropœon 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 (2Ki_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 (2Ki_11:6), the Shallecheth-gate at the west (1Ch_26:16), Parbar (26:18), and the East-gate (Eze_11:1). The Beautiful-gate, of Act_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 (1Ma_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.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909

Jeru-, "the foundation" (implying its divinely given stability, Psa_87:1; Isa_14:32; so spiritually, Heb_11:10); -shalem, "of peace". The absence of the doubled "sh" forbids Ewald's derivation, jerush- "possession". Salem is the oldest form (Psa_76:2; Heb_7:2; Gen_14:18). Jebusi "the Jebusite" (Jos_15:8; Jos_18:16; Jos_18:28; Jdg_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 (Jos_10:1), the name being a hereditary title of the kings of Jerusalem which is "the city of righteousness" (Isa_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" (Gen_14:17; 2Sa_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 (Isa_29:1-2; Isa_29:7). (See ARIEL.) Also "the holy city" (Mat_4:5; Mat_27:53; Rev_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 (2Sa_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 (Eze_5:5; Eze_38:12; Psa_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" (Isa_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 (Psa_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. Jer_21:13,"inhabiters of the valley, rock of the plain" (i.e. Zion). "Jerusalem the defensed" (Eze_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 (Isa_24:10; Jer_4:23). Seventeen times desolated by conquerors, as having become a "Sodom" (Isa_1:10). "The gates of the people," i.e. the central mart for the inland commerce (Eze_26:2; Eze_27:17; 1Ki_5:9). "The perfection of beauty" (Lam_2:15, the enemy in scorn quoting the Jews' own words), "beautiful for situation" (Psa_48:2; Psa_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 (Luk_17:11; Luk_18:35; Luk_19:1-29; Luk_19:45; Luk_19:2 Samuel 15-16; 2Ch_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 (2Ch_25:23), the same probably as that
(2) of Benjamin (Jer_20:2), 400 cubits from
(3) "the corner gate" (2Ch_25:23).
(4) Of Joshua, governor of the city (2Ki_23:8).
(5) That between the two walls (2Ki_25:4).
(6) Horse gate (Neh_3:28).
(7) The valley gate (2Ch_26:9).
(8) Fish gate (2Ch_33:14).
(9) Dung gate (Neh_2:13).
(10) Sheep gate (Neh_3:1).
(11) E. gate (Neh_3:29).
(12) Miphkad (Neh_3:31).
(13) Fountain gate (Neh_12:37).
(14) Water gate.
(15) Old gate (Neh_12:39).
(16) Prison gate.
(17) The E. gate (margin Jer_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 (Jer_19:10-11).
(18) First gate (Zec_14:10), perhaps "the old gate" of Neh_3:6.
The gates of the temple were Sur (2Ki_11:6), named "the gate of foundation" (2Ch_23:5); "the gate of the guard" (2Ki_11:6; 2Ki_11:19); "high gate" (2Ch_23:20); Shallecheth (1Ch_26:16). The sides of the valleys of Kedron and Hinnom were and are the chief burial places (2Ki_23:6); tombs still abound on the slopes. Impurities of every kind were cast there (1Ki_15:13; 2Ch_29:5; 2Ch_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 (Neh_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 (Neh_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 (Gen_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 Jos_10:1, etc., as the capital of Adonizedek. Then Joshua allotted it to Benjamin (Jos_15:8; Jos_18:16; Jos_18:28). Neither Judah, whose land environed the stronghold, nor Benjamin could drive the Jebusites out of it (Jos_15:62; Jdg_1:21).
The first destruction of tide lower city is recorded Jdg_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 (Luk_21:20; Mat_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 Jdg_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, 1Ch_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 (2Sa_5:6-9; 2Sa_5:2 Samuel 6-7). This choice was under the direction of Jehovah (Deu_12:5-21; 1Ki_11:36); henceforth it was "the city of the Great King" (Mat_5:35), "the holy city" (Neh_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 1Sa_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 (2Sa_24:16-25; 1 Chronicles 21; 1 Ch 22:1; 2Ch_3:1; Psa_76:1-2; Psa_132:13-18). Asaph wrote Psa_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" (Isa_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 (1Ki_3:1; 1Ki_9:15; 1Ki_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): 1Ki_7:8; 1Ki_9:24; 2Ch_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," 1Ki_11:7; 2Ki_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" (1Ki_10:27; 2Ch_9:27; Ecc_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 (2Ch_11:5-17).
But fortifications avail nothing without God's favor. He and his people forfeited this by idolatries (1Ki_14:22-28; 1Ki_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 (1Ki_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 (2Ch_13:16-20), and which he himself had dedicated from the Ethiopian spoil, into the house of the Lord, silver, gold, and vessels (1Ki_15:15; 2Ch_14:12-13). So he replaced the vessels taken by Shishak. Asa also rebuilt Jehovah's altar before the porch (2Ch_15:8). Jehoshaphat, Asa's son, probably added "the new court" to the temple (2Ch_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: 2Ch_21:4; 2Ch_21:10-20; 2Ch_22:1; 2Ch_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 (2Ki_12:6-16; 2Ch_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: 2Ch_26:9; Neh_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 (Amo_1:1) was a physical premonition of the social revolutions about to visit the guilty nation as a judgment from God (Mat_24:7-8). Jotham "built the high gate of the house of the Lord" connecting the palace and the temple (2Ch_23:20; 2Ch_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 (2Ki_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 (2Ch_29:3; 2Ch_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. (2Ki_20:20; 2Ch_32:4; 2Ch_32:30; Isa_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 MILLO (the article marks it as a well known place), probably a large tower at one particular part of the wall (Jdg_9:6; Jdg_9:46; Jdg_9:49, where Mille is interchanged with Migdol "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 (1Ch_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 (1Ki_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 (2Ch_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 (2Ch_34:22; 2Ki_22:14). The fish gate on the N. resounds with cries at the foe's approach (in the prophecy of Zep_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 (2Ch_36:6-7). Three years after Jehoiakim rebelled, and Nebuchadnezzar sent Chaldaean, Syrian, Moabite, and Ammonite "bands" to chastise him (2Ki_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 (2Ki_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 (Jer_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 (2Ch_36:13; Eze_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 (Jer_32:24; Jer_33:4; Jer_52:4; Jer_52:6; Eze_21:22).
On Pharaoh Hophra's approach the siege was for a brief space intermitted (Jer_37:5-11); but the Chaldeans returned and took Jerusalem after the inhabitants had suffered much by famine and pestilence (Jer_32:24; 2Ki_25:3; Lam_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 (Jer_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 (Jer_52:12-14), so that they soon became "heaps of rubbish" (Neh_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 Lam_2:4; Lam_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 (Ezr_2:64), carrying back the old temple vessels besides other treasures (Ezr_5:14; Ezr_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 (Ezr_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 (Hag_1:4-9) and Zechariah. (Ezra 4; Ezra 5; Ezr_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 Ezr_3:1; Ezr_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 Neh_13:4-9; Neh_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 (Neh_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 (Sir_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 Menelaus) 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 (Heb_11:34-38). See for their terrible and heroic sufferings for their faith 2Ma_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 Joh_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?" (Exo_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 Joh_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 (Luk_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 (Luk_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 (Joh_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" (Mat_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 (Luk_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 (Dan_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" (Mat_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 (Num_24:17), "there shall come a star out of Jacob," when the emperor Hadrian tried to colonize Jerusalem with his veterans, and so forever to prevent its becoming a rallying point to the nation. R. Akiba was his armor-bearer. Having been crowned at Bether he gained possession of Jerusalem, of which his coins with the legend "to the freedom of Jerusalem" and "Jerusalem the holy" bear evidence. After two years' war he was slain, and Hadrian completed the fulfillment of Christ's words by razing the ruins still left and drawing a plow over the temple foundations. The new Roman Jerusalem was called Aelia (from his own name) Capitolina (from the temple to Jupiter Capitolinus reared on the temple site). A donkey driver in our days picked up the head of Hadrian's statue not far from the Damascus gate. The head bears a crown of laurels, the two branches of which are attached to a medallion, on which is engraven in cameo an eagle, the symbol of imperial power. Jews were forbidden to enter the city on pain of death.
In the fourth century they got leave to enter it in order to wail on the anniversary of its capture; their place of wailing being then as now by the W. wall of the temple, where the Jews every Friday at three o'clock, the time of the evening sacrifice, wail over their desecrated temple. Christian pilgrimage to the holy places in the same century became common. The empress Helena, Constantine's mother, in A.D. 326 built a grand church on Olivet. Constantine founded an oratory on the site of Astarte's shrine, which occupied the alleged scene of the resurrection. The martyrion on the alleged site of finding the cross was erected E. of the oratory or church of the resurrection. In the apostate Julian's reign the Jews at his instigation attempted with great enthusiasm to rebuild the temple; but a whirlwind and earthquake shattered the stones of the former foundation, and a fire from the temple mount consumed their tools. Ammianus Marcellinus (23:1), the emperor's friend, attests the fact. Providence baffled Julian's attempt to falsify Christ's words. The Persian Chosroes II took Jerusalem by storm A.D. 614, slew thousands of monks and clergy, destroyed the churches, including that of the Holy Sepulchre, and carried away the so called wood of the true cross, which in 628 was restored.
Caliph Omar (637 A.D.) took the city from the patriarch Sophronius, who said, "Verily, this is the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place." Christians were allowed liberty of worship, but forbidden to erect more churches. The proper mosque of Omar still exists in the S.E. corner of the mosque el Aksa, and has been always a place of Muslim pilgrimage. The crusaders took Jerusalem in A.D. 1099, July 15th, and it remained in Christian possession 88 years, Saladin retook it in 1187. In a dismantled state it was ceded to the Christians by the treaty with the emperor Frederick II, in 1219, and has ever since remained in the Mahometans' hands. From the first siege by the children of Judah (Jdg_1:8), 1400 B.C., to A D. 1244 Jerusalem underwent 27 sieges, the last being by the Kharesmian hordes who slaughtered the priests and monks. There was the city before David, the second that of Solomon 1000 to 597 B.C., the third city that of Nehemiah which lasted for 300 years. A Grsecised city under Herod (the fourth city) succeeded, This city, destroyed by Titus A.D. 70, was followed by a Roman city, the fifth, which lasted until the Mahometan time, the sixth city.
Then followed the Christian city of Godfrey and the Baldwins, the seventh; lastly the eighth, the modern city of 600 years of Moslem rule. The Ottoman Suleiman in 1542 built the present walls. After a brief possession by the Pasha of Egypt from 1832 to 1840, Jerusalem was restored to the Sultan of Turkey, in whose hands it continues. Sites: J. Fergusson thinks the Muslim "Dome of the Rock" to be Constantine's church over the rock which contained Christ's tomb. The socalled Church of the Sepulchre shows by its architecture that its date of erection was after the crusades. But the Dome of the Rock in architecture is evidently long before them, and has in its center a rock, sakhrah, with one cave in it as Eusebius describes, and is near buildings undoubtedly of Constantine's time. The present Church of the Sepulchre has never had a rock in it, but merely a small tabernacle of marble. The Dome of the Rock is an eight-sided building, each side being 67 ft. long, ornamented by seven windows on each side.
The interior has two cloisters separated by an octagonal course of piers and columns; within this again another circle of four great piers and twelve Corinthian columns supporting the great dome. This stands immediately over the sacred rock, which rises 4 ft. 9 1/2 in. above the marble pavement. Beneath is a cave entered by a flight of steps at the S.E. The cave is 24 ft. by 24 ft., but the side at the entrance not square; 6 ft. high on the average. The floor is marble, with a slab in the center covering "the well of the spirits" as the Mahometans call it. The slab is never lifted, and is believed to be the gate of paradise. The roof is pierced by a round hole. The Dome is not strictly a mosque; the proper mosque of the whole enclosure, called the Musjid, is the El Aksa at the S.W. angle. The Stoa Basilica or royal porch of Herod's temple occupied the whole S. side, overhanging the valley (see Josephus Ant. 15:16, section 5). Herod added the S.W. of the Haram area to the S. cloister of the temple.
The arch of a bridge (joining originally the royal cloister to the upper city) commencing 40 ft. from the S.W. angle, coinciding with the center of the stoa, remains in part, and is known as Robinson's arch, its pier or spring still being in situ. One of the gateways mentioned by Josephus (B.J. 6:6, section 2) as leading from the temple has been found. Warren's excavations prove that Robinson's arch supported the propylaea and led from the valley into the royal cloisters of Solomon's palace, which was S.W. of the temple. Josephus does not exaggerate when he speaks of the giddy height of this southern cloister above the valley below. At the depth of 60 feet Warren found in situ large stones forming the foundation of the wall of enclosure, bearing Phoenician marks. At the same angle of the Haram area were pieces of pottery with the Phoenician character, denoting they were made for royal use, probably accumulations from the royal services of Solomon's palace, which abutted there. The tuffy remaining arch of importance, Wilson's arch, further up on the W. wall of the Haram area, must have been the bridge crossing the valley to the temple.
The rock levels, which are highest in the northern half of the Haram area, and the excavated walls, confirm the old tradition that the Kubbet es Sakhrah, or rock under the dome, was the altar of Araunah's threshing floor and marks the site of Solomen's temple, and that the latter was not, as Fergusson thinks, at the S.W. angle of the Haram. The second wall began near Phasaelus tower at the gate of Gennath, crossed Tyropoeon (about where the Damascus gate now is), enclosing the lower city in that valley, then turning S. to Antonia. Beveled old stone work found near the Damascus gate shows that there the second wall coincided with the modern Wall. The N. part too of the W. wall of the Haram rests probably on the foundations of the second wall. Herod Agrippa, A.D. 42, built the third wall, enclosing the northern suburbs and Bezetha (N. of Acra), and Acra (N. of Antonia and the temple). It began at Hippicus, thence it passed to the tower Psephinus N. of the city; thence it extended opposite Queen Helena's tomb, of Adiabene, then opposite the tombs of the kings; then it turned from the point close to the fuller's monument, at the tower of the corner, and "it joined the old wall at the valley of Kedron" (Josephus, B.J. 5:4, section 2).
Josephus makes the city's circumference 33 stadia, almost four miles, which accords with the sites given above. Antonia was a tower at the N.W. angle of the temple, and with its enclosing wall was at least two stadia in circumference (B.J. 5:2, section 8), the temple with Antonia being six, the temple by itself four, a stadium each side, leaving two for Antonia; it may have been more, as the fourth side coinciding with the W. part of the N. wall of the temple is perhaps not counted by Josephus in the six of the temple and Antonia together. The Akra in Greek corresponds to Hebrew metsuwdah, "a fortress," and is used by Josephus (Ant. 12, 13) in mentioning the fortress adjoining the N. side of the temple. On the other hand the "upper market place," called by David "the citadel" (B.J. 5:4, section 1), answers to the modern S.W. hill, Zion. But Acra was on the N.W. of the temple hill. It is the stronghold of Zion, originally occupied by David (2Sa_5:7-9). A transverse valley ran from Tyropoeon to the right at the foot of Acra, separating it from Bezetha, and from a fourth hill, and almost corresponding to the Via Dolorosa; it was filled up by the Asmonaeans.
The Acra, or citadel, though said by Josephus to be in "the lower city," yet originally commanded by its superior height the temple lying close to it on the same hill; for Josephus says, "the other hill, called Acra, sustains the lower city, and is of the shape of the moon when horned," i.e., curving round from the E. or temple hill to the N. of the Western hill. This whole eastern division was the lower city, in comparison to the western division which was higher and was the upper city. The Haram esh Sherif ("the noble sanctuary") is enclosed by a massive wall rising 50 feet above the surface. The faces of the stones in various places are dressed with a marginal draft, i.e., the central portion of stone projects from a marginal cutting of 2 in. to 4 in., the projecting face being left rough in the oldest portions. It is called the Jewish bevel, but is seen also in Cyrus' tomb at Pasargadae.
The S. wall, overlooking the southern tongue of Moriah called Ophel, has three gates: the Single gateway, now closed up, most modern; the Triple gate, three circular arches built up, the opening to a subterranean avenue up to the platform; the Double gateway or Huldah, where the modern city wall abuts upon the Haram wall; the central pier and E. and W. jambs are marginal drafted stones; within is a subterranean passage up to the Haram area, with a monolith 21 ft. high and 6 1/2 diameter. At 40 ft. N. of the S.W. angle is the projecting part of the famous "Robinson's arch" (above an older arch), the span of which Major Wilson estimated at 45 ft.; and the pier is 51 ft. 6 in. long and 12 ft. 2 in. thick. Higher up is the wailing place. Robinson's arch has the same draft and chisel marks as the wall at the S.W. angle. There were four gates to the temple in the W. wall of the Haram area: namely, Wilson's arch, above a second; Barclay's gateway, or the gate of the Prophet, 270 ft. N. of the S.W. angle; and Robinson's arch; the fourth Captain Warren believes he has ascertained to have been N. of Wilson's arch, at a piercing of the Haram wall, 20 ft. S. of Bab el Mathara. This again will indicate that Fergusson's location of the temple S. of Wilson's arch must be erroneous.
Under Wilson's arch is a cistern low down, and a shaft sunk along the wall, the stones 4 ft. high being in their original position, and probably the oldest existing portions of the sanctuary's enclosing wall. Running water was found, and observations prove that a fountain to this day is running beneath the city. An aqueduct in the rock is older than the wall, and the wall crosses the Tyropeon valley. The Jews' tradition is that when flowing water has been found three times under the city Messiah is at hand; Warren's discovery was the third. He thinks Herod, in reconstructing the temple, took in the palace of Solomon, and built the present S.W. angle of the sanctuary; for the course of great stones running continuously from the E. angle to the Double gate comes there suddenly to an end, therefore the wall to this point was built before the continuation to the W. All the stones in the S. wall are in situ, and have the marginal draft. The rock 60 ft. below the surface at the S.W. angle slopes down until it reaches 90 ft. below the surface.
It rises rapidly eastward along the S. wall, is 30 ft. below the surface at the Double gate, level with it at the Triple gate. Therefore the temple could not have been here (as Fergusson thinks), for it would not have looked down on a deep valley, but on a rock sloping one in three. Solomon's palace probably stretched eastward along the S. wall from the Double gate, and Herod built the S.W. angle, which accounts for the absence of the course of great stones W. of the Double gate, The heaviest stone in the wall (100 tons weight) is in the S.E. angle, the longest (38 ft. 9 in.) at the S.W. angle. The S.W. angle is built over a circular aqueduct below, and is therefore later than it. Moreover, S. of Barclay's gate on the W. wall there are stones at a higher level with faces rough. From it northwards the drafted stones have their faces finely worked. Also the stones of the S. wall near the W. angle are rough up to a certain pavement, the date of which is probably about that of Herod. Lastly, the W. wall here is not built on the E. but on the W. slope of the Tyropoeon valley, probably at a time when rubbish had choked up the valley so that it was here partially covered in (Captain Warren); for all these reasons the S.W. angle must be later than the rest of the S. wall, and is probably Herod's work; therefore the temple was not where Fergusson puts it at the S.W. angle.
At the Triple gateway a passage runs up to the platform by an inclined plane. Fergusson places the E. wall of Herod's temple here, and makes this wall to be the W. wall of the passage. Capt. Warren's examination disproves this, it has no appearance of being the outer wall of the temple. A secret causeway was found by Warren connecting the temple area and the citadel, large enough to march an army through. The rock to the N. of the platform is made level with it, but slopes thence with a dip of 60 ft. in 400 down to the Triple gate. At the N.E. angle Phoenician marks are on the turret courses of stones. A valley ran right across by the N. corner. The Birket Israel there was built for a pool. The platform in the middle is not built, but is of rock scarped in the N. From the p
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.

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 2Ch_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 Sir_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. Neh_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. 2Ch_25:23; Neh_8:16; Neh_12:39. This is probably the same as the... ?
Gate of Benjamin. Jer_20:2; Jer_37:13; Zec_14:10. If so, it was 400 cubits distant from the... ?
Corner Gate. 2Ch_25:23; 2Ch_26:9; Jer_31:38; Zec_14:10.
Gate of Joshua, governor of the city. 2Ki_23:8.
Gate between the two walls. 2Ki_25:4; Jer_39:4.
Horse Gate.
Neh_3:28; 2Ch_23:15; Jer_31:40.
Ravine Gate, (that is, opening on ravine of Hinnom). 2Ch_26:9; Neh_2:13; Neh_2:15; Neh_3:13.
Fish Gate. 2Ch_33:14; Neh_3:13; Zep_1:10.
Dung Gate. Neh_2:13; Neh_3:13.
Sheep Gate. Neh_3:1; Neh_3:32; Neh_12:39.
East Gate. Neh_3:29.
Miphkad Gate or Inspection Gate or Muster Gate Neh_3:31.
Fountain Gate, (Siloam?) Neh_12:37.
Water Gate. Neh_12:37.
Old Gate. Neh_12:39.
Prison Gate. Neh_12:39.
Gate Harsith, (perhaps the Sun Gate; Authorized Version, East Gate). Jer_19:2.
First Gate. Zec_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, 2Ki_11:6 called also Gate of Foundation. 2Ch_23:5.
Gate of the Guard, or Gate Behind the Guard, 2Ki_11:6; 2Ki_11:19;
called the High Gate. 2Ki_15:35; 2Ch_23:20; 2Ch_27:3.
Gate Shallecheth. 1Ch_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," 2Ch_29:4, the "street of the city," that is, the city of David, 2Ch_32:6, the "street facing the water gate," Neh_8:1, Neh_8:3, or, according to the parallel account in 1Es_9:38, the "broad place of the Temple towards the east;" the "street of the house of God," Ezr_10:9, the "street of the gate of Ephraim," Neh_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, Jer_5:1; Jer_11:13; etc.; but the name of only one, "the bakers' street," Jer_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 Gen_14:18 about B.C. 2080. It is next mentioned in Jos_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." Jdg_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).
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863

formerly called Jebus, or Salem, Jos_18:28; Heb_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, 2Sa_5:6-9. As Jerusalem was the centre of the true worship, Psa_122:4, and the place where God did in a peculiar manner dwell, first in the tabernacle, 2Sa_6:7; 2Sa_6:12; 1Ch_15:1; 1Ch_16:1; Psa_132:13; Psa_135:2, and afterward in the temple, 1Ki_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, Gal_4:26; Heb_12:22; Rev_3:12; Rev_21:2; Rev_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, 1Ki_14:26-27; 2Ch_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, Eze_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, Ezr_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, Ezr_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, Ezr_4:24; Ezra 5; Ezr_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, Lam_1:1-6; Lam_2:1-9; Lam_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?
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.

