Jerusalem: Called also Salem, Ariel, Jebus, the "city of God," the "holy city;"
by the modern Arabs el-Khuds, meaning "the holy;" once "the city of
Judah"
(2 Chronicles 25:28) This name is in the original in the dual form, and
means "possession of peace," or "foundation of peace." The dual form
probably refers to the two mountains on which it was built, viz.,
Zion and Moriah; or, as some suppose, to the two parts of the city,
the "upper" and the "lower city." Jerusalem is a "mountain city
enthroned on a mountain fastness" (comp.)
(Psalms 68:15,16; 87:1; 125:2)
(Psalms 76:1,2; 122:3) It stands on the edge of one of the highest
table-lands in Palestine, and is surrounded on the south-eastern, the
southern, and the western sides by deep and precipitous ravines. It is
first mentioned in Scripture under the name Salem
(Genesis 14:18) comp.
(Psalms 76:2) When first mentioned under the name Jerusalem, Adonizedek
was its king
(Joshua 10:1) It is afterwards named among the cities of
Benjamin
(Judges 19:10; 1 Chronicles 11:4) but in the time of David it was
divided between Benjamin and Judah. After the death of Joshua the city
was taken and set on fire by the men of Judah
(Judges 1:1-8) but the
Jebusites were not wholly driven out of it. The city is not again
mentioned till we are told that David brought the head of Goliath
thither
(1 Samuel 17:54) David afterwards led his forces against the
Jebusites still residing within its walls, and drove them out, fixing
his own dwelling on Zion, which he called "the city of David"
(2 Samuel 5:5-9; 1 Chronicles 11:4-8) Here he built an altar to the Lord on the
threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite
(2 Samuel 24:15-25) and thither
he brought up the ark of the covenant and placed it in the new
tabernacle which he had prepared for it. Jerusalem now became the
capital of the kingdom. After the death of David, Solomon built the
temple, a house for the name of the Lord, on Mount Moriah (B.C. 1010)
He also greatly strengthened and adorned the city, and it became the
great centre of all the civil and religious affairs of the nation
(Deuteronomy 12:5) comp.
(Deuteronomy 12:14; 14:23; 16:11-16; Psalms 122:1)ff After the
disruption of the kingdom on the accession to the throne of Rehoboam,
the son of Solomon, Jerusalem became the capital of the kingdom of the
two tribes. It was subsequently often taken and retaken by the
Egyptians, the Assyrians, and by the kings of Israel
(2 Kings 14:13,14)
(2 Kings 18:15,16; 23:33-35; 24:14; 2 Chronicles 12:9; 26:9; 27:3,4; 29:3; 32:30; 33:11)
till finally, for the abounding iniquities of the nation, after a
siege of three years, it was taken and utterly destroyed, its walls
razed to the ground, and its temple and palaces consumed by fire, by
Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon
(2 Kings 25:1)ff
(2 Chronicles 36:1)ff
(Jeremiah 39:1)ff B.C. 588. The desolation of the city and the land
was completed by the retreat of the principal Jews into Egypt
(Jeremiah 41:1-43:7) and by the final carrying captive into Babylon of
all that still remained in the land
(Jeremiah 52:3) so that it was left
without an inhabitant (B.C. 582) Compare the predictions,
(Deuteronomy 28:1)ff
(Leviticus 26:14-39) But the streets and walls of Jerusalem
were again to be built, in troublous times
(Daniel 9:16,19,25) after a
captivity of seventy years. This restoration was begun B.C. 536 "in
the first year of Cyrus"
(Ezra 1:2,3,5-11) The Books of Ezra and
Nehemiah contain the history of the re-building of the city and
temple, and the restoration of the kingdom of the Jews, consisting of
a portion of all the tribes. The kingdom thus constituted was for two
centuries under the dominion of Persia, till B.C. 331 and thereafter,
for about a century and a half, under the rulers of the Greek empire
in Asia, till B.C. 167 For a century the Jews maintained their
independence under native rulers, the Asmonean princes. At the close
of this period they fell under the rule of Herod and of members of his
family, but practically under Rome, till the time of the destruction
of Jerusalem, A.D. 70 The city was then laid in ruins. The modern
Jerusalem by-and-by began to be built over the immense beds of rubbish
resulting from the overthrow of the ancient city; and whilst it
occupies certainly the same site, there are no evidences that even the
lines of its streets are now what they were in the ancient city. Till
A.D. 131 the Jews who still lingered about Jerusalem quietly submitted
to the Roman sway. But in that year the emperor (Hadrian), in order to
hold them in subjection, rebuilt and fortified the city. The Jews,
however, took possession of it, having risen under the leadership of
one Bar-Chohaba (i.e., "the son of the star") in revolt against the
Romans. Some four years afterwards (A.D. 135) however, they were