je-roo?sa-lem:
I. The Name
1. In Cuneiform
2. In Hebrew
3. In Greek and Latin
4. The Meaning of Jerusalem
5. Other Names
II. Geology, Climate and Springs
1. Geology
2. Climate and Rainfall
3. The Natural Springs
III. The Natural Site
1. The Mountains Around
2. The Valleys
3. The Hills
IV. General Topography of Jerusalem
1. Description of Josephus
2. Summary of the Names of the Five Hills
3. The Akra
4. The Lower City
5. City of David and Zion
V. Excavations and Antiquities
1. Robinson
2. Wilson and the Palestine Exploration Fund (1865)
3. Warren and Conder
4. Maudslay
5. Schick
6. Clermont-Ganneau
7. Bliss and Dickie
8. Jerusalem Archaeological Societies
VI. The City's Walls and Gates
1. The Existing Walls
2. Wilson's Theory
3. The Existing Gates
4. Buried Remains of Earlier Walls
5. The Great Dam of the Tyropoeon
6. Ruins of Ancient Gates
7. Josephus' Description of the Walls
8. First Wall
9. Second Wall
10. Third Wall
11. Date of Second Wall
12. Nehemiah's Account of the Walls
13. Valley Gate
14. Dung Gate
15. Fountain Gate
16. Water Gate
17. Horse Gate
18. Sheep Gate
19. Fish Gate
20. The ?Old Gate?
21. Gate of Ephraim
22. Tower of the Furnaces
23. The Gate of Benjamin
24. Upper Gate of the Temple
25. The Earlier Walls
VII. Antiquarian Remains Connected with the Water Supply
1. Gihon: The Natural Spring
2. The Aqueduct of the Canaanites
3. Warren's Shaft
4. Hezekiah's ?Siloam? Aqueduct
5. Other Aqueducts at Gihon
6. Bir Eyyub
7. Varieties of Cisterns
8. Birket Israel
9. Pool of Bethesda
10. The Twin Pools
11. Birket Hammam El Batrak
12. Birket Mamilla
13. Birket es Sultan
14. ?Solomon's Pools?
15. Low-Level Aqueduct
16. High-Level Aqueduct
17. Dates of Construction of these Aqueducts
VIII. Tombs, Antiquarian Remains and Ecclesiastical Sites
1. ?The Tombs of the Kings?
2. ?Herod's Tomb?
3. ?Absalom's Tomb?
4. The ?Egyptian Tomb?
5. The ?Garden Tomb?
6. Tomb of ?Simon the Just?
7. Other Antiquities
8. Ecclesiastical Sites
IX. History
1. Tell el-Amarna Correspondence
2. Joshua's Conquest
3. Site of the Jebusite City
4. David
5. Expansion of the City
6. Solomon
7. Solomon's City Wall
8. The Disruption (933 bc)
9. Invasion of Shishak (928 bc)
10. City Plundered by Arabs
11. Hazael King of Syria Bought Off (797 bc)
12. Capture of the City by Jehoash of Israel
13. Uzziah's Refortification (779-740 bc)
14. Ahaz Allies with Assyria (736-728 bc)
15. Hezekiah's Great Works
16. Hezekiah's Religious Reforms
17. Manasseh's Alliance with Assyria
18. His Repair of the Walls
19. Josiah and Religious Reforms (640-609 bc)
20. Jeremiah Prophesies the Approaching Doom
21. Nebuchadnezzar Twice Takes Jerusalem (586 bc)
22. Cyrus and the First Return (538 bc)
23. Nehemiah Rebuilds the Walls
24. Bagohi Governor
25. Alexander the Great
26. The Ptolemaic Rule
27. Antiochus the Great
28. Hellenization of the City under Antiochus Epiphanes
29. Capture of the City (170 bc)
30. Capture of 168 bc
31. Attempted Suppression of Judaism
32. The Maccabean Rebellion
33. The Dedication of the Temple (165 bc)
34. Defeat of Judas and Capture of the City
35. Judas' Death (161 bc)
36. Jonathan's Restorations
37. Surrender of City to Antiochus Sidetes (134 bc)
38. Hasmonean Buildings
39. Rome's Intervention
40. Pompey Takes the City by Storm
41. Julius Caesar Appoints Antipater Procurator (47 bc)
42. Parthian Invasion
43. Reign of Herod the Great (37-4 bc)
44. Herod's Great Buildings
45. Herod Archelaus (4 bc-6 ad)
46. Pontius Pilate
47. King Agrippa
48. Rising against Florus and Defeat of Gallus
49. The City Besieged by Titus (70 ad)
50. Party Divisions within the Besieged Walls
51. Capture and Utter Destruction of the City
52. Rebellion of Bar-Cochba
53. Hadrian Builds Aelia Capitolina
54. Constantine Builds the Church of the Anastasis
55. The Empress Eudoxia Rebuilds the Walls
56. Justinian
57. Chosroes II Captures the City
58. Heracleus Enters It in Triumph
59. Clemency of Omar
60. The Seljuk Turks and Their Cruelties
61. Crusaders Capture the City in 1099
62. The Kharizimians
63. Ottoman Turks Obtain the City (1517 ad)
X. Modern Jerusalem
1. Jews and ?Zionism?
2. Christian Buildings and Institutions
Literature

I.the Name
1. In Cuneiform
The earliest mention of Jerusalem is in the Tell el-Amarna Letters (1450 bc), where it appears in the form Uru-sa-lim; allied with this we have Ur-sa-li-immu on the Assyrian monuments of the 8th century bc.
The most ancient Biblical form is ירוּשׁלם, yerūshālēm, shortened in Psa_76:2 (compare Gen_14:18) to Salem, but in Massoretic Text we have it vocalized ירוּשׁלם, yerūshālaim. In Jer_26:18; Est_2:6; 2Ch_25:1; 2Ch_32:9 we have ירוּשׁלים, yerūshālayim, a form which occurs on the Jewish coins of the Revolt and also in Jewish literature; it is commonly used by modern Talmudic Jews.
2. In Hebrew
The form Hebrew with the ending -aim or -ayim is interpreted by some as being a dual, referring to the upper and lower Jerusalem, but such forms occur in other names as implying special solemnity; such a pronunciation is both local and late.
3. In Greek and Latin
In the Septuagint we get (Ἰερουσαλήμ, Ierousalḗm), constantly reflecting the earliest and the common Hebrew pronunciation, the initial letter being probably unaspirated; soon, however, we meet with (Ἱερουσαλήμ, Hierousalḗm) - with the aspirate - the common form in Josep hus, and (Ἱεροσόλυμα, Hierosóluma) in Macc (Books II through IV), and in Strabo. This last form has been carried over into the Latin writers, Cicero, Pliny, Tacitus and Suetonius. It was replaced in official use for some centuries by Hadrian's Aelia Capitolina, which occurs as late as Jerome, but it again comes into common use in the documents of the Crusades, while Solyma occurs at various periods as a poetic abbreviation.
In the New Testament we have (Ἱερουσαλήμ, Hierousalḗm), particularly in the writings of Luke and Paul, and (τὰ Ἱεροσόλυμα, tá Hierosóluma) elsewhere. The King James Version of 1611 has Ierosalem in the Old Testament and Hierusalem in the New Testament. The form Jerusalem first occurs in French writings of the 12th century.
4. The Meaning of Jerusalem
With regard to the meaning of the original name there is no concurrence of opinion. The oldest known form, Uru-sa-lim, has been considered by many to mean either the ?City of Peace? or the ?City of (the god) Salem,? but other interpreters, considering the name as of Hebrew origin, interpret it as the ?possession of peace? or ?foundation of peace.? It is one of the ironies of history that a city which in all its long history has seen so little peace and for whose possession such rivers of blood have been shed should have such a possible meaning for its name.
5. Other Names
Other names for the city occur. For the name Jebus see JESUS. In Isa_29:1, occurs the name אריאל, 'ărı̄'ēl probably ?the hearth of God,? and in Isa_1:26 the ?city of righteousness.? In Psa_72:16; Jer_32:24 f; Eze_7:23, we have the term העיר, hā‛ı̄r, ?the city? in contrast to ?the land.? A whole group of names is connected with the idea of the sanctity of the site; ‛ı̄r ha-ḳōdhesh, the ?holy city? occurs in Isa_48:2; Isa_52:1; Neh_11:1, and yerūshālayim ha-ḳedhōshāh, ?Jerusalem the holy? is inscribed on Simon's coins. In Mat_4:5; Mat_27:53 we have ἡ ἁγία πόλις, hē hagı́a pólis, ?the holy city,? and in Philo, Ἱερόπολις, Hierópolis, with the same meaning.
In Arabic the common name is Beit el Maḳdis, ?the holy house,? or el Muḳaddas, ?the holy,? or the common name, used by the Moslems everywhere today, el Ḳūds, a shortened form of el Ḳūds esh Sherēf, ?the noble sanctuary.?
Non-Moslems usually use the Arabic form Yerusalēm.
II. Geology, Climate, and Springs
1. Geology
The geology of the site and environs of Jerusalem is comparatively simple, when studied in connection with that of the land of Palestine as a whole (see GEOLOGY OF PALESTINE). The outstanding feature is that the rocks consist entirely of various forms of limestone, with strata containing flints; there are no primary rocks, no sandstone (such as comes to the surface on the east of the Jordan) and no volcanic rocks. The lime stone formations are in regular strata dipping toward the Southeast, with an angle of about 10 degrees.
On the high hills overlooking Jerusalem on the East, Southeast and Southwest there still remain strata of considerable thickness of those chalky limestones of the post-Tertiary period which crown so many hilltops of Palestine, and once covered the whole land. On the ?Mount of Olives,? for example, occurs a layer of conglomerate limestone known as Nāri, or ?firestone,? and another thicker deposit, known as Ka‛kūli, of which two distinct strata can be distinguished. In these layers, especially the latter, occur pockets containing marl or haur, and in both there are bands of flint.
Over the actual city's site all this has been denuded long ages ago. Here we have three layers of limestone of varying density very clearly distinguished by all the native builders and masons:
(1) Mizzeh helu, literally, ?sweet mizzeh,? a hard, reddish-grey layer capable of polish, and reaching in places to a depth of 70 ft. or more. The ?holy rock? in the temple-area belongs to this layer, and much of the ancient building stone was of this nature.
(2) Below this is the Melekeh or ?royal? layer, which, though not very thick - 35 ft. or so - has been of great importance in the history of the city. This rock is peculiar in that when first exposed to the air it is often so soft that it can be cut with a knife, but under the influence of the atmosphere it hardens to make a stone of considerable durability, useful for ordinary buildings. The great importance of this layer, however, lies in the fact that in it have been excavated the hundreds of caverns, cisterns, tombs and aqueducts which honeycomb the city's site.
(3) Under the Melekeh is a Cenomanian limestone of great durability, known as Mizzeh Yehudeh, or ?Jewish mizzeh.? It is a highly valued building stone, though hard to work. Geologically it is distinguished from Mizzeh helu by its containing ammonites. Characteristically, it is a yellowish-grey stone, sometimes slightly reddish. A variety of a distinctly reddish appearance, known as Mizzeh ahmar, or ?red mizzeh,? makes a very ornamental stone for columns, tombstones, etc.; it takes a high polish and is sometimes locally known as ?marble.?
This deep layer, which underlies the whole city, comes to the surface in the Kidron valley, and its impermeability is probably the explanation of the appearance there of the one true spring, the ?Virgin's Fount.? The water over the site and environs of Jerusalem percolates with ease the upper layer, but is conducted to the surface by this hard layer; the comparatively superficial source of the water of this spring accounts for the poorness of its quality.
2. Climate and Rainfall
The broad features of the climate of Jerusalem have probably remained the same throughout history, although there is plenty of evidence that there have been cycles of greater and lesser abundance of rain. The almost countless cisterns belonging to all ages upon the site and the long and complicated conduits for bringing water from a distance, testify that over the greater part of history the rainfall must have been, as at present, only seasonal.
As a whole, the climate of Jerusalem may be considered healthy. The common diseases should be largely preventable - under an enlightened government; even the malaria which is so prevalent is to a large extent an importation from the low-lying country, and could be stopped at once, were efficient means taken for destroying the carriers of infection, the abundant Anopheles mosquitoes. On account of its altitude and its exposed position, almost upon the watershed, wind, rain and cold are all more excessive than in the maritime plains or the Jordan valley. Although the winter's cold is severely felt, on account of its coinciding with the days of heaviest rainfall (compare Ezr_10:9), and also because of the dwellings and clothes of the inhabitants being suited for enduring heat more than cold, the actual lowest cold recorded is only 25 degrees F., and frost occurs only on perhaps a dozen nights in an average year. During the rainless summer months the mean temperature rises steadily until August, when it reaches 73, 1 degrees F., but the days of greatest heat, with temperature over 100 degrees F. in the shade at times, occur commonly in September. In midsummer the cool northwest breezes, which generally blow during the afternoons and early night, do much to make life healthy. The most unpleasant days occur in May and from the middle of September until the end of October, when the dry southeast winds - the sirocco - blow hot and stifling from over the deserts, carrying with them at times fine dust sufficient in quantity to produce a marked haze in the atmosphere. At such times all vegetation droops, and most human beings, especially residents not brought up under such conditions, suffer more or less from depression and physical discomfort; malarial, ?sandfly,? and other fevers are apt to be peculiarly prevalent. ?At that time shall it be said ... to Jerusalem, A hot wind from the bare heights in the wilderness toward the daughter of my people, not to winnow, nor to cleanse? (Jer_4:11).
During the late summer - except at spells of sirocco - heavy ?dews? occur at night, and at the end of September or beginning of October the ?former? rains fall - not uncommonly in tropical downpours accompanied by thunder. After this there is frequently a dry spell of several weeks, and then the winter's rain falls in December, January and February. In some seasons an abundant rainfall in March gives peculiar satisfaction to the inhabitants by filling up the cisterns late in the season and by producing an abundant harvest. The average rainfall is about 26 inches, the maximum recorded in the city being 42, 95 inches in the season 1877-78, and the minimum being 12, 5 inches in 1869-70. An abundant rainfall is not only important for storage, for replenishment of the springs and for the crops, but as the city's sewage largely accumulates in the very primitive drains all through the dry season, it requires a considerable force of water to remove it. Snow falls heavily in some seasons, causing considerable destruction to the badly built roofs and to the trees; in the winter of 1910-11 a fall of 9 inches occurred.
3. The Natural Springs
There is only one actual spring in the Jerusalem area, and even to this some authorities would deny the name of true spring on account of the comparatively shallow source of its origin; this is the intermittent spring known today as ‛Ain Umm ed deraj (literally, ?spring of the mother of the steps?), called by the native Christians ‛Ain Sitti Miriam (the ?spring of the Lady Mary?), and by Europeans commonly called ?The Virgin's Fount.? All the archaeological evidence points to this as the original source of attraction of earliest occupants of the site; in the Old Testament this spring is known as GIHON (which see). The water arises in the actual bottom, though apparent west side, of the Kidron valley some 300 yards due South of the south wall of the Ḥaram̌. The approach to the spring is down two flights of steps, an upper of 16 leading to a small level platform, covered by a modern arch, and a lower, narrower flight of 14 steps, which ends at the mouth of a small cave. The water has its actual source in a long cleft (perhaps 16 ft. long) running East and West in the rocky bottom of the Kidron valley, now many feet below the present surface. The western or higher end of the cleft is at the very entrance of the cave, but most of the water gushes forth from the lower and wider part which lies underneath the steps. When the water is scanty, the women of Siloam creep down into the cavity under the steps and fill their water-skins there; at such times no water at all finds its way into the cave. At the far end of the cave is the opening of that system of ancient tunnel-aqueducts which is described in VI, below. This spring is ?intermittent,? the water rising rapidly and gushing forth with considerable force, several times in the 24 hours after the rainy season, and only once or twice in the dry. This ?intermittent? condition of springs is not uncommon in Palestine, and is explained by the accumulation of the underground water in certain cavities or cracks in the rock, which together make up a reservoir which empties itself by siphon action. Where the accumulated water reaches the bend of the siphon, the overflow commences and continues to run until the reservoir is emptied. Such a phenomenon is naturally attributed to supernatural agency by the ignorant - in this case, among the modern fellahin, to a dragon - and natives, specially Jews, visit the source, even today, at times of its overflow, for healing. Whether this intermittent condition of the fountain is very ancient it is impossible to say, but, as Jerome (Comm. in Esa, 86) speaks of it, it was probably present in New Testament times, and if so we have a strong argument for finding here the ?Pool of Bethesda.? See BETHESDA.
In ancient times all the water flowed down the open, rocky valley, but at an early period a wall was constructed to bank up the water and convert the source into a pool. Without such an arrangement no water could find its way into the cave and the tunnels. The tunnels, described below (VI), were constructed for the purpose (1) of reaching the water supply from within the city walls, and (2) of preventing the enemies of the Jews from getting at the water (2Ch_32:4). The water of this source, though used for all purposes by the people of Siloam, is brackish to the taste, and contains a considerable percentage of sewage; it is quite unfit for drinking. This condition is doubtless due to the wide distribution of sewage, both intentionally (for irrigation of the gardens) and unintentionally (through leaking sewers, etc.), over the soil overlying the rocks from which the water flows. In earlier times the water was certainly purer, and it is probable, too, that the fountain was more copious, as now hundreds of cisterns imprison the waters which once found their way through the soil to the deep sources of the spring.
The waters of the Virgin's Fount find their way through the Siloam tunnel and out at ‛Ain Silwân (the ?spring? of Siloam), into the Pool of Siloam, and from this source descend into the Kidron valley to water the numerous vegetable gardens belonging to the village of Siloam (see SILOAM).
The second source of water in Jerusalem is the deep well known as Bı̂r Eyyûb, ?Job's well,? which is situated a little below the point where the Kidron valley and Hinnom meet. In all probability it derives its modern name from a legend in the Ḳorân (Sura 38 5, 40-41) which narrates that God commanded Job to stamp with his foot, whereupon a spring miraculously burst up. The well, which had been quite lost sight of, was rediscovered by the Crusaders in 1184 ad, and was by them cleaned out. It is 125 ft. deep. The supply of water in this well is practically inexhaustible, although the quality is no better than that of the ?Virgin's Fount?; after several days of heavy rain the water overflows underground and bursts out a few yards lower down the valley as a little stream. It continues to run for a few days after a heavy fall of rain is over, and this ?flowing Kidron? is a great source of attraction to the native residents of Jerusalem, who pour forth from the city to enjoy the rare sight of running water. Somewhere in the neighborhood of Bı̂r Eyyûb must have lain ‛En-Rogel, but if that were once an actual spring, its source is now buried under the great mass of rubbish accumulated here (see EN-ROGEL).
Nearly 600 yards South of Bı̂r Eyyûb is a small gravelly basin where, when the Bı̂r Eyyûb overflows, a small spring called ‛Ain el Lozêh (the ?spring of the almond?) bursts forth. It is not a true spring, but is due to some of the water of Job's well which finds its way along an ancient rock-cut aqueduct on the west side of the Wâdy en Nâr, bursting up here.
The only other possible site of a spring in the Jerusalem area is the Ḥammâm esh Shefâ, ?the bath of healing.? This is an underground rock-basin in the Tyropoeon valley, within the city walls, in which water collects by percolation through the d?bris of the city. Though once a reservoir with probably rock-cut channels conducting water to it, it is now a deep well with arches erected over it at various periods, as the rubbish of the city gradually accumulated through the centuries. There is no evidence whatever of there being any natural fountain, and the water is, in the dry season, practically pure sewage, though used in a neighboring Turkish bath.
G.A. Smith thinks that the JACKAL'S WELL (which see) mentioned by Nehemiah (Neh_2:13), which must have been situated in the Valley of Hinnom, may possibly have been a temporary spring arising there for a few years in consequence of an earthquake, but it is extremely likely that any well sunk then would tap water flowing a long the bed of the valley. There is no such ?spring? or ?well? there today.
III. The Natural Site
Modern Jerusalem occupies a situation defined geographically as 31 degrees 46 feet 45 inches North latitude., by 35 degrees 13 feet 25 inches East longitude. It lies in the midst of a bare and rocky plateau, the environs being one of the most stony and least fruitful districts in the habitable parts of Palestine, with shallow, gray or reddish soil and many outcrops of bare limestone. Like all the hill slopes with a southeasterly aspect, it is so thoroughly exposed to the full blaze of the summer sun that in its natural condition the site would be more or less barren. Today, however, as a result of diligent cultivation and frequent watering, a considerable growth of trees and shrubs has been produced in the rapidly extending suburbs. The only fruit tree which reaches perfection around Jerusalem is the olive.
1. The Mountains Around
The site of Jerusalem is shut in by a rough triangle of higher mountain ridges: to the West runs the main ridge, or water parting, of Judea, which here makes a sweep to the westward. From this ridge a spur runs Southeast and East, culminating due East of the city in the MOUNT OF OLIVES (which see), nearly 2,700 ft. above sea-level and about 300 ft. above the mean level of the ancient city. Another spur, known as Jebel Deir abu Tōr, 2,550 ft. high, runs East from the plateau of el Buḳei‛a and lies Southwest of the city; it is the traditional ?Hill of Evil Counsel.? The city site is thus dominated on all sides by these higher ranges - ?the mountains (that) are round about Jerus? (Psa_125:2) - so that while on the one hand the ancient city was hidden, at any considerable distance, from any direction except the Southeast, it is only through this open gap toward the desert and the mountains of Moab that any wide outlook is obtainable. This strange vision of wilderness and distant mountain wall - often of exquisite loveliness in the light of the setting sun - must all through the ages have been the most familiar and the most potent of scenic influences to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
2. The Valleys
Within the enfolding hills the city's proper site is demarked by two main valleys. That on the West and Southwest commences in a hollow occupied by the Moslem cemetery around the pool Birket Mamilla. The valley runs due East toward the modern Jaffa Gate, and there bends South, being known in this upper part of its course as the Wâdy el Mês. In this southern course it is traversed by a great dam, along which the modern Bethlehem road runs, which converts a large area of the valley bed into a great pool, the Birket es Sultân. Below this the valley - under the name of Wâdy er Râbâbi - bends Southeast, then East, and finally Southeast again, until near Bı̂r Eyyûb it joins the western valley to form the Wâdy en Nâr, 670 ft. below its origin. This valley has been very generally identified as the Valley of Hinnom (see HINNOM.)