driven out of it with great slaughter, and the city was again
destroyed; and over its ruins was built a Roman city called Aelia
Capitolina, a name which it retained till it fell under the dominion
of the Muslims, when it was called el-Khuds, i.e., "the holy." In
A.D. 326 Helena, mother of the emperor Constantine, made a pilgrimage
to Jerusalem with the view of discovering the places mentioned in the
life of our Lord. She caused a church to be built on what was then
supposed to be the place of the nativity at Bethlehem. Constantine,
animated by her example, searched for the holy sepulchre, and built
over the supposed site a magnificent church, which was completed and
dedicated A.D. 335 He relaxed the laws against the Jews till this time
in force, and permitted them once a year to visit the city and wail
over the desolation of "the holy and beautiful house." In A.D. 614 the
Persians, after defeating the Roman forces of the emperor Heraclius,
took Jerusalem by storm, and retained it till A.D. 637 when it was
taken by the Arabians under the Khalif Omar. It remained in their
possession till it passed, in A.D. 960 under the dominion of the
Fatimite khalifs of Egypt, and in A.D. 1073 under the Turcomans. In
A.D. 1099 the crusader Godfrey of Bouillon took the city from the
Moslems with great slaughter, and was elected king of Jerusalem. He
converted the Mosque of Omar into a Christian cathedral. During the
eighty-eight years which followed, many churches and convents were
erected in the holy city. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was rebuilt
during this period, and it alone remains to this day. In A.D. 1187
the sultan Saladin wrested the city from the Christians. From that
time to the present day, with few intervals, Jerusalem has remained in
the hands of the Moslems. It has, however, during that period been
again and again taken and retaken, demolished in great part and
rebuilt, no city in the world having passed through so many
vicissitudes. In the year 1850 the Greek and Latin monks residing in
Jerusalem had a fierce dispute about the guardianship of what are
called the "holy places." In this dispute the emperor Nicholas of
Russia sided with the Greeks, and Louis Napoleon, the emperor of the
French, with the Latins. This led the Turkish authorities to settle
the question in a way unsatisfactory to Russia. Out of this there
sprang the Crimean War, which was protracted and sanguinary, but which
had important consequences in the way of breaking down the barriers of
Turkish exclusiveness. Modern Jerusalem "lies near the summit of a
broad mountain-ridge, which extends without interruption from the
plain of Esdraelon to a line drawn between the southern end of the
Dead Sea and the southeastern corner of the Mediterranean." This high,
uneven table-land is everywhere from 20 to 25 geographical miles in
breadth. It was anciently known as the mountains of Ephraim and Judah.
"Jerusalem is a city of contrasts, and differs widely from Damascus,
not merely because it is a stone town in mountains, whilst the latter
is a mud city in a plain, but because while in Damascus Moslem
religion and Oriental custom are unmixed with any foreign element, in
Jerusalem every form of religion, every nationality of East and West,
is represented at one time." Jerusalem is first mentioned under that
name in the Book of Joshua, and the Tell-el-Amarna collection of
tablets includes six letters from its Amorite king to Egypt, recording
the attack of the Abiri about B.C. 1480 The name is there spelt
Uru-Salim ("city of peace"). Another monumental record in which the
Holy City is named is that of Sennacherib's attack in B.C. 702 The
"camp of the Assyrians" was still shown about A.D. 70 on the flat
ground to the north-west, included in the new quarter of the city. The
city of David included both the upper city and Millo, and was
surrounded by a wall built by David and Solomon, who appear to have
restored the original Jebusite fortifications. The name Zion (or Sion)
appears to have been, like Ariel ("the hearth of God"), a poetical
term for Jerusalem, but in the Greek age was more specially used of
the Temple hill. The priests' quarter grew up on Ophel, south of the
Temple, where also was Solomon's Palace outside the original city of
David. The walls of the city were extended by Jotham and Manasseh to
include this suburb and the Temple
(2 Chronicles 27:3; 33:14) Jerusalem is
now a town of some 50,000 inhabitants, with ancient mediaeval walls,
partly on the old lines, but extending less far to the south. The
traditional sites, as a rule, were first shown in the 4th and later
centuries A.D., and have no authority. The results of excavation have,
however, settled most of the disputed questions, the limits of the
Temple area, and the course of the old walls having been traced.