The eastern valley takes a wider sweep. Commencing high up in the plateau to the North of the city, near the great water-parting, it descends as a wide and open valley in a southeasterly direction until, where it is crossed by the Great North Road, being here known as Wâdy el Jôz (the ?Valley of the Walnuts?), it turns more directly East. It gradually curves to the South, and as it runs East of the city walls, it receives the name of Wâdy Sitti Miriam (the ?Valley of the Lady Mary?). Below the Southeast corner of the temple-area, near the traditional ?Tomb of Absalom,? the valley rapidly deepens and takes a direction slightly to the West of South. It passes the ?Virgin's Fount,? and a quarter of a mile lower it is joined by el Wād from the North, and a little farther on by the Wâdy er Râbâbi from the West. South of Bı̂r Eyyûb, the valley formed by their union is continued under the name of Wâdy en Nâr to the Dead Sea. This western valley is that commonly known as the Brook Kidron, or, more shortly, the ?Brook? (naḥal), or ravine (see KIDRON), but named from the 5th century onward by Christians the VALLEY OF JEHOSHAPHAT (which see). The rocky tongue of land enclosed between these deep ravines, an area, roughly speaking, a little over one mile long by half a mile wide, is further subdivided into a number of distinct hills by some shallower valleys. The most prominent of these - indeed the only one noticeable to the superficial observer today - is the great central valley known to modern times by the single name el Wād, ?the valley.? It commences in a slight depression of the ground a little North of the modern ?Damascus Gate,? and after entering the city at this gate it rapidly deepens - a fact largely disguised today by the great accumulation of rubbish in its course. It traverses the city with the Ḥaram to its east, and the Christian and Moslem quarters on rapidly rising ground to its west. Its course is observed near the Bâb es Silseleh, where it is crossed by an ancient causeway, but farther South the valley reappears, having the walls of the Ḥaram (near the ?wailing place? and ?Robinson's arch?) on the East, and steep cliffs crossed by houses of the Jewish quarter on the West. It leaves the city at the ?Dung Gate,? and passes with an open curve to the East, until it reaches the Pool of Siloam, below' which it merges in the Wâdy Sitti Miriam. This is the course of the main valley, but a branch of great importance in the ancient topography of the city starts some 50 yards to the West of the modern Jaffa Gate and runs down the Suwaikat Allûn generally known to travelers as ?David's Street,? and thus easterly, along the Tarı̂k bâb es Silseleh, until it merges in the main valley. The main valley is usually considered to be the Tyropoeon, or ?Cheesemongers' Valley? of Josephus, but some writers have attempted to confine the name especially to this western arm of it.
Another interior valley, which is known rather by the rock contours, than by surface observations, being largely filled up today, cuts diagonally across the Northeast corner of the modern city. It has no modern name, though it is sometimes called ?St. Anne's Valley.? It arises in the plateau near ?Herod's Gate,? known as es Ṣahra, and entering the city about 100 yards to the East of that gate, runs South-Southeast., and leaves the city between the Northeast angle of the Ḥaram and the Golden Gate, joining the Kidron valley farther Southeast. The Birket Israel runs across the width of this valley, which had far more influence in determining the ancient topography of the city than has been popularly recognized. There is an artificially made valley between the Ḥaram and the buildings to its north, and there is thought by many to be a valley between the Southeast hill, commonly called ?Ophel? and the temple-area. Such, then, are the valleys, great and small, by which the historic hills on which the city stood are defined. All of them, particularly in their southern parts, were considerably deeper in ancient times, and in places the accumulated d?bris is 80 ft. or more. All of them were originally torrent beds, dry except immediately after heavy rain. The only perennial outflow of water is the scanty and intermittent stream which overflows from the Pool of Siloam, and is used to irrigate the gardens in the Wâdy Sitti Miriam.
3. The Hills
The East and West valleys isolate a roughly quadrilateral tongue of land running from Northwest-West to South-Southeast, and tilted so as to face Southeast. This tongue is further subdivided by el Wād into two long ridges, which merge into each other in the plateau to the North. The western ridge has its actual origin considerably North of the modern wall, being part of the high ground lying between the modern Jaffa road to the West, and the commencement of the Kidron valley to the East. Within the city walls it rises as high as 2, 581 ft. near the northwestern corner. It is divided by the west branch of the Tyropoeon valley into two parts: a northern part - the northwestern hill - on which is situated today the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the greater part of the ?Christian quarter? of the city, and a southern hill - the southwestern - which is connected with the northwestern hill by but a narrow saddle - 50 yards wide - near the Jaffa Gate. This hill sustains the citadel (the so-called ?Tower of David?), the barracks and the Armenian quarter within the walls, and the Coenaculum and adjacent buildings outside the walls. This hill is from 2,500 to 2,350 ft. high along its summit, but drops rapidly on its southwestern, southern and southeastern sides. In its central part it falls much more gently toward the eastern hill across the now largely filled valley el Wad.
The eastern ridge may be reckoned as beginning at the rocky hill el-Edhemı̂yeh - popularly known as Gordon's Calvary - but the wide trench made here by quarrying somewhat obscures this fact. The ridge may for convenience be regarded as presenting three parts, the northeastern, central or central-eastern, and southeastern summits. The northeastern hill within the modern wall supports the Moslem quarter, and rises in places to a height of over 2,500 ft.; it narrows to a mere neck near the ?Ecce Homo? arch, where it is joined to the barracks, on the site of the ancient Antonia. Under the present surface it is here separated from the temple summit by a deep rocky trench.
The central, or central-eastern, summit is that appearing as es Sakhra, the sacred temple rock, which is 2,404 ft. high. This is the highest point from which the ground rapidly falls East, West, and South, but the natural contours of the adjacent ground are much obscured by the great substructures which have been made to sustain the temple platform.
The sloping, southeastern, hill, South of the temple area appears today, at any rate, to have a steady fall of from 2,350 ft. just South of the Ḥaram southern wall to a little over 2,100 ft. near the Pool of Siloam. It is a narrow ridge running in a somewhat curved direction, with a summit near 200 ft. above the Kidron and 100 ft. above the bed of the Tyropoeon. In length it is not more than 600 yards, in width, at its widest, only 150 yards, but its chief feature, its natural strength, is today greatly obscured on account of the rubbish which slopes down its sides and largely fills up its surrounding valleys. In earlier times, at least three of its sides were protected by deep valleys, and probably on quite two-thirds of its circumference its summit was surrounded by natural rocky scarps. According to Professor Guthe, this hill is divided from the higher ground to the North by a depression 12 ft. deep and 30-50 yards wide, but this has not been confirmed by other observers. The city covering so hilly a site as this must ever have consisted, as it does today, of houses terraced on steep slopes' with stairways for streets.
IV. General Topography of Jerusalem
From the foregoing description of the ?natural site,? it will be seen that we have to deal with 5 natural subdivisions or hills, two on the western and three on the eastern ridges.
1. Description of Josephus
In discussing the topography it is useful to commence with the description of Josephus, wherein he gives to these 5 areas the names common in his day (BJ, V, iv, 1, 2). He says: ?The city was built upon two hills which are opposite to one another and have a valley to divide them asunder ... Now the Valley of the Cheesemongers, as it was called, and was that which distinguished the hill of the upper city from that of the lower, extended as far as Siloam? (ibid., V, iv, 1). Here we get the first prominent physical feature, the bisection of the city-site into two main hills. Farther on, however, in the same passage - one, it must be admitted, of some obscurity - Josephus distinguishes 5 distinct regions:
(1) The Upper City or Upper Market Place
(The hill) ?which sustains the upper city is much higher and in length more direct. Accordingly, it was called the citadel (φρούριον, phroúrion) of King David ... but it is by us called the Upper Market Place.? This is without dispute the southwestern hill.
(2) Akra and Lower City
?The other hill, which was called Akra, and sustains the lower city, was double-curved? (ἀμφίκυρτος, amphı́kurtos). The description can apply only to the semicircular shape of the southeastern hill, as viewed from the ?upper city.? These names, ?Akra? and ?Lower City,? are, with reservations, therefore, to be applied to the southeastern hill.
(3) The Temple Hill
Josephus' description here is curious, on account of its indefiniteness, but there can be no question as to which hill he intends. He writes: ?Over against this is a third hill, but naturally lower than the Akra and parted formerly from the other by a fiat valley. However, in those times when the Hasmoneans reigned, they did away with this valley, wishing to connect the city with the temple; and cutting down the summit of the Akra, they made it lower, so that the temple might be visible over it.? Comparison with other passages shows that this ?third hill? is the central-eastern - the ?Temple Hill.?
(4) Bezetha
?It was Agrippa who encompassed the parts added to the old city with this wall (i.e. the third wall) which had been all naked before; for as the city grew more populous, it gradually crept beyond its old limits, and those parts of it that stood northward of the Temple, and joined that hill to the city, made it considerably larger, and occasioned that hill which is in number the fourth, and is called 'Bezetha,' to be inhabited also. It lies over against the tower Antonia, but is divided from it by a deep valley, which was dug on purpose.... This new-built part of the city was called 'Bezetha' in our language, which, if interpreted in the Greek language, may be called the 'New City.'? This is clearly the northeastern hill.
(5) The Northern Quarter of the City
From the account of the walls given by Josephus, it is evident that the northern part of his ?first wall? ran along the northern edge of the southwestern hill; the second wall enclosed the inhabited part of the northwestern hill. Thus Josephus writes: ?The second wall took its beginning from the gate which they called Gennath in the first wall, and enclosing, the northern quarter only reached to the Antonia.? This area is not described as a separate hill, as the inhabited area, except on the South, was defined by no natural valleys, and besides covering the northwestern hill, must have extended into the Tyropoeon valley.
2. Summary of the Names of the Five Hills
Here then we have Josephus' names for these five districts:
(1) Southwestern Hill
Southwestern Hill, ?Upper City? and ?Upper Market Place?; also the Summary, Phrourion, or ?fortress of David.? From the 4th century ad, this hill has also been known as ?Zion,? and on it today is the so-called ?Tower of David,? built on the foundations of two of Herod's great towers.
(2) Northwestern Hill
?The northern quarter of the city.? This district does not appear to have had any other name in Old Testament or New Testament, though some of the older authorities would place the ?Akra? here (see infra). Today it is the ?Christian quarter? of Jerusalem, which centers round the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
(3) Northeastern Hill
?Bezetha? or ?New City,? even now a somewhat sparsely inhabited area, has no name in Biblical literature.
(4) Central-Eastern Hill
The ?third hill? of Josephus, clearly the site of the Temple which, as Josephus says (BJ, V, v), ?was built upon a strong hill.? In earlier times it was the ?threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite.? On the question whether it has any claims to be the Moriah of Gen_22:2, as it is called in 2Ch_3:1, see MORIAH. The temple hill is also in many of the Hebrew writings called Zion, on which point see ZION.
(5) Southeastern Hill
This Josephus calls ?Akra? and ?Lower City,? but while on the one hand these names require some elucidation, there are other names which have at one period or another come to be applied to this hill, namely, ?City of David,? ?Zion? and ?Ophel.? These names for this hill we shall now deal with in order.
3. The Akra
In spite of the very definite description of Josephus, there has been considerable difference of opinion regarding the situation of the ?Akra.? Various parts of the northwestern, the northeastern, the southeastern hills, and even the central-eastern itself, have been suggested by earlier authorities, but instead of considering the various arguments, now largely out of date, for other proposed sites, it will be better to deal with the positive arguments for the southeastern hill. Josephus states that in his day the term ?Akra? was applied to the southeastern hill, but in references to the earlier history it is clear that the Akra was not a whole hill, but a definite fortress (ἄκρα, ákra = ?fortress?).
(1) It was situated on the site, or on part of the site, which was considered in the days of the Maccabees to have been the ?City of David.? Antiochus Epiphanes (168 bc), after destroying Jerusalem, ?fortitled the city of David with a great and strong wall, with strong towers and it became unto them an Akra? (1 Macc 1:33-36). The formidable fortress - known henceforth as ?the Akra? - became a constant menace to the Jews, until at length, in 142 bc, it was captured by Simon, who not only razed the whole fortress, but, according to Josephus (Ant., XIII, vi, 7; BJ, V, iv, 1), actually cut down the hill on which it stood. He says that ?they all, labouring zealously, demolished the hill, and ceasing not from the work night and day for three whole years, brought it to a level and even slope, so that the Temple became the highest of all after the Akra and the hill upon which it was built had been removed? (Ant., XIII, vi, 7). The fact that at the time of Josephus this hill was evidently lower than the temple hill is in itself sufficient argument against any theory which would place the Akra on the northwestern or southwestern hills. (2) The Akra was close to the temple (1 Macc 13:52), and from its walls the garrison could actually overlook it (1 Macc 14:36). Before the hill was cut down it obscured the temple site (same place) . (3) It is identified by Josephus as forming part, at least, of the lower city, which (see below) bordered upon the temple (compare BJ, I, i, 4; V, iv, 1; vi, 1). (4) The Septuagint identifies the Akra with Millo (2Sa_5:9; 1Ki_9:15-24; 2Ch_32:5).
Allowing that the original Akra of the Syrians was on the southeastern hill, it is still a matter of some difficulty to determine whereabouts it stood, especially as, if the statements of Josephus are correct, the natural configuration of the ground has been greatly altered. The most prominent point upon the southeastern hill, in the neighborhood of Gihon, appears to have been occupied by the Jebusite fortress of ZION (which see), but the site of the Akra can hardly be identical with this, for this became the ?City of David,? and here were the venerated tombs of David and the Judean kings, which must have been destroyed if this hill was, as Josephus states, cut down. On this and other grounds we must look for a site farther north. Sir Charles Watson (PEFS, 1906, 1907) has produced strong topographical and literary arguments for placing it where the al Aḳsa mosque is today; other writers are more inclined to put it farther south, somewhere in the neighborhood of the massive tower discovered by Warren on the ?Ophel? wall (see MILLO). If the account of Josephus, written two centuries after the events, is to be taken as literal, then Watson's view is the more probable.
4. The Lower City
Josephus, as we have seen, identified the Akra of his day with the Lower City. This latter is not a name occurring in the Bible because, as will be shown, the Old Testament name for this part was ?City of David.? That by Lower City Josephus means the southeastern hill is shown by many facts. It is actually the lowest part of the city, as compared with the ?Upper City,? Temple Hill and the Bezetha; it is, as Josephus describes, separated from the Upper City by a deep valley - the Tyropoeon; this southeastern hill is ?double-curved,? as Josephus describes, and lastly several passages in his writings show that the Lower City was associated with the Temple on the one end and the Pool of Siloam at the other (compare Ant, XIV, xvi, 2; BJ, II, xvii, 5; IV, ix, 12; VI, vi, 3; vii, 2).
In the wider sense the ?Lower City? must have included, not only the section of the city covering the southeastern hill up to the temple precincts, where were the palaces (BJ, V, vi, 1; VI, vi, 3), and the homes of the well-to-do, but also that in the valley of the Tyropoeon from Siloam up to the ?Council House,? which was near the northern ?first wall? (compare BJ, V, iv, 2), a part doubtless inhabited by the poorest.
5. City of David and Zion
It is clear (2Sa_5:7; 1Ch_11:5) that the citadel ?Zion? of the Jebusites became the ?City of David,? or as G. A. Smith calls it, ?David's Burg,? after its capture by the Hebrews. The arguments for placing ?Zion? on the southeastern hill are given elsewhere (see ZION), but a few acts relevant especially to the ?City of David? may be mentioned here: the capture of the Jebusite city by means of the gutter (2Sa_5:8), which is most reasonably explained as ?Warren's Shaft? (see VII); the references to David's halt on his flight (2Sa_15:23), and his sending Solomon to Gihon to be crowned (1Ki_1:33), and the common expression ?up,? used in describing the transference of the Ark from the City of David to the Temple Hill (1Ki_8:1; 2Ch_5:2; compare 1Ki_9:24), are all consistent with this view. More convincing are the references to Hezekiah's aqueduct which brought the waters of Gihon ?down on the west side of the city of David? (2Ch_32:30); the mention of the City of David as adjacent to the Pool of Shelah (or Shiloah; compare Isa_8:6), and the ?king's garden? in Neh_3:15, and the position of the Fountain Gate in this passage and Neh_12:37; and the statement that Manasseh built ?an outer wall to the City of David, on the west side of Gihon? in the naḥal, i.e. the Kidron valley (2Ch_33:14).
The name appears to have had a wider significance as the city grew. Originally ?City of David? was only the name of the Jebusite fort, but later it became equivalent to the whole southeastern hill. In the same way, Akra was originally the name of the Syrian fort, but the name became extended to the whole southeastern hill. Josephus looks upon ?City of David? and ?Akra? as synonymous, and applies to both the name ?Lower City.? For the names Ophel and Ophlas see OPHEL.
V. Excavations and Antiquities
During the last hundred years explorations and excavations of a succession of engineers and archaeologists have furnished an enormous mass of observations for the understanding of the condition of ancient Jerusalem. Some of the more important are as follows:
In 1833 Messrs. Bonorni, Catherwood and Arundale made a first thorough survey of the Ḥaram (temple-area), a work which was the foundation of all subsequent maps for over a quarter of a century.
1. Robinson
In 1838, and again in 1852, the famous American traveler and divine, E. Robinson, D.D., visited the land as the representative of an American society, and made a series of brilliant topographical investigations of profound importance to all students of the Holy Land, even today.
In 1849 Jerusalem was surveyed by Lieuts. Aldrich and Symonds of the Royal Engineers, and the data acquired were used for a map constructed by Van de Vilde and published by T. Tobler.
In 1857 an American, J.T. Barclay, published another map of Jerusalem and its environs ?from actual and minute survey made on the spot.?
In 1860-1863 De Vog?? in the course of some elaborate researches in Syria explored the site of the sanctuary.
2. Wilson and the Palestine Exploration Fund (1865)
In 1864-65 a committee was formed in London to consider the sanitary condition of Jerusalem, especially with a view to furnishing the city with a satisfactory water-supply, and Lady Burdett-Coutts gave 500 pounds toward a proper survey of Jerusalem and its environs as a preliminary step. Captain (later Lieutenant-General Sir Charles) Wilson, R.E., was lent by the Ordnance Survey Department of Great Britain for the purpose. The results of this survey, and of certain tentative excavations and observations made at the same time, were so encouraging that in 1865 ?The Palestine Exploration Fund? was constituted, ?for the purpose of investigating the archaeology, geography, geology, and natural history of the Holy Land.?
3. Warren and Conder
During 1867-70 Captain (later Lieutenant-General Sir Charles) Warren, R.E., carried out a series of most exciting and original excavations all over the site of Jerusalem, especially around the Ḥaram̌. During 1872-75 Lieutenant (later Lieutenant-Colonel) Conder, R.E., in the course of the great survey of Western Palestine, made further contributions to our knowledge of the Holy City.
4. Maudslay
In 1875 Mr. Henry Maudslay, taking advantage of the occasion of the rebuilding of ?Bishop Gobat's Boys' School,? made a careful examination of the remarkable rock cuttings which are now more or less incorporated into the school buildings, and made considerable excavations, the results being described in PEFS (April, 1875).
In 1881 Professor Guthe made a series of important excavations on the southeastern hill, commonly called ?Ophel,? and also near the Pool of Siloam; his reports were published in ZDPV, 1882.
5. Schick
The same year (1881), the famous Siloam inscription was discovered and was first reported by Herr Baurath Schick, a resident in Jerusalem who from 1866 until his death in 1901 made a long series of observations of the highest importance on the topography of Jerusalem. He had unique opportunities for scientifically examining the buildings in the Ḥaram, and the results of his study of the details of that locality are incorporated in his wonderful Temple model. He also made a detailed report of the ancient aqueducts of the city. Most important of all were the records he so patiently and faithfully kept of the rock levels in all parts of the city's site whenever the digging of foundations for buildings or other excavations gave access to the rock. His contributions to the PEF and ZDPV run into hundreds of articles.
6. Clermont-Ganneau
M. Clermont-Ganneau, who was resident in Jerusalem in the French consular service, made for many years, from 1880 onward, a large number of acute observations on the archaeology of Jerusalem and its environs, many of which were published by the PEF. Another name honored in connection with the careful study of the topography of Jerusalem over somewhat the same period is that of Selah Merrill, D.D., for many years U.S. consul in Jerusalem.
7. Bliss and Dickie
In 1894-97 the Palestine Exploration Fund conducted an elaborate series of excavations with a view to determining in particular the course of the ancient southern walls under the direction of Mr. T.J. Bliss (son of Daniel Bliss, D.D., then president of the Syrian Protestant College, Beir?t), assisted by Mr. A.C. Dickie as architect. After picking up the buried foundations of walls at the southeastern corner where ?Maudslay's scarp? was exposed in the Protestant cemetery, Bliss and Dickie followed them all the way to the Pool of Siloam, across the Tyropoeon and on to ?Ophel? - and also in other directions. Discoveries of great interest were also made in the neighborhood of the Pool of Siloam (see SILOAM).
Following upon these excavations a number of private investigations have been made by the Augustinians in a large estate they have acquired on the East side of the traditional hill of Zion.
In 1909-1911 a party of Englishmen, under Captain the Honorable M. Parker, made a number of explorations with very elaborate tunnels upon the hill of Ophel, immediately above the Virgin's Fount. In the course of their work, they cleaned out the whole Siloam aqueduct, finding some new passages; they reconstructed the Siloam Pool, and they completed Warren's previous investigation in the neighborhood of what has been known as ?Warren's Shaft.?
8. Jerusalem Archaeological Societies
There are several societies constantly engaged in observing new facts connected with the topography of ancient Jerusalem, notably the School of Archaeology connected with the University of Stephens, under the Dominicans; the American School of Archaeology; the German School of Biblical Archaeology under Professor Dalman, and the Palestine Exploration Fund.
VI. The City's Walls and Gates
1. The Existing Walls
Although the existing walls of Jerusalem go back in their present form to but the days of Suleiman the Magnificent, circa 1542 ad, their study is an essential preliminary to the understanding of the ancient walls. The total circuit of the modern walls is 4,326 yards, or nearly 2 1/8 miles, their average height is 35 ft., and they have altogether 35 towers and 8 gates - one of which is walled up. They make a rough square, with the four sides facing the cardinal points of the compass. The masonry is of various kinds, and on every side there are evidences that the present walls are a patchwork of many periods. The northern wall, from near the northwestern angle to some distance East of the ?Damascus Gate,? lies parallel with, though somewhat inside of, an ancient fosse, and it and the gate itself evidently follow ancient lines. The eastern and western walls, following as they do a general direction along the edges of deep valleys, must be more or less along the course of earlier walls. The eastern wall, from a little south of Stephen's Gate to the southeastern angle, contains many ancient courses, and the general line is at least as old as the time of Herod the Great; the stretch of western wall from the so-called ?Tower of David? to the southwestern corner is certainly along an ancient line and has persisted through very many centuries. This line of wall was allowed to remain undestroyed when Titus leveled the remainder. At the northwestern angle are some remains known as Ḳala‛at Jalûd (?Goliath's castle?), which, though largely medieval, contain a rocky core and some masonry of Herodian times, which are commonly accepted as the relics of the lofty tower Psephinus.
2. Wilson's Theory
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 gates which lead up to the Temple. The irregular line followed by the remainder of this wall has not until recent times received any explanation. Sir Charles Wilson (Golgotha and the Holy Sepulchre) suggests the probable explanation that the line of wall from the southwestern to the ?Zion Gate? was determined by the legionary camp which stood on the part of the city now covered by the barracks and the Armenian quarter. Allowing that the remains of the first wall on the North and West were utilized for this fortified camp (from 70-132 ad), and supposing the camp to have occupied the area of 50 acres, as was the case with various European Roman camps, whose remains are known, the southern camp wall would have run along the line of the existing southern walls. This line of fortification having been thus selected appears to have been followed through the greater part of the succeeding centuries down to modern times. The line connecting the two extremities of the southern wall, thus determined by the temple-platform and legionary camp, respectively, was probably that first followed by the southern wall of Hadrian's city AElia.
3. The Existing Gate
Of the 8 existing city gates, on the west side there is but one, Bâb el Khulı̂l (the ?Gate of Hebron?), commonly known to travelers as the Jaffa Gate. It is probably the site of several earlier gates. On the North there are 3 gates, Bâb Abd'ul Ḥamı̂d (named after the sultan who made it) or the ?New Gate?; Bab el ‛amûd (?Gate of the Columns?), now commonly called the ?Damascus Gate,? but more in ancient times known as ?St. Stephen's Gate,? and clearly, from the existing remains, the site of an earlier gateway; and, still farther east, the Bâb es Sāhirah (?Gate of the Plain?), or ?Herod's Gate.? On the east side the only open gate is the Bâb el ‛Asbat (?Gate of the Tribes?), commonly called by native Christians, Bâb Sitti Miriam (?Gate of the Lady Mary?), but in European guide-books called ?St. Stephen's Gate.? A little farther South, near the northeastern corner of the Ḥaram, is the great walled-up Byzantine Gate, known as Bâb ed Daharı̄yeh (?Gate of the Conqueror?), but to Europeans as the ?Golden Gate.? This structure has been variously ascribed to Justinian and Heraclius, but there are massive blocks which belong to a more ancient structure, and early Christian tradition places the ?Beautiful Gate? of the Temple here. In the southern wall are two city gates; one, insignificant and mean, occupies the center of el Wād and is known as Bâb el Mughāribeh (?Gate of the Moors?), and to Europeans as the ?Dung Gate?; the other, which is on the crown of the western hill, traditional Zion, is the important Bâb Nebi Daoud (?Gate of the Prophet David?), or the ?Zion Gate.?
All these gates assumed their present form at the time of the reconstruction of the walls by Suleiman the Magnificent, but the more important ones occupy the sites of earlier gates. Their names have varied very much even since the times of the Crusaders. The multiplicity of names for these various gates - they all have two or three today - and their frequent changes are worth noticing in connection with the fact that in the Old Testament history some of the gates appear to have had two or more names.
As has been mentioned, the course of the present southern wall is the result of Roman reconstruction of the city since the time of Titus. To Warren, Guthe, Maudslay and Bliss we owe a great deal of certain knowledge of its more ancient course. These explorers have shown that in all the pre-Roman period (and at least one period since) the continuation southward of the western and eastern ridges, as well as the wide valley between - an area now but sparsely inhabited - was the site of at once the most crowded life, and the most stirring scenes in the Hebrew history of the city. The sanctity of the Holy Sepulchre has caused the city life to center itself more and more around that sanctuary, thereby greatly confusing the ancient topography for many centuries.
4. Buried Remains of Earlier Walls
(1) Warren's excavations revealed: (a) a massive masonry wall 46 ft. East of the Golden Gate, which curved toward the West at its northern end, following the ancient rock contours at this spot. It is probable that this was the eastern wall of the city in pre-Herodian times. Unfortunately the existence of a large Moslem cemetery outside the eastern wall of the Ḥaram precludes the possibility of any more excavations in this neighborhood. (b) More important remains in the southeastern hill, commonly known as ?Ophel.? Here commencing at the southeastern angle of the Ḥaram, Warren uncovered a wall 14 1/2 ft. thick running South for 90 ft. and then Southwest along the edge of the hill for 700 ft. This wall, which shows at least two periods of construction, abuts on the sanctuary wall with a straight joint. Along its course were found 4 small towers with a projection of 6 ft. and a face from 22 to 28 ft. broad, and a great corner tower projecting 41 1/2 ft. from the wall and with a face 80 ft. broad. The face of this great tower consists of stones one to two ft. high and 2 or 3 ft. long; it is founded upon rock and stands to the height of 66 ft. Warren considers that this may be ha-mighdāl ha-yōcē' or ?tower that standeth out? of Neh_3:25.
(2) In 1881 Professor Guthe picked up fragmentary traces of this city-wall farther south, and in the excavations of Captain Parker (1910-1911) further fragments of massive walls and a very ancient gate have been found.
(3) Maudslay's excavations were on the southwestern hill, on the site occupied by ?Bishop Gobat's School? for boys, and in the adjoining Anglo-German cemetery. The school is built over a great mass of scarped rock 45 ft. square, which rises to a height of 20 ft. from a platform which surrounds it and with which it is connected by a rock-cut stairway; upon this massive foundation must have stood a great tower at what was in ancient times the southwestern corner of the city. From this point a scarp facing westward was traced for 100 ft. northward toward the modern southwestern angle of the walls, while a rock scarp, in places 40 ft. high on the outer or southern side and at least 14 ft. on the inner face, was followed for 250 ft. eastward until it reached another great rock projection with a face of 43 ft. Although no stones were found in situ, it is evident that such great rock cuttings must have supported a wall and tower of extraordinary strength, and hundreds of massive squared stones belonging to this wall are now incorporated in neighboring buildings.
(4) Bliss and Dickie's work commenced at the southeastern extremity of Maudslay's scarp, where was the above-mentioned massive projection for a tower, and here were found several courses of masonry still in situ. This tower appears to have been the point of divergence of two distinct lines of wall, one of which ran in a direction Northeast, skirting the edge of the southeastern hill, and probably joined the line of the modern walls at the ruined masonry tower known as Burj el Kebrı̂t, and another running Southeast down toward the Pool of Siloam, along the edge of the Wâdy er Râbâbi (Hinnom). The former of these walls cannot be very ancient, because of the occurrence of late Byzantine moldings in its foundations. The coenaculum was included in the city somewhere about 435-450 ad (see IX, 55), and also in the 14th century. Bliss considers it probable that this is the wall built in 1239 By Frederick II, and it is certainly that depicted in the map of Marino Sanuto (1321 ad). Although these masonry remains are thus comparatively late, there were some reasons for thinking that at a much earlier date a wall took a similar direction along the edge of the southwestern hill; and it is an attractive theory, though unsupported by any very definite archaeological evidence, that the wall of Solomon took also this general line. The wall running Southeast from the tower, along the edge of the gorge of Hinnom, is historically of much greater importance. Bliss's investigations showed that here were remains belonging to several periods, covering altogether considerably over a millennium. The upper line of wall was of fine masonry, with stones 1 ft. by 3 ft. in size, beautifully jointed and finely dressed; in some places this wall was founded upon the remains of the lower wall, in others a layer of d?bris intervened. It is impossible that this upper wall can be pre-Roman, and Bliss ascribes it to the Empress Eudoxia (see IX, 55). The lower wall rested upon the rock and showed at least 3 periods of construction. In the earliest the stones had broad margins and were carefully jointed, without mortar. This may have been the work of Solomon or one of the early kings of Judah. The later remains are evidently of the nature of repairs, and include the work of the later Judean kings, and of Nehemiah and of all the wall-repairers, down to the destruction in 70 ad. At somewhat irregular intervals along the wall were towers of very similar projection and breadth to those found on Warren's wall on the southeastern hill. The wall foundations were traced - except for an interval where they passed under a Jewish cemetery - all the way to the mouth of the Tyropoeon valley. The upper wall disappeared (the stones having been all removed for later buildings) before the Jewish cemetery was reached.
5. The Great Dam of the Tyropoeon
During most periods, if not indeed in all, the wall was carried across the mouth of the Tyropoeon valley upon a great dam of which the massive foundations still exist under the ground, some 50 ft. to the East of the slighter dam which today supports the Birket el Ḥamra (see SILOAM). This ancient dam evidently once supported a pool in the mouth of the Tyropoeon, and it showed evidences of having undergone buttressing and other changes and repairs. Although it is clear that during the greater part of Jewish history, before and after the captivity, the southern wall of Jerusalem crossed upon this dam, there were remains of walls found which tended to show that at one period, at any rate, the wall circled round the two Siloam pools, leaving them outside the fortifications.
6. Ruins of Ancient Gates
In the stretch of wall from ?Maudslay's Scarp? to the Tyropoeon valley remains of 2 city gates were found, and doubtful indications of 2 others. The ruins of the first of these gates are now included in the new extension of the Anglo-German cemetery. The gate had door sills, with sockets, of 4 periods superimposed upon each other; the width of the entrance was 8 ft. 10 inches during the earliest, and 8 ft. at the latest period. The character of the masonry tended to show that the gate belonged to the upper wall, which is apparently entirely of the Christian era. If this is so, this cannot be the ?Gate of the
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.

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 (Psa_76:2): 'In Salem is his tabernacle, and his dwelling-place in Sion.'
The mountain of the land of Moriah, which Abraham (Gen_22:2) reached on the third day from Beersheba, there to offer Isaac, is, according to Josephus, the mountain on which Solomon afterwards built the temple (2Ch_3:1).

Fig. 234?Jerusalem
The name Jerusalem first occurs in Jos_10:1, where Adonizedek, king of Jerusalem, is mentioned as having entered into an alliance with other kings against Joshua, by whom they were all overcome (comp. Jos_12:10).
In drawing the northern border of Judah, we find Jerusalem again mentioned (Jos_15:8; comp. Jos_18:16). This border ran through the valley of Ben Hinnom; the country on the south of it, as Bethlehem, belonged to Judah; but the mountain of Zion, forming the northern wall of the valley, and occupied by the Jebusites, appertained to Benjamin. Among the cities of Benjamin, therefore, is also mentioned (Jos_18:28) 'Jebus, which is Jerusalem' (comp. Jdg_19:10; 1Ch_11:4).
After the death of Joshua, when there remained for the children of Israel much to conquer in Canaan, the Lord directed Judah to fight against the Canaanites; and they took Jerusalem, smote it with the edge of the sword, and set it on fire (Jdg_1:1-8). After that, the Judahites and the Benjamites dwelt with the Jebusites at Jerusalem; for it is recorded (Jos_15:63) that the children of Judah could not drive out the Jebusites inhabiting Jerusalem; and we are further informed (Jdg_1:21) that the children of Benjamin did not expel them from Jerusalem. Probably the Jebusites were removed by Judah only from the lower city, but kept possession of the mountain of Zion, which David conquered at a later period. Jerusalem is not again mentioned till the time of Saul, when it is stated (1Sa_17:54) that David took the head of Goliath and brought it to Jerusalem. After David, who had previously reigned over Judah alone in Hebron, was called to rule over all Israel, he led his forces against the Jebusites, and conquered the castle of Zion, which Joab first scaled (2Sa_5:5-9; 1Ch_11:4-8). He then fixed his abode on this mountain, and called it 'the city of David.' Thither he carried the Ark of the Covenant and there he built unto the Lord an altar in the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite, on the place where the angel stood who threatened Jerusalem with pestilence (2Sa_24:15-25).
The reasons which led David to fix upon Jerusalem as the metropolis of his kingdom have been alluded to elsewhere [ISRAEL; JUDAH]; being chiefly, that it was in his own tribe of Judah, in which his influence was the strongest, while it was the nearest to the other tribes of any site he could have chosen in Judah. The peculiar strength also of the situation, enclosed on three sides by a natural trench of valleys, could not be without weight.
The promise made to David received its accomplishment when Solomon built his temple upon Mount Moriah. By him and his father Jerusalem had been made the imperial residence of the king of all Israel: and the temple, often called 'the house of Jehovah,' constituted it at the same time the residence of the King of kings, the supreme head of the theocratical state, whose vicegerents the human kings were taught to regard themselves. It now belonged, even less than a town of the Levites, to a particular tribe: it was the center of all civil and religious affairs, the very place of which Moses spoke, Deu_12:5 : 'The place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there, even unto his habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come' (comp. 9:6; 13:12; 14:23; 16:11-16; Psalms 122).
The importance and splendor of Jerusalem were considerably lessened after the death of Solomon; under whose son, Rehoboam, ten of the tribes rebelled, Judah and Benjamin only remaining in their allegiance. Jerusalem was then only the capital of the very small state of Judah. And when Jeroboam instituted the worship of golden calves in Bethel and Dan the ten tribes went no longer up to Jerusalem to worship and sacrifice in the house of the Lord (1Ki_12:26-30).
After this time the history of Jerusalem is continued in the history of Judah, for which the second book of the Kings and of the Chronicles are the principal sources of information.
After the time of Solomon, the kingdom of Judah was almost alternately ruled by good kings, 'who did that which was right in the sight of the Lord,' and by such as were idolatrous and evil disposed; and the reign of the same king often varied and was by turns good or evil. The condition of the kingdom, and of Jerusalem in particular as its metropolis, was very much affected by these mutations. Under good kings the city flourished, and under bad kings it suffered greatly. Under Rehoboam (B.C. 973) it was conquered by Shishak, king of Egypt, who pillaged the treasures of the temple (2Ch_12:9). Under Amaziah it was taken by Jehoash, king of Israel, who broke down 400 cubits of the wall of the city, and took all the gold and silver, and all the vessels that were found in the temple (2Ki_14:13-14). Uzziah, son of Amaziah, who at first reigned well, built towers in Jerusalem at the corner-gate, at the valley-gate, and at the turning of the wall, and fortified them (2Ch_26:9). His son, Jotham, built the high gate of the temple, and reared up many other structures (2Ch_27:3-4). Hezekiah (B.C. 728) added to the other honors of his reign that of an improver of Jerusalem. His most eminent work in that character was the stopping of the upper course of Gihon, and bringing its waters by a subterraneous aqueduct to the west side of the city (2Ch_32:30). This work is inferred, from 2 Kings 20, to have been of great importance to Jerusalem, as it cut off a supply of water from any besieging enemy, and bestowed it upon the inhabitants of the city. Hezekiah's son, Manasseh, in his later and best years, built a strong and very high wall on the west side of Jerusalem (2Ch_33:14). The works in the city connected with the names of the succeeding kings of Judah were, so far as recorded, confined to the defilement of the house of the Lord by bad kings, and its purgation by good kings, till about 100 years after Manasseh, when, for the abounding iniquities of the nation, the city and temple were abandoned to destruction. After a siege of three years, Jerusalem was taken by Nebuchadnezzar, who razed its walls, and destroyed its temple and palaces with fire (2 Kings 25; 2 Chronicles 36; Jeremiah 39). Thus was Jerusalem smitten with the calamity which Moses had prophesied would befall it, if the people would not keep the commandments of the Lord, but broke his covenant (Lev_26:14; Deuteronomy 28).
But God, before whom a thousand years are as one day, gave to the afflicted people a glimpse beyond the present calamity and retributive judgment, into a distant futurity. The same prophets who foretold the destruction of Jerusalem, also announced the consolations of a coming time.
Moses had long before predicted that if in the land of their captivity they repented of their evil, they should be brought back again to the land out of which they had been cast (Deu_30:1-5; comp. 1Ki_8:46-53; Neh_1:8-9). The Lord also, through Isaiah, condescended to point out the agency through which the restoration of the holy city was to be accomplished, and even named long before his birth the very person, Cyrus, under whose orders this was to be effected (Isa_44:28; comp. Jer_3:2; Jer_3:7-8; Jer_23:3; Jer_31:19; Jer_32:36-37).
Among the remarkably precise indications should be mentioned that in which Jeremiah (Jer_25:9; Jer_25:12) limits the duration of Judah's captivity to 70 years.
These encouragements were continued through the prophets, who themselves shared the captivity. Of this number was Daniel (Dan_9:16; Dan_9:19), who lived to see the reign of Cyrus, king of Persia (Dan_10:1), and the fulfillment of his prayer. It was in the year B.C. 536, 'in the first year of Cyrus,' that in accomplishment of the prophecy of Jeremiah, the Lord stirred up the spirit of this prince, who made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, expressed in these remarkable words: 'The Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel' (Ezr_1:2-3). This important call was answered by a considerable number of persons, particularly priests and Levites; and the many who declined to quit their houses and possessions in Babylonia, committed valuable gifts to the hands of their more zealous brethren. Cyrus also caused the sacred vessels of gold and silver which Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple to be restored to Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah, who took them to Jerusalem, followed by 42,360 people, beside their servants, of whom there were 7337 (Ezr_1:5-11).
On their arrival at Jerusalem they contributed according to their ability to rebuild the temple; Jeshua, the priest, and Zerubbabel, reared up an altar to offer burnt-offerings thereon; and when in the following year the foundation was laid of the new house of God, 'the people shouted for joy, but many of the Levites who had seen the first temple wept with a loud voice' (Ezr_3:2; Ezr_3:12). When the Samaritans expressed a wish to share in the pious labor, Zerubbabel declined the offer; and in revenge the Samaritans sent a deputation to King Artaxerxes of Persia, carrying a presentment in which Jerusalem was described as a rebellious city of old time, which, if rebuilt, and its walls set up again, would not pay toll, tribute, and custom, and would thus endamage the public revenue. The deputation succeeded, and Artaxerxes ordered that the building of the temple should cease. The interruption thus caused lasted to the second year of the reign of Darius (Ezr_4:24), when Zerubbabel and Jeshua, supported by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, again resumed the work, and would not cease, though cautioned by the Persian governor of Judea. On the matter coming before Darius Hystaspis, and the Jews reminding him of the permission given by Cyrus, he decided in their favor, and also ordered that the expenses of the work should be defrayed out of the public revenue (Ezr_6:8). In the sixth year of the reign of Darius the temple was finished, when they kept the Feast of Dedication with great joy, and next celebrated the Passover (Ezr_6:15-16; Ezr_6:19). Afterwards, in the seventh year of the second Artaxerxes, Ezra, a descendant of Aaron, came up to Jerusalem, accompanied by a large number of Jews who had remained in Babylon. He was highly patronized by the king, who not only made him a large present in gold and silver, but published a decree enjoining all treasurers of Judaea speedily to do whatever Ezra should require of them; allowing him to collect money throughout the whole province of Babylon for the wants of the temple at Jerusalem; and also giving him full power to appoint magistrates in his country to judge the people (Ezra 7-8). At a later period, in the twentieth year of king Artaxerxes, Nehemiah, who was his cupbearer, obtained permission to proceed to Jerusalem, and to complete the rebuilding of the city and its wall, which he happily accomplished, despite of all the opposition which he received from the enemies of Israel (Nehemiah 1; Nehemiah 2; Nehemiah 4; Nehemiah 6). The city was then capacious and large, but the people in it were few, and many houses lay still in ruins (Neh_7:4). At Jerusalem dwelt the rulers of the people and 'certain of the children of Judah and of the children of Benjamin;' but it was now determined that the rest of the people should cast lots to bring one of ten to the capital (Neh_11:1-4). All strangers, Samaritans, Ammonites, Moabites, etc., were removed, to keep the chosen people from pollution; ministers were appointed to the temple, and the service was performed according to the law of Moses (Ezra 10; Nehemiah 8; Nehemiah 10; Nehemiah 12; Nehemiah 13). Of the Jerusalem thus by such great and long-continued exertions restored, very splendid prophecies were uttered by those prophets who flourished after the exile: the general purport of which was to describe the temple and city as destined to be glorified far beyond the former, by the advent of the long and eagerly expected Messiah, 'the desire of all nations' (Zec_9:9; Zec_12:10; Zec_13:3; Hag_2:6-7; Mal_3:11).
Thus far the Old Testament has been our guide in the notices of Jerusalem. For what follows, down to its destruction by the Romans, we must draw chiefly upon Josephus, and the books of the Maccabees. The difficulty here, as before, is to separate what properly belongs to Jerusalem from that which belongs to the country at large. For as Jerusalem was invariably affected by whatever movement took place in the country of which it was the capital, its history might be made, and often has been made, the history of Palestine.
It is said by Josephus, that, when the dominion of this part of the world passed from the Persians to the Greeks, Alexander the Great advanced against Jerusalem to punish it for the fidelity to the Persians which it had manifested while he was engaged in the siege of Tyre. His hostile purposes, however, were averted by the appearance of the high-priest Jaddua at the head of a train of priests in their sacred vestments Alexander recognized in him the figure which in a dream had encouraged him to undertake the conquest of Asia. He therefore treated him with respect and reverence, spared the city against which his wrath had been kindled, and granted to the Jews high and important privileges. The historian adds that the high-priest failed not to apprise the conqueror of those prophecies in Daniel by which his successes had been predicted. The whole of this story is, however, liable to suspicion, from the absence of any notice of the circumstance in the histories of this campaign which we possess.
After the death of Alexander at Babylon (B.C. 324), Ptolemy surprised Jerusalem on the Sabbath-day, when the Jews would not fight, plundered the city, and carried away a great number of the inhabitants to Egypt, where, however, from the estimation in which the Jews of this period were held as citizens, important privileges were bestowed upon them. In the contests which afterwards followed for the possession of Syria (including Palestine), Jerusalem does not appear to have been directly injured, and was even spared when Ptolemy gave up Samaria, Acco, Joppa, and Gaza to pillage. The contest was ended by the treaty in B.C. 302, which annexed the whole of Palestine, together with Arabia Petr?a and C?le-Syria, to Egypt. Under easy subjection to the Ptolemies the Jews remained in much tranquility for more than a hundred years, in which the principal incident, as regards Jerusalem itself, was the visit which was paid to it, in B.C. 245, by Ptolemy Energetes, on his return from his victories in the East. He offered many sacrifices, and made magnificent presents to the temple. In the wars between Antiochus the Great and the kings of Egypt, from B.C. 221 to 197, Jud?a could not fail to suffer severely; but we are not acquainted with any incident in which Jerusalem was principally concerned till the alleged visit of Ptolemy Philopator in B.C. 211. He offered sacrifices, and gave rich gifts to the temple, but, venturing to enter the sanctuary, in spite of the remonstrances of the high-priest, he was seized with a supernatural dread, and fled in terror from the place. It is said that on his return to Egypt he vented his rage on the Jews of Alexandria in a very barbarous manner [ALEXANDRIA]. But the whole story of his visit and its results rests upon the sole authority of the third book of Maccabees (3 Maccabees 1-2), and is therefore not entitled to implicit credit. Towards the end of this war the Jews seemed to favor the cause of Antiochus; and after he had subdued the neighboring country, they voluntarily tendered their submission, and rendered their assistance in expelling the Egyptian garrison from Mount Zion. For this conduct they were rewarded by many important privileges by Antiochus.
Under their new masters the Jews enjoyed for a time nearly as much tranquility as under the generally benign and liberal government of the Ptolemies. But in B.C. 176, Seleucus Philopator, hearing that great treasures were hoarded up in the temple, and being distressed for money to carry on his wars, sent his treasurer, Heliodorus, to bring away these treasures. But this personage is reported to have been so frightened and stricken by an apparition that he relinquished the attempt; and Seleucus left the Jews in the undisturbed enjoyment of their rights. His brother and successor, Antiochus Epiphanes, however, was of another mind. He took up the design of reducing them to a conformity of manners and religion with other nations; or, in other words, of abolishing those distinctive features which made the Jews a peculiar people, socially separated from all others. This design was odious to the great body of the people, although there were many among the higher classes who regarded it with favor. Of this way of thinking was Menelaus, whom Antiochus had made a high-priest, and who was expelled by the orthodox Jews with ignominy, in B.C. 169, when they heard the joyful news that Antiochus had been slain in Egypt. The rumor proved untrue, and Antiochus on his return punished them by plundering and profaning the temple. Worse evils befell them two years after: for Antiochus, out of humor at being compelled by the Romans to abandon his designs upon Egypt, sent his chief collector of tribute, Apollonius, with a detachment of 22,000 men, to vent his rage on Jerusalem. This person plundered the city, and razed its walls, with the stones of which he built a citadel that commanded the temple mount. A statue of Jupiter was set up in the temple; the peculiar observances of the Jewish law were abolished; and a persecution was commenced against all who adhered to these observances, and refused to sacrifice to idols. Jerusalem was deserted by priests and people, and the daily sacrifice at the altar was entirely discontinued.
This led to the celebrated revolt of the Maccabees, who, after an arduous and sanguinary struggle, obtained possession of Jerusalem (B.C. 163), and repaired and purified the temple, which was then dilapidated and deserted. The sacrifices were then recommenced, exactly three years after the temple had been dedicated to Jupiter Olympius. The castle, however, remained in the hands of the Syrians, and long proved a sore annoyance to the Jews; but at length, in B.C. 142, it was taken by Simon Maccabeus, who demolished it altogether, that it might not again be used against the Jews by their enemies. Simon then strengthened the fortifications of the mountain on which the temple stood, and built there a palace for himself, which was strengthened and enlarged by Herod the Great, who called it the castle of Antonia, under which name it makes a conspicuous figure in the Jewish wars with the Romans.
Of Jerusalem itself we find nothing of consequence till it was taken by Pompey in the summer of B.C. 63, and on the very day observed by the Jews as one of lamentation and fasting, in commemoration of the conquest of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. Twelve thousand Jews were massacred in the temple courts, including many priests, who died at the very altar rather than suspend the sacred rites. On this occasion Pompey, attended by his generals, went into the temple and viewed the sanctuary; but he left untouched all its treasures and sacred things, while the walls of the city itself were demolished. From this time the Jews are to be considered as under the dominion of the Romans. The treasures which Pompey had spared were seized a few years after (B.C. 51) by Crassus. In the year B.C. 43, the walls of the city, which Pompey had demolished, were rebuilt by Antipater, the father of that Herod the Great under whom Jerusalem was destined to assume the new and more magnificent, aspect which it bore in the time of Christ, and which constituted the Jerusalem which Josephus describes. The temple itself was taken down and rebuilt by Herod the Great, with a magnificence exceeding that of Solomon's (Mar_13:1; Joh_2:20; see Temple). It was in the courts of the temple as thus rebuilt, and in the streets of the city as thus improved, that the Savior of men walked up and down. Here he taught, here he wrought miracles, here he suffered; and this was the temple whose 'goodly stones' the apostle admired (Mar_13:1), and of which he foretold that before the existing generation had passed away not one stone should be left upon another.
Jerusalem seems to have been raised to this greatness, as if to enhance the misery of its overthrow. So soon as the Jews had set the seal to their formal rejection of Christ, by putting him to death, and invoking the responsibility of his blood upon the heads of themselves and of their children (Mat_27:25), its doom went forth. After having been the scene of horrors without example, it was, in A.D. 70, abandoned to the Romans, who razed the city and temple to the ground, leaving only three of the towers and a part of the western wall to show how strong a place the Roman arms had overthrown. Since then the holy city has lain at the mercy of the Gentiles, and will so remain 'until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.'
Modern History
The destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans did not cause the site to be utterly forsaken: but for a considerable period there is no mention of it in history. Up to A.D. 131 the Jews remained tolerably quiet. The then emperor, Adrian, among other measures of precaution, ordered Jerusalem to be rebuilt as a fortified place wherewith to keep in check the whole Jewish population. The works had made some progress, when the Jews, unable to endure the idea that their holy city should be occupied by foreigners, and that strange gods should be set up within it, broke out into open rebellion under the notorious Barchochebas, who claimed to be the Messiah. His success was at first very great; but he was crushed before the tremendous power of the Romans, so soon as it could be brought to bear upon him: and a war scarcely inferior in horror to that under Vespasian and Titus was, like it, brought to a close by the capture of Jerusalem, of which the Jews had obtained possession. This was in A.D. 135, from which period the final dispersion of the Jews has been often dated. The Romans then finished the city according to their first intention. It was made a Roman colony, inhabited wholly by foreigners, the Jews being forbidden to approach it on pain of death: a temple to Jupiter Capitolinus was erected on Mount Moriah, and the old name of Jerusalem was sought to be supplanted by that of ?lia Capitolina, conferred upon it in honor of the emperor, ?lius Adrianus, and Jupiter Capitolinus. This name was retained for some time by the Muhammadans; and it was not till after they recovered the city from the Crusaders that it became generally known among them by the name of El-Khuds?the holy?which it still bears.
From the rebuilding by Adrian the history of Jerusalem is almost a blank till the time of Constantine, when its history, as a place of extreme solicitude and interest to the Christian church, properly begins. Pilgrimages to the Holy City now became common and popular. Such a pilgrimage was undertaken in A.D. 326by the emperor's mother Helena, then in the 80th year of her age, who built churches on the alleged site of the nativity at Bethlehem, and of the resurrection on the Mount of Olives. This example may probably have excited her son to the discovery of the site of the holy sepulcher, and to the erection of a church thereon. He removed the temple of Venus, with which, in studied insult, the site had been encumbered. The holy sepulcher was then purified, and a magnificent church was, by his order, built over and around the sacred spot. This temple was completed and dedicated with great solemnity in A.D. 335. There is no doubt that the spot thus singled out is the same which has ever since been regarded as the place in which Christ was entombed; but the correctness of the identification then made has been of late years much disputed.
By Constantine the edict, excluding the Jews from the city of their fathers' sepulchers, was so far repealed that they were allowed to enter it once a-year to wail over the desolation of 'the holy and beautiful house' in which their fathers worshipped God. When the nephew of Constantine, the Emperor Julian, abandoned Christianity for the old Paganism, he endeavored, as a matter of policy, to conciliate the Jews. He allowed them free access to the city, and permitted them to rebuild their temple. They accordingly began to lay the foundations in A.D. 362; but the speedy death of the emperor probably occasioned that abandonment of the attempt which contemporary writers ascribe to supernatural hindrances. The edicts seem then to have been renewed which excluded the Jews from the city, except on the day of annual wailing.
In the following centuries the roads to Zion were thronged with pilgrims from all parts of Christendom. After much struggle of conflicting dignities, the 'holy city' was, in A.D. 451, declared a patriarchate by the council of Chalcedon. In the next century it found a second Constantine in Justinian, who ascended the throne A.D. 527. He repaired and enriched the former structures, and built upon Mount Moriah a magnificent church to the Virgin, as a memorial of the persecution of Jesus in the temple.
In A.D. 614 the Persians took it by storm, and slew thousands of the inhabitants, and inflicted much injury on the buildings.
Their inroad was speedily repaired. But in A.D. 636 it fell into the hands of a more formidable enemy, the Khalif Omar. By his orders the magnificent mosque which still bears his name was built upon Mount Moriah, upon the site of the Jewish temple.
Jerusalem remained in possession of the Arabians, and was occasionally visited by Christian pilgrims from Europe, till towards the year 1000, when a general belief that the second coming of the Savior was near at hand drew pilgrims in unwonted crowds to the Holy Land. The sight, by such large numbers, of the holy place in the hands of infidels, the exaction of tribute by the Muslem government, and the insults to which the pilgrims, often of the highest rank, were exposed from the Muslem rabble, excited an extraordinary ferment in Europe, and led to those remarkable expeditions for recovering the Holy Sepulcher from the Muhammadans, which, under the name of the Crusades, will always fill a most important and curious chapter in the history of the world.
On the 17th of June, 1099, the Crusaders, under Godfrey of Bouillon, appeared before Jerusalem, which was at that time in possession of the Fatemite khalifs of Egypt.
After a siege of forty days the holy city was taken by storm on the 15th day of July; and a dreadful massacre of the Muslim inhabitants followed, without distinction of age or sex. As soon as order was restored, and the city cleared of the dead, a regular government was established by the election of Godfrey as king of Jerusalem. The Christians kept possession of Jerusalem eighty-eight years. During this long period they appear to have erected several churches and many convents. Of the latter few, if any, traces remain; and of the former, save one or two ruins, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which they rebuilt, is the only memorial which attests the existence of the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem. In A.D. 1187the Holy City was wrested from the hands of the Christians by the Sultan Saladin. From that time to the present day Jerusalem has remained, with slight interruption, in the hands of the Muslims. On the threatened siege by Richard of England in 1192, Saladin took great pains in strengthening its defenses. New walls and bulwarks were erected, and deep trenches cut, and in six months the town was stronger than it ever had been, and the works had the firmness and solidity of a rock. But in A.D. 1219 the Sultan Melek el-Moaddin of Damascus, who then had possession of Jerusalem, ordered all the walls and towers to be demolished, except the citadel and the enclosure of the mosque, lest the Franks should again become masters of the city and find it a place of strength. In this defenseless state Jerusalem continued till it was delivered over to the Christians in consequence of a treaty with the emperor Frederick II, in A.D. 1229, with the understanding that the walls should not be rebuilt. Yet ten years later (A.D. 1239) the barons and knights of Jerusalem began to build the walls anew, and to erect a strong fortress on the west of the city. But the works were interrupted by the emir David of Kerek, and who seized the city, strangled the Christian inhabitants, and cast down the newly erected walls and fortress. Four years after, however (A.D. 1243), Jerusalem was again made over to the Christians without any restriction, and the works appear to have been restored and completed; for they are mentioned as existing when the city was stormed by the wild Kharismian hordes in the following year; shortly after which the city reverted for the last time into the hands of its Muhammadan masters, who have kept it to the present day.
From this time Jerusalem appears to have sunk very much in political and military importance; and it is scarcely named in the history of the Memluk sultans who reigned over Egypt and the greater part of Syria in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. At length, with the rest of Syria and Egypt, it passed under the sway of the Turkish sultan Selim I, who paid a hasty visit to the holy land from Damascus after his return from Egypt. From that time Jerusalem has formed a part of the Ottoman Empire, and during this period has been subject to few vicissitudes; its history is accordingly barren of incident. The present walls of the city were erected by Suleiman the Magnificent, the successor of Selim, in A.D. 1542, as is attested by an inscription over the Jaffa gate. So lately as A.D. 1808, the church of the holy sepulcher was partially consumed by fire; but the damage was repaired with great labor and expense by September, 1810, and the traveler now finds in this imposing fabric no traces of the recent calamity.
In A.D. 1832 Jerusalem became subject to Mohammed Ali, the pasha of Egypt, the Holy City opening its gates to him without a siege. During the great insurrection in the districts of Jerusalem and Nabulus, in 1834, the insurgents seized upon Jerusalem, and held possession of it for a time; but by the vigorous operations of the government, order was soon restored, and the city reverted quietly to its allegiance on the approach of Ibrahim Pasha with his troops. In 1841 Mohammed Ali was deprived of all his Syrian possessions by European interference, and Jerusalem was again subjected to the Turkish government, under which it now remains. It is not, perhaps, the happier for the change. The only subsequent event of interest has been the establishment of a Protestant bishopric at Jerusalem by the English and Prussian governments, and the erection upon Mount Zion of a church, calculated to hold 500 persons, for the celebration of divine worship according to the ritual of the English church.
General Topography
Jerusalem lies near the summit of a broad mountain-ridge, extending, without interruption, from the plain of Esdraelon to a line drawn between the south end of the Dead Sea and the south-east corner of the Mediterranean; or, more properly, perhaps, it may be regarded as extending as far south as to Jebel Araif in the Desert, where it sinks down at once to the level of the great western plateau. This tract, which is everywhere not less than from 20 to 25 geographical miles in breadth, forms the precipitous western wall of the great valley of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, and is everywhere rocky, uneven, and mountainous; and is, moreover, cut up by deep valleys which run east or west on either side towards the Jordan or the Mediterranean. The line of division, or watershed, between the waters of these valleys, follows for the most part the height of land along the ridge; yet not so but that the heads of the valleys, which run off in different directions, often inter-lap for a considerable distance. Thus, for example, a valley which descends to the Jordan often has its head a mile or two westward of the commencement of other valleys which run to the western sea.
From the great plain of Esdraelon onwards toward the south, the mountainous country rises gradually, forming the tract anciently known as the mountains of Ephraim and Judah; until, in the vicinity of Hebron, it attains an elevation of nearly 3000 Paris feet above the level of the Mediterranean Sea. Further north, on a line drawn from the north end of the Dead Sea towards the true west, the ridge has an elevation of only about 2500 Paris feet; and here, close upon the watershed, lies the city of Jerusalem. Its mean geographical position is in lat. 31? 46′ 43″ N., and long. 35? 13′ E. from Greenwich.
The surface of the elevated promontory, on which the city stands, slopes somewhat steeply towards the east, terminating on the brink of the valley of Jehoshaphat. From the northern part, near the present Damascus gate, a depression or shallow wady runs in a southern direction, having on the west the ancient hills of Akra and Zion, and on the east the lower ones of Bezetha and Moriah. Between the hills of Akra and Zion another depression or shallow wady (still easy to be traced) comes down from near the Jaffa gate, and joins the former. It then continues obliquely down the slope, but with a deeper bed, in a southern direction, quite to the pool of Siloam and the valley of Jehoshaphat. This is the ancient Tyrop?on. West of its lower part Zion rises loftily, lying mostly without the modern city; while on the east of the Tyropaeon and the valley first mentioned lie Bezetha, Moriah, and Ophel, the last a long and comparatively narrow ridge, also outside of the modern city, and terminating in a rocky point over the pool of Siloam. These three last hills may strictly be taken as only parts of one and the same ridge. The breadth of the whole site of Jerusalem, from the brow of the valley of Hinnom, near the Jaffa gate, to the brink of the valley of Jehoshaphat, is about 1020 yards, or nearly half a geographical mile.
The country around Jerusalem is all of limestone formation, and not particularly fertile. The rocks everywhere come out above the surface, which in many parts is also thickly strewed with loose stones; and the aspect of the whole region is barren and dreary; yet the olive thrives here abundantly, and fields of grain are seen in the valleys and level places, but they are less productive than in the region of Hebron and Nabulus. Neither vineyards nor fig-trees flourish on the high ground around the city, though the latter are found in the gardens below Siloam, and very frequently in the vicinity of Bethlehem.
Ancient Jerusalem
Every reader of Scripture feels a natural anxiety to form some notion of the appearance and condition of Jerusalem, as it existed in the time of Jesus, or rather as it stood before its destruction by the Romans. There are unusual difficulties in the way of satisfying this desire, although it need not be left altogether ungratified. The principal sources of these difficulties have been indicated by different travelers, and by none more forcibly than by Richardson (Travels, ii. 251). 'It is a tantalizing circumstance, however, for the traveler 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 of the Jewish historian, are entirely 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.'
To the difficulties originating in these causes may be added those which arise from the many ambiguities in the description left by Josephus, the only one which we possess, and which must form the ground-work of most of our notices respecting the ancient city. There are indeed some manifest errors in his account, which the critical reader is able to detect without having the means to rectify.
In describing Jerusalem as it stood just before its destruction by the Romans, Josephus states that the city was built upon two hills, between which lay the valley Tyropaeon (Cheesemonger's Valley), to which the buildings on both hills came down. This valley extended to the fountain of Siloam. The hill on which the upper town stood was much higher than the other, and straighter in its extent. On account of its fortifications, David called it the Fortress or Castle; but in the time of Josephus it was known by the name of the Upper Market. The other hill, on which was situated the lower town, was called Akra. It was in the form of a horseshoe or crescent. Opposite to Akra was a third, and naturally lower hill (Moriah), on which the temple was built; and between this and Akra was originally a broad valley, which the inhabitants of Jerusalem filled up in the time of Simon Maccabaeus for the purpose of connecting the town with the temple. At the same time they lowered the hill Akra, so as to make the temple rise above it. Both the hills on which the upper and lower towns stood were externally surrounded by deep valleys, and here there was no approach because of the precipices on every side.
The single wall which enclosed that part of the city skirted by precipitous valleys began at the tower of Hippicus. On the west it extended (southward) to a place called Bethso, and the gate of the Essenes; thence it kept along on the south to a point over against Siloam; and thence on the east was carried along by Solomon's Pool and Ophla (Ophel), till it terminated at the eastern portico of the temple. Of the triple walls, we are told that the first and oldest of these began at the tower of Hippicus, on the northern part, and, extending (along the northern brow of Zion) to the Xystus, afterwards terminated at the western portico of the temple. The second wall began at the gate of Gennath (apparently near Hippicus), and, encircling only the northern part of the city, extended to the castle of Antonia at the north-west corner of the area of the temple. The third wall was built by Agrippa at a later period: it also had its beginning at the tower of Hippicus, ran northward as far as the tower Psephinos; and thence sweeping round towards the north-east by east, it turned afterwards towards the south, and was joined to the ancient wall at or in the valley of the Kidron. This wall enclosed the hill Bezetha. From other passages we learn that the Xystus, named in the above descriptions, was an open place in the extreme part of the upper city, where the people sometimes assembled, and that a bridge connected it with the temple.
Dr. Robinson, in comparing the information derived from Josephus with his own more detailed account, declares that the main features depicted by the Jewish historian may still be recognized. 'True,' he says, 'the valley of the Tyropaeon, and that between Akra and Moriah, have been greatly filled up with the rubbish accumulated from the repeated desolations of nearly eighteen centuries. Yet they are still distinctly to be traced: the hills of Zion, Akra, Moriah, and Bezetha, are not to be mistaken; while the deep valleys of the Kidron, and of Hinnom, and the Mount of Olives, are permanent natural features, too prominent and gigantic indeed to be forgotten, or to undergo any perceptible change.'
The details embraced in this general notice must be more particularly examined in connection with modern observations; for it is to be remembered that the chief or only value of these observations consists in the light which they throw on the ancient condition and history of the site.
The first or most ancient wall appears to have enclosed the whole of Mount Zion. The greater part of it, therefore, must have formed the exterior and sole wall on the south, overlooking the deep valleys below Mount Zion; and the northern part evidently passed from the tower of Hippicus on the west side, along the northern brow of Zion, and across the valley, to the western side of the temple area. It probably nearly coincided with the ancient wall which existed before the time of David, and which enabled the Jebusites to maintain themselves in possession of the upper city, long after the lower city had been in the hands of the Israelites. Mount Zion is now unwalled, and is excluded from the modern city. No trace of this wall can now be perceived, but by digging through the rubbish the foundations might perhaps be discovered.
The account given by Josephus, of the second wall, is very short and unsatisfactory. It seems to have enclosed the whole of the lower city, or Akra, excepting that part of the eastern side of it which fronted the Temple area on Mount Moriah, and the southern side, towards the valley which separated the lower from the upper city. In short, it was a continuation of the external wall, so far as necessary, on the west and north, and on so much of the east as was not already protected by the strong wall of the Temple area.
Although these were the only walls that existed in the time of our Savior, we are not to infer that the habitable city was confined within their limits. On the contrary, it was because the city had extended northward far beyond the second wall that a third was built to cover the defenseless suburb: and there is no reason to doubt that this unprotected suburb, called Bezetha, existed in the time of Christ. This wall is described as having also begun at the tower of Hippicus: it ran northward as far as to the tower Psephinos, then passed down opposite the sepulcher of Helena (queen of Adiabene), and, being carried along through the royal sepulchers, turned at the corner tower by the Fullers' monument, and ended by making a junction with the ancient wall at the valley of the Kidron. It was begun ten or twelve years after our Lord's crucifixion by the elder Herod Agrippa, who desisted from completing it for fear of offending the Emperor Claudius. But the design was afterwards taken up and completed by the Jews themselves, although on a scale of less strength and magnificence. Dr. Robinson thinks that he discovered some traces of this wall, which are described in his great work.
The same writer thinks that the wall of the new city, the ?lia of Adrian, nearly coincided with that of the present Jerusalem.
We know from Josephus that the circumference of the ancient city was 33 stadia, equivalent to nearly three and a half geographical miles. The circumference of the present walls does not exceed two and a half geographical miles; but the extent of Mount Zion, now without the walls, and the tract on the north formerly enclosed, or partly so, by the third wall, sufficiently account for the difference.
The history of the modern walls has already been given in the sketch of the modern history of the city. The present walls have a solid and formidable appearance, especially when cursorily observed from without; and they are strengthened, or rather ornamented, with towers and battlements after the Saracenic style. They are built of limestone, the stones being not commonly more than a foot or 15 inches square. The height varies with the various elevations of the ground. The lower parts are probably about 25 feet high, while in more exposed localities, where the ravines contribute less to the security of the city, they have an elevation of 60 or 70 feet.
Much uncertainty exists respecting the ancient gates of Jerusalem. Many gates are named in Scripture; and it has been objected that they are more in number than a town of the size of Jerusalem could require?especially as they all occur within the extent embraced by the first and second walls, the third not then existing. It has, therefore, been suggested as more than probable that some of these gates were within the city, in the walls which separated the town from the temple, and the upper town from the lower, in which gates certainly existed. On the other hand, considering the circumstances under which the wall was rebuilt in the time of Nehemiah, it is difficult to suppose that more than the outer wall was then constructed, and certainly it was in the wall then built that the ten or twelve gates mentioned by Nehemiah occur. But these may be considerably reduced by supposing that two or more of the names mentioned were applied to the same gate. If this view of the matter be taken, no better distribution of these gates can be given than that suggested by Raumer.
A. On the north side.
1. The Old Gate, probably at the north-east corner (Neh_3:6; Neh_12:39).
2. The Gate of Ephraim or Benjamin (Jer_38:7; Jer_37:13; Neh_12:39; 2Ch_25:23). This gate doubtless derived its names from its leading to the territory of Ephraim and Benjamin; and Dr. Robinson supposes it may possibly be represented by some traces of ruins which he found on the site of the present gate of Damascus.
3. The Corner-gate, 400 cubits from the former, and apparently at the north-west corner (2Ch_25:23; 2Ki_14:13; Zec_14:10). Probably the Gate of the Furnaces is the same (Neh_3:11; Neh_12:38).
B. On the west side.
4. The Valley-gate, over against the Dragon-fountain of Gihon (Neh_2:13; Neh_3:13; 2Ch_26:9). It was probably about the north-west corner of Zion, where there appears to have been always a gate, and Dr. Robinson supposes it to be the same with the Gennath of Josephus.
C. On the south side.
5. The Dung-gate, perhaps the same as Josephus's Gate of the Essenes (Neh_2:13; Neh_12:31). It was 1000 cubits from the valley-gate (Neh_3:13), and the dragon-well was between them (Neh_2:13). This gate is probably also identical with 'the gate between two walls' (2Ki_25:4; Jer_39:4; Lam_2:7).
6. The Gate of the Fountain, to the south-east (Neh_2:14; Neh_3:15); the gate of the fountain near the king's pool (Neh_2:14); the gate of the fountain near 'the pool of Siloah by the king's garden' (Neh_3:15). The same gate is probably denoted in all these instances, and the pools seem to have been also the same. It is also possible that this fountain-gate was the same otherwise distinguished as the brick-gate (or potter's gate), leading to the valley of Hinnom (Jer_19:2, where the Auth. Ver. has 'east-gate').
D. On the east side.
7. The Water-gate (Neh_3:26).
8. The Prison-gate, otherwise the Horse-gate, near the temple (Neh_3:28; Neh_12:39-40).
9. The Sheep-gate, probably near the sheep-pool (Neh_3:1-32; Neh_12:39).
10. The Fish-gate was quite at the north-east (Neh_3:3; Neh_12:39; Zep_1:10; 2Ch_33:14).
In the middle ages there appear to have been two gates on each side of the city, making eight in all; and this number, being only two short of those assigned in the above estimate to the ancient Jerusalem, seems to vindicate that estimate from the objections which have been urged against it.
On the west side were two gates, of which the principal was the Gate of David, often mentioned by the writers on the Crusades. It corresponds to the present Jaffa gate. The other was the gate of the Fullers' Field, so called from Isa_7:3. There is no trace of it in the present wall.
On the north there were also two gates; and all the middle-age writers speak of the principal of them as the gate of St. Stephen, from the notion that the death of the protomartyr took place near it. This was also called the gate of Ephraim, in reference to its probable ancient name. The present gate of St. Stephen is on the east of the city, and the scene of the martyrdom is now placed near it; but there is no account of the change. Farther east was the gate of Benjamin, corresponding apparently to what is now called the gate of Herod.
On the east there seem to have been at least two gates. The northernmost is described by Adamnanus as a small portal leading down to the valley of Jehoshaphat. It was called the gate of Jehoshaphat, from the valley to which it led. It seems to be represented by the present gate of St. Stephen. The present gate of St. Stephen has four lions sculptured over it on the outside, which, as well as the architecture, show that it existed before the present walls. The other gate is the famous Golden Gate in the eastern wall of the temple area. This gate is, from its architecture, obviously of Roman origin, and is conjectured to have belonged to the enclosure of the temple of Jupiter which was built by Adrian upon Mount Moriah. The exterior is now walled up; but being double, the interior forms within the area a recess, which is used for prayer by the Muslim worshipper.
On the south side were also two gates. The easternmost is now called by the Franks the Dung-gate. The earliest mention of this gate is by Brocard, about A.D. 1283, who regards it as the ancient Water-gate. Farther west, between the eastern brow of Zion and the gate of David, the Crusaders found a gate which they call the Gate of Zion, corresponding to one which now bears the same name.
Of the seven gates mentioned as still existing, three, the Dung Gate, the Golden Gate, and Herod's Gate, are closed. Thus there are only four gates now in use, one on each side of the town, all of which have been enumerated. St. Stephen's, on the east, leads to the Mount of Olives, Bethany, and Jericho. Zion Gate, on the south side of the city, connects the populous quarter around the Armenian convent with that part of Mount Zion which is outside the walls, and which is much resorted to as being the great field of Christian burial, as well as for its traditional sanctity as the site of David's tomb, the house of Caiaphas, house of Mary, etc. The Jaffa Gate, on the west, is the termination of the important routes from Jaffa, Bethlehem, and Hebron. The Damascus Gate, on the north, is also planted in a vale, which in every age of Jerusalem must have been a great public way, and the easiest approach from Samaria and Galilee.
The towers of Jerusalem are often mentioned in Scripture and in Josephus. Most of the towers mentioned by Josephus were erected by Herod the Great, and were, consequently, standing in the time of Christ. It was on these, therefore, that his eyes often rested when he approached Jerusalem, or viewed its walls and towers from the Mount of Olives. Of all these towers, the most important is that of Hippicus, which Josephus, as we have already seen, assumed as the starting point in his description of all the walls of the city. Herod gave to it the name of a friend who was slain in battle. It was a quadrangular structure, 25 cubits on each side, and built up entirely solid to the height of 30 cubits. The altitude of the whole tower was 80 cubits. Dr. Robinson has shown that this tower should be sought at the north-west corner of the upper city, or Mount Zion. This part, a little to the south of the Jaffa Gate, is now occupied by the citadel. It is an irregular assemblage of square towers, surrounded on the inner side towards the city by a low wall, and having on the outer or west side a deep fosse. The towers which rise from the brink of the fosse are protected on that side by a low sloping bulwark or buttress, which rises from the bottom of the trench at an angle of forty-five degrees. This part bears evident marks of antiquity, and Dr. Robinson is inclined to ascribe these massive outworks to the time of the rebuilding and fortifying of the city by Adrian. The north-eastern tower bears among the Franks the name of the Tower of David, while they sometimes give to the whole fortress the name of the Castle of David. Taking all the circumstances into account, Dr. Robinson thinks that the antique lower portion of this tower is in all probability a remnant of the tower of Hippicus, which, as Josephus states, was left standing by Titus when he destroyed the city.
Josephus describes two other towers?those of Phasa?lus and Mariamne, both built by Herod, one of them being named after a friend, and the other after his favorite wife. They stood not far from Hippicus, upon the first or most ancient wall, which ran from the latter tower eastward, along the northern brow of Zion. Connected with these towers and Hippicus was the royal castle or palace of the first Herod, which was enclosed by this wall on the north, and on the other sides by a wall 30 cubits high. These were the three mighty towers which Titus left standing as monuments of the strength of the place which had yielded to his arms. But nothing now remains save the above-mentioned supposed remnant of the tower of Hippicus.
A fourth tower, called Psephinos, is mentioned by Josephus. It stood at the north-west corner of the third or exterior wall of the city. It did not, consequently, exist in the time of Christ, seeing that the wall itself was built by Herod Agrippa, to whom also the tower may be ascribed.
The above are the only towers which the historian particularly mentions. But in describing the outer or third wall of Agrippa, he states that it had battlements of two cubits, and turrets of three cubits more: and as the wall was 20 cubits high, this would make the turrets of the height of 25 cubits, or nearly 38 feet. Many loftier and more substantial towers than these were erected on each of the walls at regulated distances, and furnished with every requisite for convenience or defense. Of those on the third or outer wall are enumerated ninety; on the middle or second wall, forty; and on the inner or ancient wall, sixty.
The temple was in all ages the great glory and principal public building of Jerusalem, as the heathen temple, church, or mosque, successively occupying the same site, has been ever since the Jewish temple was destroyed. That temple is reserved for a separate article [TEMPLE], and there are few other public edifices which require a particular description. Those most connected with Scripture history are the palace of Herod and the tower of Antonia. The former has already been noticed. In the time of Christ it was the residence of the Roman procurators while in Jerusalem; and as such provincial residences were called by the Romans Pr?toria, this was the pr?torium or judgment-hall of Pilate (Mat_27:27; Mar_15:16; Joh_18:28). In front of the palace was the tribunal or 'judgment-seat,' where the procurator sat to hear and determine the causes; and where Pilate was seated when our Lord was brought before him. It was a raised pavement of mosaic work, called in the Hebrew Gabbatha, or 'an elevated place' [JUDGMENT-HALL].
The tower or castle of Antonia stood on a steep rock adjoining the north-west corner of the temple. It has already been mentioned that it originated under the Maccabees, who resided in it. As improved by Herod, who gave it the name of Antonia, after his patron Mark Antony, this fortress had all the extent and appearance of a palace, being divided into apartments of every kind, with galleries and baths, and also broad halls or barracks for soldiers; so that, as having everything necessary within itself, it seemed a city, while in its magnificence it was a palace. At each of the four corners was a tower, one of which was 70 cubits high, and overlooked the whole temple with its courts. The fortress communicated with the cloisters of the temple by secret passages, through which the soldiers could enter and quell any tumults, which were always apprehended at the time of the great festivals. It was to a guard of these soldiers that Pilate referred the Jews as a 'watch' for the sepulcher of Christ. This tower was also 'the castle' into which St. Paul was carried when the Jews rose against him in the temple, and were about to kill him; and where he gave his able and manly account of his conversion and conduct (Act_21:27-40; Acts 22). This tower was, in fact, the citadel of Jerusalem.
In the narratives of all the sieges which Jerusalem has suffered, we never read of the besieged suffering from thirst, although driven to the most dreadful extremities and resources by hunger while the besiegers are frequently described as suffering greatly from want of water, and as being obliged to fetch it from a great distance. This is a very singular circumstance, and is perhaps only in part explained by reference to the system of preserving water in cisterns, as at this day in Jerusalem. There is, however, good ground to conclude that from very ancient times there has been under the temple an unfailing source of water, derived by secret and subterraneous channels from springs to the west of the town, and communicating by other subterraneous passages with the pool of Siloam and the fountain of the Virgin in the east of the town, whether they were within or without the walls of the town. The ordinary means taken by the inhabitants to secure a supply of water have been described under the article Cistern.
Modern Jerusalem
In proceeding to furnish a description of the present Jerusalem, we shall, for the most part, place ourselves under the guidance of Dr. Olin, whose account is not only the most recent, but is by far the most complete and satisfactory which has of late years been produced.
The general view of the city from the Mount of Olives is mentioned more or less by all travelers as that from which they derive their most distinct and abiding impression of Jerusalem.
The summit of the Mount of Olives is about half a mile east from the city, which it completely overlooks, every considerable edifice and almost every house being visible. The city seen from this point appears to be a regular inclined plain, sloping gently and uniformly from west to east, or towards the observer, and indented by a slight depression or shallow vale, running nearly through the center in the same direction. The south-east corner of the quadrangle?for that may be assumed as the figure formed by the rocks?that which is nearest to the observer, is occupied by the mosque of Omar and its extensive and beautiful grounds. This is Mount Moriah, the site of Solomon's temple; and the ground embraced in the sacred enclosure, which conforms to that of the ancient temple, occupies about an eighth of the whole modern city. It is covered with green sward and planted sparingly with olive, cypress, and other trees, and it is certainly the most lovely feature of the town, whether we have reference to the splendid structures or the beautiful lawn spread out around them.
The south-west quarter, embracing that part of Mount Zion which is within the modern town, is to a great extent occupied by the Armenian convent, an enormous edifice, which is the only conspicuous object in this neighborhood. The north-west is largely occupied by the Latin convent, another very extensive establishment. About midway between these two convents is the castle or citadel, close to the Bethlehem gate, already mentioned. The north-east quarter of Jerusalem is but partially built up, and it has more the aspect of a rambling agricultural village than that of a crowded city. The vacant spots here are green with gardens and olive-trees. There is another large vacant tract along the southern wall, and west of the Haram, also covered with verdure. Near the center of the city also appear two or three green spots, which are small gardens. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is the only conspicuous edifice in this vicinity, and its domes are striking objects. There are no buildings which, either from their size or beauty, are likely to engage the attention. Eight or ten minarets mark the position of so many mosques in different parts of the town, but they are only noticed because of their elevation above the surrounding edifices. Upon the same principle the eye rests for a moment upon a great number of low domes, which form the roofs of the principal dwellings, and relieve the heavy uniformity of the flat plastered roofs which cover the greater mass of more humble habitations.
From the same commanding point of view a few olive and fig trees are seen in the lower part of the valley of Jehoshaphat, and scattered over the side of Olivet from its base to the summit. They are sprinkled yet more sparingly on the southern side of the city on Mounts Zion and Ophel. North of Jerusalem the olive plantations appear more numerous as well as thriving, and thus offer a grateful contrast to the sun-burnt fields and bare rocks which predominate in this landscape. The region west of the city appears to be destitute of trees. Fields of stunted wheat, yellow with the drought rather than white for the harvest, are seen on all sides of the town.
Jerusalem, as seen from Mount Olivet, is a plain inclining gently and equably to the East. Once enter its gates, however, and it is found to be full of inequalities. The passenger is always ascending or descending. There are no level streets, and little skill or labor has been employed to remove or diminish the inequalities which nature or time has produced. Houses are built upon mountains of rubbish, which are probably twenty, thirty, or fifty feet above the natural level, and the streets are constructed with the same disregard to convenience, with this difference, that some slight attention is paid to the possibility of carrying off surplus water. The latter are, without exception, narrow, seldom exceeding eight or ten feet in breadth. The houses often meet, and in some instances a building occupies both sides of the street, which runs under a succession of arches barely high enough to permit an equestrian to pass under them. A canopy of old mats or of plank is suspended over the principal streets when not arched. This custom had its origin, no doubt, in the heat of the climate, which is very intense in summer, and it gives a gloomy aspect to all the most thronged and lively parts of the city. These covered ways are often pervaded by currents of air when a perfect calm prevails in other places. The principal streets of Jerusalem run nearly at right angles to each other. Very few, if any, of them bear names among the native population. They are badly paved, being merely laid irregularly with raised stones, with a deep square channel, for beasts of burden, in the middle; but the steepness of the ground contributes to keep them cleaner than in most Oriental cities.
The houses of Jerusalem are substantially built of the limestone of which the whole of this part of Palestine is composed: not usually hewn, but broken into regular forms, and making a solid wall of very respectable appearance. For the most part there are no windows next to the street, and the few which exist for the purposes of light or ventilation are completely masked by casements and lattice-work. The apartments receive their light from the open courts within. The ground plot is usually surrounded by a high enclosure, commonly forming the walls of the house only, but sometimes embracing a small garden and some vacant ground. The rain-water which falls upon the pavement is carefully conducted, by means of gutters, into cisterns, where it is preserved for domestic uses. The people of Jerusalem rely chiefly upon these reservoirs for their supply of this indispensable article. Stone is employed in building for all the purposes to which it can possibly be applied, and Jerusalem is hardly more exposed to accidents by fire than a quarry or subterranean cavern. The floors, stairs, etc. are of stone, and the ceiling is usually formed by a coat of plaster laid upon the stones, which at the same time form the roof and the vaulted top of the room. Doors, sashes, and a few other appurtenances, are all that can usually be afforded of a material so expensive as wood. A large number of houses in Jerusalem are in a dilapidated and ruinous state.
Nothing of this would be suspected from the general appearance of the city as seen from the various commanding points without the walls, nor from anything that meets the eye in the streets. Few towns in the East offer a more imposing spectacle to the view of the approaching stranger. He is struck with the height and massiveness of the walls, which are kept in perfect repair, and naturally produce a favorable opinion of the wealth and comfort which they are designed to protect. Upon ent
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.

Gal_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.

Heb_12:22 (a) The name given to our eternal home in glory and also to the present church.

Rev_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.
Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types
press 1957.

Jerusalem
(Heb. יְרוּשָׁלִם, Yerushala'im, fully [in 1Ch_3:5; 2Ch_25:1; Est_2:6; Jer_26:18] יְרוּשָׁלִים, Yerushala'yim [with final ה directive, יְרוּשָׁלֵמָה, 1Ki_10:2; fully יְרוּשָׁלִיְמָה, 2Ch_32:9]; Chald. יְרוּשְׁלֵםor יְרוּשְׁלֶם, Yerushelem'; Syr. Urishlem; Gr. Ι᾿ερουσαλήμ (τὰ) ῾Ιεροσόλυμα [Gen. ύμων]; Latin Hierosolymna), poetically also SALEM (שָׁלֵם, Shalenz'), and once ARIEL SEE ARIEL (q.v.); originally JEBUS SEE JEBUS (q.v.); in sacred themes the “City of God,” or the “Holy City” (Neh_11:1; Neh_11:16; Mat_4:5), as in the modern Arab. name el-Khuds, the Holy (comp. ἱερόπολις, Philo, Opp. 2:524); once (2Ch_25:28) the “city of Judah.” The Hebrew name is a dual form (see Gesenius, Lehrg. p. 539 sq.; Ewald, Krit. Gramm. 332), and is of disputed etymology (see Gesenius, Thes. Heb. p. 628; Rosenmüller, Altflerth. 2, 2, 202; Ewald, Isr. Gesch. 2, 584), but probably signifies possession of peace (q.d. יֵרוּשׁאּשָׁלֵם[rather than יְרוּ שָׁלֵם, i.e. foundation of peace, as preferred by Gesenius and Fürst]), the dual referring to the two chief mountains (Zion and Moriah) on which it was built, or the two main parts (the Upper and the Lower City, i.e. Zion and Acra). It has been known under the above titles in all ages as the Jewish capital of Palestine.
I. History. — This is so largely made up of the history of Palestine itself in different ages, and of its successive rulers, that for minute details we refer to these, SEE JUDEA; we here present only a general survey, but with references to sources of more detailed information.
1. This city is mentioned very early in Scripture, being usually supposed to be the Salem of which Melchizedek was king (Gen_14:18). B.C. cir. 2080. Such was the opinion of the Jews themselves; for Josephus, who calls Melchizedek king of Solyma (Σόλυμα), observes that this name was afterwards changed into Hierosolyma (Ant. 1, 10, 3). All the fathers of the Church, Jerome excepted, agree with Josephus, and understand Jerusalem and Salem to indicate the same place. The Psalmist also says (Psa_76:2), “In Salem is his tabernacle, and his dwelling place in Zion.” SEE SALEM.
The mountain of the land of Moriah, which Abraham (Gen_22:2) reached on the third day from Beersheba, there to offer Isaac (B.C. cir. 2047), is, according to Josephus (Ant. 1, 13, 2), the mountain on which Solomon afterwards built the Temple (2Ch_3:1). SEE MORIAH.
The question of the identity of Jerusalem with “Cadytis, a large city of Syria,” “almost as large as Sardis,” which is mentioned by Herodotus (2, 159; 3, 5) as having been taken by Pharaoh-Necho, need not be investigated in this place. It is interesting, and, if decided in the affirmative, so far important as confirming the Scripture narrative, but does not in any way add to our knowledge of the history of the city. The reader will find it fully examined in Rawlinson's Herodotus, 2, 246; Blakesley's Herodotus Excursus on Bk. 3, ch. 5 (both against identification); and in Kenrick's Egypt, 2, 406, and Dict. of Gk. and Rom. Geogr. 2, 17 (both for it).
Nor need we do more than refer to the tradition — of traditions they are, and not mere individual speculation — of Tacitus (Hist. 5, 2) and Plutarch (Is. et Osir. ch. 31) of the foundation of the city by a certain Hierosolymus, a son of the Typhon (see Winer's note, 1, 545). All the certain information to be obtained as to the early history of Jerusalem must be gathered from the books of the Jewish historians alone.
2. The name Jerusalem first occurs in Jos_10:1, where Adonizedek (q.v.), king of Jerusalem, is mentioned as having entered into an alliance with other kings against Joshua, by whom they were all overcome (comp. Jos_12:10). B.C. 1618. SEE JOSHUA.
In drawing the northern border of Judah, we find Jerusalem again mentioned (Jos_15:8; compare Jos_18:16). This border ran through the valley of Ben-Hinnom; the country on the south of it, as Bethlehem, belonged to Judah; but the mountain of Zion, forming the northern wall of the valley, and occupied by the Jebusites, appertained to Benjamin. Among the cities of Benjamin, therefore, is also mentioned (Jos_18:28) “Jebus, which is Jerusalem” (comp. Jdg_19:10; 1Ch_11:4). At a later date, however, owing to the conquest of Jebus by David, the line ran on the northern side of Zion, leaving the city equally divided between the two tribes. SEE TRIBE. There is a rabbinical tradition that part of the Temple was in the lot of Judah, and part of it in that of Benjamin (Lightfoot, 1, 1050, Lond. 1684). SEE TEMPLE.
After the death of Joshua, when there remained for the children of Israel much to conquer in Canaan, the Lord directed Judah to fight against the Canaanites; and they took Jerusalem, smote it with the edge of the sword, and set it on fire (Jdg_1:1-8), B.C. cir. 1590. After that, the Judahites and the Benjamites dwelt with the Jebusites at Jerusalem; for it is recorded (Jos_15:63) that the children of Judah could not drive out the Jebusites inhabiting Jerusalem; and we are farther informed (Jdg_1:21) that the children of Benjamin did not expel them from Jerusalem (comp. Jdg_19:10-12). Probably the Jebusites were removed by Judah only from the lower city, but kept possession of the mountain of Zion, which David conquered at a later period. This is the explanation of Josephus (Ant. 5, 2, 2). SEE JEBUS. Jerusalem is not again mentioned till the time of Saul, when it is stated (1Sa_17:54) that David took the head of Goliath and brought it to Jerusalem, B.C. cir. 1063. When David, who had previously reigned over Judah alone in Hebron, was called to rule over all Israel, he led his forces against the Jebusites, and conquered the castle of Zion which Joab first scaled (1Sa_5:5-9; 1Ch_12:4-8). He then fixed his abode on this mountain, and called it “the city of David,” B.C. cir. 1044. He strengthened its fortifications, SEE MILLO, but does not appear to have enlarged it.
Thither he carried the ark of the covenant; and there he built to the Lord an altar in the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, on the place where the angel stood who threatened Jerusalem with pestilence (2Sa_24:15-25). But David could not build a house for the name of the Lord his God on account of the wars which were about him on every side (2Sa_7:13; 1Ki_5:3-5). Still the Lord announced to him, through the prophet Nathan. (2Sa_7:10), “I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own and move no more,” B.C. cir, 1043. From this it would seem that even David had, then at least, no assurance that Jerusalem in particular was to be the place which had so often been spoken of as that which God would choose for the central seat of the theocratical monarchy, and which it became after Solomon's Temple had been built. SEE TEMPLE.
3. The reasons which led David to fix upon Jerusalem as the metropolis of his kingdom are noticed elsewhere, SEE DAVID, being, chiefly, that it was in his own tribe of Judah, in which his influence was the strongest, while it was the nearest to the other tribes of any site he could have chosen in Judah. The peculiar strength also of the situation, enclosed on three sides by a natural trench of valleys, could not be without weight. Its great strength, according to the military notions of that age, is shown by the length of time the Jebusites were able to keep possession of it against the force of all Israel. David was doubtless the best judge of his own interests in this matter; but if those interests had not come into play, and if he had only considered the best situation for a metropolis of the whole kingdom, it is doubtful whether a more central situation with respect to all the tribes would not have been far preferable, especially as the law required all the adult males of Israel to repair three times in the year to the place of the divine presence. Indeed, the burdensome character of this obligation to the more distant tribes seems to heave been one of the excuses for the revolt of the ten tribes, as it certainly was for the establishment of schismatic altars in Dan and Beth-el (1Ki_12:28). Many travelers have suggested that Samaria, which afterwards became the metropolis of the separated kingdom, was far preferable to Jerusalem for the site of a capital city; and its central situation would also have been in its favor as a metropolis for all the tribes. But as the choice of David was subsequently confirmed by the divine appointment, which made Mount Moriah the site of the Temple, we are bound to consider the choice as having been providentially ordered with reference to the contingencies that afterwards arose, by which Jerusalem was made the capital of the separate kingdom of Judah, for which it was well adapted. SEE JUDAH.
The promise made to David received its accomplishment when Solomon built his Temple upon Mount Moriah, B.C. 1010. He also added towers to the walls, and otherwise greatly adorned the city. By him and his father Jerusalem had been made the imperial residence of the king of all Israel; and the Temple, often called “the house of Jehovah,” constituted at the same time the residence of the King of kings, the supreme head of the theocratical state, whose vice regents the human kings were taught to regard themselves. It now belonged, even less than a town of the Levites, to a particular tribe: it was the center of all civil and religious affairs, the very place of which Moses spoke, Deu_12:5 : “The place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there, even unto his habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come” (comp. 9:6; 13:14; 14:23; 16:11-16; Psalms 122). SEE SOLOMON.
Jerusalem was not, indeed, politically important: it was not the capital of a powerful empire directing the affairs of other states, but it stood high in the bright prospects foretold by David when declaring his faith in the coming of a Messiah (Psa_2:6; Psalms 1, 2; Psalms 37; Psa_102:16-22; Psa_110:2). In all these passages the name Zion is used, which, although properly applied to the southernmost part of the site of Jerusalem, is often in Scripture put poetically for Jerusalem generally, and sometimes for Mount Moriah and its Temple. SEE ZION.
The importance and splendor of Jerusalem were considerably lessened after the death of Solomon, under whose son Rehoboam ten of the tribes rebelled, Judah and Benjamin only remaining in their allegiance, B.C. 973. Jerusalem was then only the capital of the very small state of Judah. When Jeroboam instituted the worship of golden calves in Beth-el and Dan, the ten tribes went no longer up to Jerusalem to worship and sacrifice in the house of the Lord (1Ki_12:26-30). SEE ISRAEL, KINGDOM OF.
After this time the history of Jerusalem is continued in the history of Judah, for which the second book of the Kings and of the Chronicles are the principal sources of information. After the time of Solomon, the kingdom of Judah was almost alternately ruled by good kings, “who did that which was right in the sight of the Lord,” and by such as were idolatrous and evil disposed; and the reign of the same king often varied, and was by turns good or evil. The condition of the kingdom, and of Jerusalem in particular as its metropolis, was very much affected by these mutations. Under good kings the city flourished, and under bad kings it suffered greatly. Under Rehoboam (q.v.) it was conquered by Shishak (q.v.), king of Egypt, who pillaged the treasures of the Temple (2Ch_12:9), B.C. 970. Under Amaziah (q.v.) it was taken by Jehoash, king of Israel, who broke down four hundred cubits of the wall of the city, and took all the gold and silver, and all the vessels that were found in the Temple (2Ki_14:13-14), B.C. cir. 830. Uzziah (q.v.), son of Amaziah, who at first reigned well, built towers in Jerusalem at the corner gate, at the valley gate, and at the turning of the wall, and fortified them (2Ch_26:9), B.C. cir. 807. His son, Jotham (q.v.), built the high gate of the Temple, and reared up many other structures (2Ch_27:3-4), B.C. cir. 755. Hezekiah (q.v.) added to the other honors of his reign that of an improver of Jerusalem (2Ch_29:3), B.C. 726. At a later date, however, he despoiled the Temple in some degree in order to pay the levy imposed by the king of Assyria (2Ki_18:15-16), B.C. 713. But in the latter part of the same year he performed his most eminent service for the city by stopping the upper course of Gihon, and bringing its waters by a subterraneous aqueduct to the west side of the city (2Ch_32:30). This work is inferred, from 2 Kings 20, to have been of great importance to Jerusalem, as it cut off a supply of water from any besieging enemy, and bestowed it upon the inhabitants of the city. The immediate occasion was the threatened invasion by the Assyrians. SEE SENNACHERIB.
Hezekiah's son, Manasseh (q.v.), was punished by a capture of the city in consequence of his idolatrous desecration of the Temple (2Ch_33:11), B.C. cir. 690; but in his later and best years he built a strong and very high wall on the west side of Jerusalem (2Ch_33:14). The works in the city connected with the names of the succeeding kings of Judah were, so far as recorded, confined to the defilement of the house of the Lord by bad kings, and its purgation by good kings, the most important of the latter being the repairing of the Temple by Josiah (2 Kings 20:23), B.C. 623, till for the abounding iniquities of the nation the city and Temple were abandoned to destruction, after several preliminary spoliations by the Egyptians (2Ki_23:33-35), B.C. 609, and Babylonians (2Ki_24:14), B. C. 606, and again (2Ki_24:13), B.C. 598. Finally, after a siege of three years, Jerusalem was taken by Nebuchadnezzar, who razed its walls, and destroyed its Temple and palaces with fire (2 Kings 25; 2 Chronicles 36; Jeremiah 39), B.C. 588. Thus was Jerusalem smitten with the calamity which Moses had prophesied would befall it if the people would not keep the commandments of the Lord, but broke his covenant (Lev_26:14; Deuteronomy 28). The finishing stroke to this desolation was put by the retreat of the principal Jews, on the massacre of Gedaliah, into Egypt, B.C. 587, where they were eventually involved in the conquest of that country by the Babylonians (Jeremiah 40-44). Meanwhile the feeble remnant of the lower classes, who had clung to their native soil amid all these reverses, were swept away by a final deportation to Babylon, which left the land literally without an inhabitant (Jer_52:30). B.C. 582. SEE NEBUCHADNEZZAR.
Moses had long before predicted that if, in the land of their captivity, his afflicted countrymen repented of their evil, they should be brought back again to the land out of which they had been cast (Deu_30:1-5; comp. 1Ki_8:46-53; Neh_1:8-9). The Lord also, through Isaiah, condescended to point out the agency through which the restoration of the holy city was to be accomplished, and even named, long before his birth, the very person, Cyrus, under whose orders this was to be effected (Isa_44:28; comp. Jer_3:2; Jer_3:7-8; Jer_23:3; Jer_31:10; Jer_32:36-37). Among the remarkably precise indications should be mentioned that in which Jer_25:9-12 limits the duration of Judah's captivity to seventy years. SEE CAPTIVITY. These encouragements were continued through the prophets, who themselves shared the captivity. Of this number was Daniel, to whom it was revealed, while yet praying for the restoration of his people (Dan_9:16; Dan_9:19), that the streets and the walls of Jerusalem should be built again, even in troublous times (Dan_9:25). SEE SEVENTY WEEKS.
4. Daniel lived to see the reign of Cyrus, king of Persia (Dan_10:1), and the fulfilment of his prayer. It was in the year B.C. 536, “in the first year of Cyrus,” that, in accomplishment of the prophecy of Jeremiah, the Lord stirred up the spirit of this prince, who made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, expressed in these remarkable words: “The Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel” (Ezr_1:2-3). This important call was answered by a considerable number of persons, particularly priests and Levites; and the many who declined to quit their houses and possessions in Babylonia committed valuable gifts to the hands of their more zealous brethren. Cyrus also caused the sacred vessels of gold and silver which Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the Temple to be restored to Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah, who took them to Jerusalem, followed by 42,360 people, besides their servants, of whom there were 7337 (Ezr_1:5-11).
On their arrival at Jerusalem they contributed, according to their ability, to rebuild the Temple; Jeshua the priest, and Zerubbabel, reared up an altar to offer burnt offerings thereon; and when, in the following year, the foundation was laid of the new house of God, “the people shouted for joy, but many of the Levites who had seen the first Temple wept with a loud voice” (Ezr_3:2; Ezr_3:12). When the Samaritans expressed a wish to share in the pious labor, Zerubbabel declined the offer, and in revenge, the Samaritans sent a deputation to king Artaxerxes of Persia, carrying a presentment in which Jerusalem was described as a rebellious city of old time which, if rebuilt, and its walls set up again, would not pay toll, tribute, and custom, and would thus endamage the public revenue. The deputation succeeded, and Artaxerxes ordered that the building of the Temple should cease. The interruption thus caused lasted to the second year of the reign of Darius (Ezr_4:24), when Zerubbabel and Jeshua, supported by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, again resumed the work, and would not cease though cautioned by the Persian governor of Judaea, B.C. 520. On the matter coming before Darius Hystaspis, and the Jews reminding him of the permission given by Cyrus, he decided in their favor, and also ordered that the expenses of the work should be defrayed out of the public revenue (Ezr_6:8). In the sixth year of the reign of Darius the Temple was finished, when they kept the dedicatory festival with great joy, and next celebrated the Passover (Ezr_6:15-16; Ezr_6:19), B.C. 516. Afterwards, in the seventh year of the second Artaxerxes (Longimanus), Ezra, a descendant of Aaron, came up to Jerusalem, accompanied by a large number of Jews who had remained in Babylon, B.C. 459. He was highly patronized by the king, who not only made him a large present in gold and silver, but published a decree enjoining all treasurers of Judaea speedily to do whatever Ezra should require of them; allowing him to collect money throughout the whole province of Babylon for the wants of the Temple at Jerusalem, and also giving him full power to appoint magistrates in his country to judge the people (Ezra 7, 8). At a later period, in the twentieth year of king Artaxerxes, Nehemiah, who was his cupbearer, obtained permission to proceed to Jerusalem, and to complete the rebuilding of the city and its wall, which he happily accomplished, in spite of all the opposition which he received from the enemies of Israel (Neh_1:2; Neh_1:4; Neh_1:6), B.C. 446.
The city was then capacious and large, but the people in it were few, and many houses still lay in ruins (Neh_7:4). At Jerusalem dwelt the rulers of the people and “certain of the children of Judah and of the children of Benjamin;” but it was now determined that the rest of the people should cast lots to bring one of ten to the capital (Neh_11:1-4), B.C. cir. 440. On Nehemiah's return, after several years' absence to court, all strangers, Samaritans, Ammonites, Moabites, etc., were removed, to keep the chosen people, from pollution; ministers were appointed to the Temple, and the service was performed according to the law of Moses (Ezra 10; Nehemiah 8, 10, 12, 13), B.C. cir. 410. Of the Jerusalem thus by such great and long-continued exertions restored, very splendid prophecies were uttered by those prophets who flourished after the exile; the general purport of which was to describe the Temple and city as destined to be glorified far beyond the former, by the advent of the long and eagerly-expected Messiah, “the desire of all nations” (Zec_9:9; Zec_12:10; Zec_13:3; Hag_2:6-7; Mal_3:11). SEE EZRA; SEE Nehemiah 5. For the subsequent history of Jerusalem (which is closely connected with that of Palestine in general), down to its destruction by the Romans, we must draw chiefly upon Josephus and the books of the Maccabees, It is said by Josephus (Ant. 11, 8) that when the dominion of this part of the world passed from the Persians to the Greeks, Alexander the Great advanced against Jerusalem to punish it for the fidelity to the Persians which it had manifested while he was engaged in the siege of Tyre. His hostile purposes, however, were averted by the appearance of the high priest Jaddua at the head of a train of priests in their sacred vestments. Alexander recognized in him the figure which in a dream had encouraged him to undertake the conquest of Asia. He therefore treated him with respect and reverence, spared the city against which his wrath had been kindled, and granted to the Jews high and important privileges. The historian adds that the high priest failed not to apprise the conqueror of those prophecies in Daniel by which his successes had been predicted. The whole of this story is, however, liable to suspicion, from the absence of any notice of the circumstance in the histories of this campaign which we possess. SEE ALEXANDER THE GREAT.
After the death of Alexander at Babylon (B.C. 324), Ptolemy surprised Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, when the Jews would not fight, plundered the city, and carried away a great number of the inhabitants to Egypt, where, however, from the estimation in which the Jews of this period were held as citizens, important privileges were bestowed upon them (Joseph. Ant. 12, 1). In the contests which afterwards followed for the possession of Syria (including Palestine), Jerusalem does not appear to have been directly injured, and was even spared when Ptolemy gave up Samaria, Acco, Joppa, and Gaza to pillage. The contest was ended by the treaty in B.C. 302, which annexed the whole of Palestine, together with Arabia Petraea and Coele-Syria to Egypt. Under easy subjection to the Ptolemies, the Jews remained in much tranquillity for more than a hundred years, in which the principal incident, as regards Jerusalem itself, was the visit which was paid to it, in B.C. 245, by Ptolemy Euergetes, on his return from his victories in the East. He offered many sacrifices, and made magnificent presents to the Temple. In the wars between Antiochus the Great and the kings of Egypt, from B.C. 221 to 197, Judaea could not fail to suffer severely; but we are not acquainted with any incident in which Jerusalem was principally concerned till the alleged visit of Ptolemy Philopator in B.C. 211. He offered sacrifices, and gave rich, gifts to the Temple, but, venturing to enter the sanctuary in spite of the remonstrances of the high priest, he was seized with a supernatural dread, and fled in terror from the place. It is said that on his return to Egypt he vented his rage on the Jews of Alexandria in a very barbarous manner. SEE ALEXANDRIA. But the whole story of his visit and its results rests upon the sole authority of the third book of Maccabees (chaps. 1 and 3), and is therefore not entitled to implicit credit. Towards the end of this war the Jews seemed to favor the cause of Antiochus; and after he had subdued the neighboring country, they voluntarily tendered their submission, and rendered their assistance in expelling the Egyptian garrison from Mount Zion. For this conduct they were rewarded by many important privileges by Antiochus. He issued decrees directing, among other things, that the outworks of the Temple should be completed, and that all the materials for needful repairs should be exempted from taxes. The peculiar sanctity of the Temple was also to be respected. No foreigner was to pass the sacred walls, and the city itself was to be protected from pollution; it being strictly forbidden that the flesh or skins of any beasts which the Jews accounted unclean should be brought into it (Joseph. Ant. 12, 3, 3). These were very liberal concessions to what the king himself must have regarded as the prejudices of the Jewish people.
Under their new masters the Jews enjoyed for a time nearly as much tranquillity as under the generally benign and liberal government of the Ptolemies. But in B.C. 176, Seleucus Philopator, hearing that great treasures were hoarded up in the Temple, and being distressed for money to carry on his wars, sent his treasurer, Heliodorus, to bring away these treasures. But this personage is reported to have been so frightened and stricken by an apparition that he relinquished the attempt, and Seleucus left the Jews in the undisturbed enjoyment of their rights (2Ma_3:4-40; Joseph. Ant. 12, 3, 3). His brother and successor, Antiochus Epiphanes, however, was of another mind. He took up the design of reducing them to a conformity of manners and religion with other nations; or, in other words, of abolishing those distinctive features which made the Jews a peculiar people, socially separated from all others. This design was odious to the great body of the people, although there were many among the higher classes who regarded it with favor. Of this way of thinking was Menelaus, whom Antiochus had made high priest, and who was expelled by the orthodox Jews with ignominy, in B.C. 169, when they heard the joyful news that Antiochus had been slain in Egypt. The rumor proved untrue, and Antiochus, on his return, punished them by plundering and profaning the Temple. Worse evils befell them two years after; for Antiochus, out of humor at being compelled by the Romans to abandon his designs upon Egypt, sent his chief collector of tribute, Apollonius, with a detachment of 22,000 men, to vent his rage on Jerusalem. This person plundered the city and razed its walls, with the stones of which he built a citadel that commanded the Temple Mount. A statue of Jupiter was set up in the Temple; the peculiar observances of the Jewish law were abolished, and a persecution was commenced against all who adhered to these observances, and refused to sacrifice to idols. Jerusalem was deserted by priests and people, and the daily sacrifice at the altar was entirely discontinued (1 Macc. 1, 29-40; 2 Macc. 5, 24-26; Joseph. Ant. 12, 5, 4). SEE ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES.
This led to the celebrated revolt of the Maccabees who, after an arduous and sanguinary struggle, obtained possession of Jerusalem (B.C. 163), and repaired and purified the Temple, which was then dilapidated and deserted. New utensils were provided for the sacred services: the old altar, which had been polluted by heathen abominations, was taken away, and a new one erected. The sacrifices were then recommenced, exactly three years after the Temple had been dedicated to Jupiter Olympius. The castle, however, remained in the hands of the Syrians, and long proved a sore annoyance to the Jews, although Judas Maccabaeus surrounded the Temple with a high and strong wall, furnished with towers, in which soldiers were stationed to protect the worshippers from the Syrian garrison (1 Macc. 1, 36, 37; Joseph. Ant. 7, 7). Eventually the annoyance grew so intolerable that Judas laid siege to the castle. This attempt brought a powerful army into the country under the command of the regent Lysias, who, however, being constrained to turn his arms elsewhere, made peace with the Jews; but when he was admitted into the city, and observed the strength of the place, he threw down the walls in violation of the treaty (1Ma_6:48-63). In the ensuing war with Bacchides, the general of Demetrius Soter, in which Judas was slain, the Syrians strengthened their citadel, and placed in it the sons of the principal Jewish families as hostages (1Ma_9:52-53; Joseph. Ant. 13, 1, 3). The year after (B.C. 159) the temporizing high priest Alcimus directed the wall which separated the court of Israel from that of the Gentiles to be cast down, to afford the latter free access to the Temple; but he was seized with palsy as soon as the work commenced, and died in great agony (1Ma_9:51-57).
When, a few years after, Demetrius and Alexander Balas sought to outbid each other for the support of Jonathan, the hostages in the castle were released; and subsequently all the Syrian garrisons in Judaea were evacuated, excepting those of Jerusalem and Bethzur, which were chiefly occupied by apostate Jews, who were afraid to leave their places of refuge. Jonathan then rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, and repaired the buildings of the city, besides erecting a palace for his own residence (1 Maccabees 10, 2-4; Joseph. Ant. 13, 2, 1). The particular history of Jerusalem for several years following is little more than an account of the efforts of the Maccabaean princes to obtain possession of the castle, and of the Syrian kings to retain it in their hands. At length, in B.C. 142, the garrison was forced to surrender by Simon, who demolished it altogether, that it might not again be used against the Jews by their enemies. Simon then strengthened the fortifications of the mountain on which the Temple stood, and built there a palace for himself (1Ma_13:43-52; Joseph. Ant. 13, 6, 6). This building was afterwards turned into a regular fortress by John Hyrcanus (q.v.), and was ever after the residence of the Maccabean princes (Joseph. Ant. 15, 11, 4). It is called by Josephus “the castle of Baris,” in his history of the Jews; till it was strengthened and enlarged by Herod the Great, who called it the castle of Antonia, under which name it makes a conspicuous figure in the Jewish wars of the Romans. SEE MACCABEES.
6. Of Jerusalem itself we find no notice of consequence in the next period till it was taken by Pompey (q.v.) in the summer of B.C. 63, and on the very day observed by the Jews as one of lamentation and fasting, in commemoration of the conquest of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. Twelve thousand Jews were massacred in the Temple courts, including many priests, who died at the very altar rather than suspend the sacred rites (Joseph. Ant. 14, 1-4). On this occasion, Pompey, attended by his generals, went into the Temple and viewed the sanctuary; but he left untouched all its treasures and sacred things, while the walls of the city itself were demolished. From this time the Jews are to be considered as under the dominion of the Romans (Joseph. Ant. 14, 4, 5). The treasures which Pompey had spared were seized a few years after (B.C. 51) by Crassus. In the year B.C. 43, the walls of the city, which Pompey had demolished, were rebuilt by Antipater, the father of that Herod the Great under whom Jerusalem was destined to assume the new and more magnificent aspect which it bore in the time of Christ, and which constituted the Jerusalem which Josephus describes. SEE HEROD. Under the following reign the city was improved with magnificent taste and profuse expenditure; and even the Temple, which always formed the great architectural glory of Jerusalem, was taken down and rebuilt by Herod the Great, with a splendor exceeding that of Solomon's (Mar_13:1; Joh_2:20). SEE TEMPLE. It was in the courts of the Temple as thus rebuilt, and in the streets of the city as thus improved, that the Savior of men walked up and down. Here he taught, here he wrought miracles, here he suffered; and this was the Temple whose “goodly stones” the apostle admired (Mar_13:1), and of which he foretold that ere the existing generation had passed away not one stone should be left upon another. Nor was the city in this state admired by Jews only. Pliny calls it “longe clarissimam urbium orientis, non Judsee modo” (Hist. Nat. 5, 16).
Jerusalem seems to have been raised to this greatness as if to enhance the misery of its overthrow. As soon as the Jews had set the seal to their formal rejection of Christ by putting him to death, and invoking the responsibility of his blood upon the heads of themselves and of their children (Mat_27:25), its doom went forth. After having been the scene of horrors without example, during a memorable siege, the process of which is narrated by Josephus in full detail, it was, in A.D. 70, captured to the Romans, who razed the city and Temple to the ground, leaving only three of the towers and a part of the western wall to show how strong a place the Roman arms had overthrown (Joseph. War, 7, 1, 1). Since then the holy city has lain at the mercy of the Gentiles, and will so remain “until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.”
The destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans did not cause the site to be utterly forsaken. Titus (q.v.) left there in garrison the whole of the tenth legion, besides several squadrons of cavalry and cohorts of foot. For these troops, and for those who ministered to their wants, there must have been dwellings; and there is no reason to suppose that such Jews or Christians as appeared to have taken no part in the war were forbidden to make their abode among the ruins, and building them up so far as their necessities might require. But nothing like a restoration of the city could have arisen from this, as it was not likely that any but poor people, who found an interest in supplying the wants of the garrison, were likely to resort to the ruins under such circumstances. H0owever, we learn from Jerome that for fifty years after its destruction, until the time of Hadrian, there still existed remnants of the city. But during all this period there is no mention of it in history. Up to A.D. 131 the Jews remained tolerably quiet, although apparently awaiting any favorable opportunity of shaking off the Roman yoke. The then emperor, Hadrian (q.v.), seems to have been aware of this state of feeling, and, among other measures of precaution, ordered Jerusalem to be rebuilt as a fortified place wherewith to keep in check the whole Jewish population.
The work had made some progress when the Jews, unable in endure the idea that their holy city should be occupied by foreigners, and that strange gods should be set up within it, broke out into open rebellion under the notorious Barchochebas (q.v.), who claimed to be the Messiah. His success was at first very great, but he was crushed before the tremendous power of the Romans, so soon as it could be brought to bear upon him; and a war scarcely inferior in horror to that under Vespasian and Titus was, like it, brought to a close by the capture of Jerusalem, of which the Jews had obtained possession. This was in A.D. 135, from which period the final dispersion of the Jews has often been dated. The Romans then finished the city according to their first intention. It was made a Roman colony, inhabited wholly by foreigners, the Jews being forbidden to approach it on pain of death: a temple to Jupiter Calitolinus was erected on Mount Moriah, and the old name of Jerusalem was sought to be supplanted by that of Elia Capitolina, conferred upon it in honor of the emperor AElius Hadrianus and Jupiter Capitolinus. By this name was the city known till the time of Constantine, when that of Jerusalem again became current, although Elia was still its public designation, and remained such so late as A.D. 536, when it appears in the acts of a synod held there. This name even passed to the Mohammedans, by whom it was long retained; and it was not till after they recovered the city from the Crusaders that it became generally known among them by the name of El-Khud — “the holy” — which it still bears.
7. From the rebuilding by Hadrian the history of Jerusalem is almost a blank till the time of Constantine, when its history, as a place of extreme solicitude and interest to the Christian Church, properly begins. Pilgrimages to the Holy City now became common and popular. Such a pilgrimage was undertaken in A.D. 326 by the emperor's mother Helena, then in the eightieth year of her age, who built churches on the alleged site of the nativity at Bethlehem, and of the resurrection on the Mount of Olives. This example may probably have excited her son to the discovery of the site of the holy sepulchre, and to the erection of a church thereon. He removed the temple of Venus, with which, in studied insult, the site had been encumbered. The holy sepulchre was then purified, and a magnificent church was, by his order, built over and around the sacred spot. This temple was completed and dedicated with great solemnity in A.D. 335. There is no doubt that the spot thus singled out is the same that has ever since been regarded as the place in which Christ was entombed; but the correctness of the identification then made has of late years been much disputed, on grounds which have been examined in the article GOLGOTHA SEE GOLGOTHA. The very cross on which our Lord suffered was also, in the course of these explorations, believed to have been discovered, under the circumstances which have elsewhere been described. SEE CROSS.
By Constantine the edict excluding the Jews from the city of their fathers' sepulchres was so far repealed that they were allowed to enter it once a year to wail over the desolation of “the holy and beautiful house” in which their fathers worshipped God. When the nephew of Constantine, the emperor Julian (q.v.), abandoned Christianity for the old Paganism, he endeavored, as a matter of policy, to conciliate the Jews. He allowed them free access to the city, and permitted them to rebuild their Temple. They accordingly began to lay the foundations in A.D. 362; but the speedy death of the emperor probably occasioned that abandonment of the attempt which contemporary writers ascribe to supernatural hindrances. The edicts seem then to have been renewed which excluded the Jews from the city, except on the anniversary of its capture, when they were allowed to enter the city and weep over it. Their appointed wailing place remains, and their practice of wailing there continues to the present day. From St. James, the first bishop, to Jude II, who died A.D. 136, there had been a series of fifteen bishops of Jewish descent; and from Marcus, who succeeded Simeon, to Macarius, who presided over the Church of Jerusalem under Constantine, there was a series of twenty-three bishops of Gentile descent, but, beyond a bare list of their names, little is known of the Church or of the city of Jerusalem during the whole of this latter period.
In the centuries ensuing the conversion of Constantine, the roads to Zion were thronged with pilgrims from all parts of Christendom, and the land abounded in monasteries, occupied by persons who wished to lead a religious life amid the scenes which had been sanctified by the Savior's presence. After much struggle of conflicting dignities, Jerusalem was, in A.D. 451, declared a patriarchate by the Council of Chalcedon. SEE PATRIARCHATE OF JERUSALEM.
In the theological controversies which followed the decision of that council with regard to the two natures of Christ, Jerusalem bore its share with other Oriental churches, and two of its bishops were, deposed by Monophysite fanatics. The Synod of Jerusalem in A.D. 536 confirmed the decree of the Synod of Constantinople against the Monophysites. SEE JERUSALEM, COUNCILS OF.
In the same century it found a second Constantine in Justinian, who ascended the throne A.D. 527. He repaired and enriched the former structures, and built upon Mount Moriah a magnificent church to the Virgin, as a memorial of the persecution of Jesus in the Temple. He also founded ten or eleven convents in and about Jerusalem and Jericho, and established a hospital for pilgrims in each of those cities.
In the following century, the Persians, who had long harassed the empire of the East, penetrated into Syria, and in A.D. 614, under Chosroes II, after defeating the forces of the emperor Heraclius, took Jerusalem by storm. Many thousands of the inhabitants were slain, and much of the city, including the finest churches that of the Holy Sepulchre among them was destroyed. When the conquerors withdrew they took away the principal inhabitants, the patriarch, and the true cross; but when, the year after, peace was concluded, these were restored, and the emperor Heraclius entered Jerusalem in solemn state, bearing the cross upon his shoulders.
The damage occasioned by the Persians was speedily repaired. But Arabia soon furnished a more formidable enemy in the khalif Omar, whose troops appeared before the city in A.D. 636, Arabia, Syria, and Egypt having already been brought under the Moslem yoke. After a long siege the austere khalif himself came to the camp, and the city was at length surrendered to him in A.D. 637. The conqueror of mighty kings entered the holy city in his garment of camel's hair, and conducted himself with much discretion and generous forbearance. By his orders the magnificent mosque which still bears his name was built upon Mount Moriah, upon the site of the Jewish Temple.
8. Jerusalem remained in possession of the Arabians, and was occasionally visited by Christian pilgrims from Europe till towards the year 1000, when a general belief that the second coming of the Savior was near at hand drew pilgrims in unwonted crowds to the Holy Land, and created an impulse for pilgrimages thither which ceased not to act after the first exciting cause had been I forgotten. The Moslem government, in order to derive some profit from this enthusiasm, imposed the tribute of a piece of gold as the price of entrance into the holy city. The sight, by such large numbers, of the holy place in the hands of infidels, the exaction of tribute, and the insults to which the pilgrims, often of the highest rank, were exposed from the Moslem rabble, excited an extraordinary ferment in Europe, and led to those remarkable expeditions for recovering the Holy Sepulchre from the Mohammedans which, under the name of the Crusades, will always fill a most important and curious chapter in the history of the world. (See Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.) SEE CRUSADES.
The dominion over Palestine had passed in A.D. 960 from the khalifs of Baghdad to the Fatimite khalifs of Egypt, and these in their turn were dispossessed in A.D. 1073 by the Turkomans, who had usurped the powers of the Eastern khalifat. The severities exercised by these more fierce and uncivilized Moslems upon both the native Christians and the European pilgrims supplied the immediate impulse to the first Eastern expedition. But by the time the Crusaders, under Godfrey of Bouillon, appeared before Jerusalem, on the 17th of June, 1099, the Egyptian khalifs had recovered possession of Palestine, and driven the Turkomans beyond the Euphrates.
After a siege of forty days, the holy city was taken by storm on the 15th day of July, and a dreadful massacre of the Moslem inhabitants followed, without distinction of age or sex. As soon as order was restored, and the city cleared of the dead, a regular government was established by the election of Godfrey as king of Jerusalem. One of the first cares of the new monarch was to dedicate anew to the Lord the place where his presence had once abode, and the Mosque of Omar be came a Christian cathedral, which the historians of the time distinguish as “the Temple of the Lord” (Templum Domini). The Christians kept possession of Jerusalem eighty- eight years. SEE JERUSALEM, KNIGHTS OF.
During this long period they appear to have erected several churches and many convents. Of the latter, few, if any, traces remain; and of the former, save one or two ruins, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which they rebuilt, is the only memorial that attests the existence of the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem. In A.D. 1187 the holy city was wrested from the hands of the Christians by the sultan Saladin, and the order of things was then reversed. The cross was removed with ignominy from the sacred dome, the holy places were purified from Christian stain with rose water brought from Damascus, and the call to prayer by the muezzin once more sounded over the city. From that time to the present day the holy city has remained, with slight interruption, in the hands of the Moslems. On the threatened siege by Richard of England in 1192, Saladin took great pains in strengthening its defenses. New walls and bulwarks were erected, and deep trenches cut, and in six months the town was stronger than it ever had been, and the works had the firmness and solidity of a rock. But in A.D. 1219, the sultan Melek el-Moaddin of Damascus, who then had possession of Jerusalem, ordered all the walls and towers to be demolished, except the citadel and the inclosure of the mosque, lest the Franks should again become masters of the city and find it a place of strength. In this defenseless state Jerusalem continued till it was delivered over to the Christians in consequence of a treaty with the emperor Frederick II, in A.D. 1229, with the understanding that the walls should not be rebuilt. Yet ten years later (A.D. 1239) the barons and knights of Jerusalem began to build the walls anew, and to erect a strong fortress on the west of the city. But the works were interrupted by the emir David of Kerek, who seized the city, strangled the Christian inhabitants, and cast down the newly erected walls and fortress. Four years after, however (A.D. 1243), Jerusalem was again made over to the Christians without any restriction, and the works appear to have been restored and completed; for they are mentioned as existing when the city was stormed by the wild Kharismian hordes in the following year, shortly after which the city reverted for the last time into the hands of its Mohammedan masters, who have substantially kept it to the present day, although in 1277 Jerusalem was nominally annexed to the kingdom of Sicily.
9. From this time Jerusalem appears to have sunk very much in political and military importance, and it is scarcely named in the history of the Mameluke sultans who reigned over Egypt and the greater part of Syria in the 14th and 15th centuries. At length, with the rest of Syria and Egypt, it passed under the sway of the Turkish sultan Selim I in 1517, who paid a hasty visit to the holy city from Damascus after his return from Egypt. From that time Jerusalem has formed a part of the Ottoman Empire, and during this period has been subject to few vicissitudes; its history is accordingly barren of incident. The present walls of the city were erected by Suleiman the Magnificent, the successor of Selim, in A.D. 1542, as is attested by an inscription over the Jaffa gate. As lately as A.D. 1808, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was partially consumed by fire; but the damage was repaired with great labor and expense by September, 1810, and the traveler now finds in this imposing fabric no traces of that calamity.
In A.D. 1832 Jerusalem became subject to Mohammed Ali, the pasha of Egypt, the holy city opening its gates to him without a siege. During the great insurrection in the districts of Jerusalem and Nabllis in 1834, the insurgents seized upon Jerusalem, and held possession of it for a time; but by the vigorous operations of the government order was soon restored, and the. city reverted quietly to its allegiance on the approach of Ibrahim Pasha with his troops. In 1841 Mohammed Ali was deprived of all his Syrian possessions by European interference, and Jerusalem was again subjected to the Turkish government, under which it now remains.
In the same year took place the establishment of a Protestant bishopric at Jerusalem by the English and Prussian governments, and the erection upon Mount Zion of a church calculated to hold 500 persons, for the celebration of divine worship according to the ritual of the English Church. SEE JERUSALEM, SEE OF (below).
In 1850 a dispute about the guardianship of the holy places between the monks of the Greek and Latin churches, in which Nicholas, emperor of Russia, sided with the Greeks, and Louis Napoleon, emperor of the French, with the Latins, led to a decision of the question by the Porte, which was unsatisfactory to Russia, and which resulted in a war of considerable magnitude, known as “the Crimean War,” between that country on the one side, and the allied forces of England and France on the other. This war has led to greater liberties of all classes of citizens in the enjoyment of their religious faith, and to a partial adjustment of the rival claims of the Greek and Latin monks to certain portions of the holy places; it has also resulted in much more freedom towards Frank travelers in visiting the city, so that even ladies have been allowed to enter the mosque inclosure; but it has caused no material alteration in the city or in its political relations.
For details, see Witsius, Hist. Hierosolymoe, in his Miscell. Sacr. 2, 187 sq.; Spalding, Gesch. d. Christl. Konigsreichs Jerusalem (Berlin, 1803); Devling, AElioe Capitolinoe Origg. et Historia (Lips. 1743); Wagnitz, Ueb. d. Phanomane vor d. Zerstörung Jeremiah (Halle, 1780); R. Bessoie, Storia della Basilica di P. Croce in Gerus. (Rome, 1750); C. Cellarius, De AElia Capitolina, etc., in his Programmata, p. 441 sq.; Poujoulat, Histoire de Jerusalem (Brux. 1842); F. Minter's treatise on the Jewish War under Hadrian, transl. in the Biblioth. Sacra for 1843 p. 393 sq.; Raumer's Palastina; Robinson's Bib. Res. in Palestine; and especially Williams, Holy City, vol. 1.
II. Ancient Topography. — This has been a subject of no little dispute among antiquarian geographers. We prefer here briefly to state our own independent conclusions, with the authority on which each point rests, and we shall therefore but incidentally notice the controversies, which will be found discussed under the several heads elsewhere in this Cyclopaedia.
1. Natural Features. — These, of course, are mostly the same in all ages, as the surface of the region where Jerusalem is situated is generally limestone rock. Yet the wear of the elements has no doubt caused some minor changes, and the demolition of large buildings successively has effected very considerable differences of level by the accumulation of rubbish in the hollows, and even on some of the hills; while in some cases high spots were anciently cut away, valleys partially filled, and artificial platforms and terraces formed, and in others deep trenches or massive structures have left their traces to this day.
(A.) Hills. —
(1.) Mount Zion, frequently mentioned in the Old Testament, only once in the New (Rev_14:1), called by Josephus “the Upper City” (War, 5, 4, 1), was divided by a valley (Tyropoeon) from another hill opposite (Acra), than which it was “higher, and in length more direct (ibid.). It is almost universally assigned, in modern times, as the southwestern hill of the city. SEE ZION.
(2.) Mount Moriah, mentioned in 2Ch_3:1, as the site of the Temple, is unmistakable in all ages. Originally, according to Josephus (War, 5, 5, 1), the summit was small, and then platform was enlarged by Solomon, who built up a high stone terrace wall on three sides (east, south, and west), leaving a tremendous precipice at the (southeastern) corner (Ant. 15:11, 3 and 5). Some of the lower courses of these stones are still standing. SEE MORIAH.
(3.) The hill Acra is so called by Josephus, who says it “sustained the Lower City, and was of the shape of a moon when she is horned,” or a crescent (War, 5, 4, 1). It was separated from another hill (Bezetha) by a broad valley, which the Asmonleans partly filled up with earth taken from the top of Acra, so that it might be made lower than the Temple. (ibid.). Concerning the position of this hill there is much dispute, which can only be settled by the location of the valleys on either side of it (see Caspari, in the Stud. und Krit. 2, 1864). SEE ACRA.
(4.) The hill Bezetha, interpreted by Josephus as meaning “New City,” placed by him opposite Acra, and stated to be originally lower than it, is said by him also to lie over against the tower Antonia, from which it was separated by a deep fosse (War, 5, 4, 1 and 2). SEE BEZETHA.
(5.) Ophel is referred to by Neh_3:26-27, as well as by Josephus. (War, 5, 4, 2), in such connection with the walls as to show that none other can be intended than the ridge of ground sloping to a point southward from the Temple area. SEE OPHEL.
(6.) Calvary, or more properly Golgotha, was a small eminence, mentioned by the evangelists as the place of the crucifixion. Modern tradition assigns it to the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but this is greatly contested; the question turns chiefly upon the course of the second wall, outside of which the crucifixion undoubtedly took place (Joh_19:17). SEE CALVARY.
(7.) The Mount of Olives is so often referred to by Josephus, as well as in the Bible, that it can be taken for no other than that which now passes under the same name. SEE OLIVET.
(8.) Scopus is the name assigned by Josephus to an elevated plain about seven furlongs distant from the city wall in a northerly direction (War, 2, 19, 4; 5, 2, 3), an interval that was leveled by Titus on his approach from Samaria (ibid. 3, 2). By this can therefore be meant neither the rocky prominences on the southern, nor those on the northern edge of that part of the valley of Jehoshaphat which sweeps around the city on the north, for the former are too near, and the latter intercepted by the valley; but rather the gentle slope on the northwest of the city.
Besides these, there is mentioned in Jer_31:39, “the hill Gareb,” apparently somewhere on the northwest of the city, and Goath, possibly an eminence on the west. “Mount Gihon,” so confidently laid down on certain maps of the ancient city, is a modern invention.
(B.) Valleys. —
(1.) The principal of these was the one termed by Josephus that of the Tyropoeon, or Cheese makers, running between Zion and Acra, down as far as Siloam (War, 5, 4, 1). The southern part of this is still clearly to be traced, although much choked up by the accumulated rubbish of ages; but as to the northern part there is considerable discrepancy. Some (as Dr. Robinson) make it bend around the northern brow of Zion, and so end in the shallow depression between that hill and the eminence of the Holy Sepulchre; while others (Williams, with whose views in this particular we coincide) carry it directly north, through the depression along the western side of the mosque area, and eastward of the church, in the direction of the Damascus Gate. SEE TYROPEON.
(2.) The only other considerable valley within, the city was that above referred to as lying between Acra and Bezetha. The language of Josephus, in the passage where he mentions this valley (War, 5, 4, 1), has been understood by some as only applicable to the upper portion of that which is above regarded as the Tyropoeon, because he calls it “a broad valley,” and this is the broadest in that vicinity. But the Jewish historian only says that the hills Acra and Bezetha “were formerly divided by a broad valley; but in those times when the Asmonaeans reigned, they filled up that valley with earth, and had a mind to join the city to the Temple: they then took off a part of the height of Acra, and reduced it to a less elevation than it was before, that the Temple might be superior to it.” From this it is clear that in the times of Josephus this valley was not so distinct as formerly, so that we must not look for it in the plain and apparently unchanged depression west of the Temple, but rather in the choked and obscure one running northward from the middle of the northern side of the present mosque inclosure. The union of the city and Temple across this valley is also more explicable on this ground, because it not only implies a nearly level passage effected between the Temple area and that part of the city there intended — which is true only on the northern side, but it also intimates that there had previously been no special passageway there — whereas on the west the Temple was connected with Zion by a bridge or causeway, besides at least two other easy avenues to the parts of the city in that direction.
(3.) The longest and deepest of the valleys outside the walls was the Valley of Jehoshaphat, which ran along the entire eastern and northeastern side, forming the bed of the brook Kedron. Respecting the identity of this, the modern name leaves no room for dispute. SEE JEHOSHAPHAT, VALLEY OF.
(4.) On the south side ran the Valley ben-Hinnom (i.e. “son of Hinnom”), corrupted in our Savior's time into Gehenna, and anciently styled Tophet. Of this also the modern name is still the same. SEE GEHENNA.
(5.) On the west, forming the northern continuation of the last, was what has acquired the appellation of the Valley of Gihon, from the pools of that name situated in it. SEE GIHON.
(C.) Streams. — Of these none were perennial, but only brooks formed by the winter rains that collected in the valleys and ran off at the southeastern corner towards the Dead Sea. The brook Kedron was the principal of these, and is mentioned in both the Old and New Testaments (2Sa_15:23; Joh_18:1), and by Josephus (War, 5, 2, 3), as lying between the city and the Mount of Olives. SEE KERON.
(D.) Fountains. —
(1.) En-roegel, first mentioned in Jos_15:7-8, as a point in the boundary line of Judah, on the south side of the hill Zion. It is generally identified with the deep well still found at the junction of the valleys of Hinnom and Jehoshaphat, and currently known as the well of Joab or Nehemiah. It is evidently the same as that called by Josephus “the fountain in the king's garden” (Ant. 7, 14, 4). Its water is peculiar, but no underground connection has been traced with any other of the fountains. SEE EN-ROGEL.
(2.) Siloamn or Shiloah is mentioned in the Old and New Testaments; as well as by Josephus, and the last indicates its site at the mouth of the Valley of Tyropoeon (War, 5, 4, 1). It is identical with the modem fount of Selwan. SEE SILOAM.
(3.) The only remaining one of the three natural springs about Jerusalem is that now known as the Fountain of the Virgin (Um ed-Deraj, “the mother of steps”), above the Pool of Siloam. It is intermittent, the overflow apparently of the Temple supply; and it is connected by a passage through the rock with the Pool of Siloam (Robinson, Researches, 1, 502 sq.). It is apparently the same with the “king's pool” (Neh_2:14; comp. 3:16) and “‘Solomon's Pool” (Josephus, War, 5, 4, 2). This we are inclined (with Lightfoot and Robinson) to identify with the “Pool of Bethesda” in Joh_5:2. SEE BETHESDA.
There are several other wells adjoining the Temple area which have the peculiar taste of Siloam, but whether they proceed from a living spring under Moriah, or are conducted thither by the aqueduct from Bethlehem, or come from some distant source, future explorations can alone determine. Some such well has, however, lately been discovered, but how far it supplies these various fountains has not yet been fully determined (Jour. Sac. Lit. April, 1864). SEE SOLOMONS POOL.
(E.) Reservoirs, Tanks, etc. —
(1.) The Upper Pool of Gihon, mentioned in Isa_7:3; 2Ch_32:30, etc., can be no other than that now found in the northern part of the valley at the west of the city. This is probably what is called the “Dragon Well” by Neh_2:11, lying in that direction. Josephus also incidentally mentions a “Serpent's Pool” as lying on the northwestern side of the city (I, War, 5, 3, 2), which the similarity of name and position seems to identify with this. SEE GIHON.
(2.) The Lower Pool (of Gihon), referred to in Isa_22:9, is also probably that situated in the southern part of the same valley. SEE POOL.
(3.) There still exists on the western side of the city another pool, which is frequently termed the Pool of Hezekiah, on the supposition that it is the one intended to hold the water which that king is said (2Ki_20:20; 2 Chronicles 22:30) to have brought down to the city by a conduit from the upper pool. It is to this day so connected by an aqueduct, which renders the identification probable. But it does not follow (as some argue) that this pool was within the second wall in the time of Christ, if, indeed, it ever lay strictly within the city; the statements above referred to only show that it was designed as a reservoir for supplying the inhabitants, especially on Mount Zion, within the bounds of which it could never have been embraced. This pool is perhaps also the same as one mentioned by Josephus, under the title of Amagdalon, as opposite the third of the “banks” raised by Titus (War, 5, 11, 4). He there locates it “a great way off” from Antonia yet “on the north quarter” of the city; and a more suitable place for an assault could not have been selected, as it was in the corner where the three walls joined, being evidently within the outer one, and in front of the inner one (yet to be taken), but not necessarily within the middle wall (which had been taken and demolished). SEE HEZEKIAHS POOL.
(4.) Josephus also mentions a deep trench which was dug on the north of the tower Antonia for its defense (War, 5, 4, 2). The western part of this seems to have been filled up during the siege, in order to prepare a way for the approach of the Roman engines first to the tower and afterwards to the Temple wall (War, 5, 11, 4; 7, 2, 7). The eastern portion still exists, and appears to have been wider and deeper than elsewhere (being unenclosed by the wall), forming, indeed, quite a receptacle for rainwater. This pit we are inclined to identify with the pool Struthius, which Josephus locates at this spot (War, 5, 11, 4). In modern times it has often been assigned as the site of the Pool of Bethesda, but this can hardly be correct. What is now known as the pool of Bethesda is perhaps a reservoir built in the pit from which Herod quarried the stone for reconstructing the Temple,
(5.) Of aqueducts, besides the two already mentioned as supplying respectively the pools of Siloam and Hezekiah, there still exists a long subterranean conduit that brings water from the pools of Bethlehem (attributed to Solomon); which, passing along the southwestern side of the Valley of Hinnom, then crossing it above the lower pool, and winding around the northern brow of Zion, at last supplies one or more wells in the western side of the mosque inclosure. This is undoubtedly an ancient work, and can be no other than the aqueduct which the Talmud speaks of (as we shall see) as furnishing the Temple with an abundance of water. It was probably reconstructed by Pilate, as Josephus speaks of “aqueducts whereby he brought water from the distance of 400 [other editions read 300, and even 200] furlongs” (War, 2, 9, 4). (See below, water supply of modern Jerusalem.)
2. Respecting the ancient walls, with their gates and towers, our principal authority must be the description of ancient Jerusalem furnished by Josephus (War, 5, 4, 2), to which allusion has so often been made. The only other account of any considerable fullness is contained in Nehemiah's statement of the portions repaired under his superintendence (ch. 3). Besides these, and some incidental notices scattered in other parts of these authors and in the Bible generally, there are left us a few ruins in particular places, which we may combine with the natural points determined above in making out the circuit and fortifications of the city. (See below, fortifications of the city.)
(F.) The First or Old Wall. — Josephus' account of this is as follows: “Beginning on the north from the tower Hippicus (so called), and extending to the Xystus (so called), thence touching the council [house], it joined the western cloister of the Temple; but in the other direction, on the west, beginning from the same tower, and extending through the place Bethso (so called) to the gate of the Essenes, and thence on the south turning above the fountain Siloam, and thence again being on the east to the Pool of Solomon, and reaching as far as a certain place which they call Ophla, it joined the e
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.

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