Jerusalem

City of David and Dome of the Rock ,Center Right. Kidron Valley, center foreground, left to right. Mount of Olives bottom of photo.

The original city of Jerusalem was built around the Gihon Spring on the hill to the left of the City of David over 1500 years before the Exodus from Egypt. The City of David, roughly outlined by the walls surrounding the Dome of the Rock and the Temple Mount shown in the photo, used the Gihon spring as its main water source.

After Hezekiah became king in 715 BC he had a 600 yard tunnel built from the Gihon Spring into Jerusalem. The tunnel was started at both the spring and inside the City the city walls.

The two crews of workmen came toward each other and joined the two segments of tunnel by each crew tunneling toward the noise made by the other. This is presumably the reason for the S-shape of the tunnel. In 1880 a Hebrew inscription was found on the tunnel wall describing how the workmen joined the two sections. After the tunnel was completed, Hezekiah sealed off the cave entrance to the spring, thereby securing the water supply to Jerusalem.

Kidron Valley looking south. City of David off the photo to the right (northwest).

The City of David was under 100 yards wide and covered an area that could be occupied by a small village in today's world. It was protected by steep slopes on 3 sides.

The Western Wall, built by Herod The Great

Three times a day the Jewish people pray here in this place, which is holy to them, wearing their traditional prayer garments. The prayer shawl is frequently used, even by soldiers in the field, during prayer times.

Photos Courtesy of BiblePlaces.com

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The following is from Easton's Bible Dictionary

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 Chr. 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” (compare Ps. 68:15, 16; 87:1; 125:2; 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 (Gen. 14:18; compare Ps. 76:2). When first mentioned under the name Jerusalem, Adonizedek was its king (Josh. 10:1). It is afterwards named among the cities of Benjamin (Judg. 19:10; 1 Chr. 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 (Judg. 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 Sam. 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 Sam. 5:5-9; 1 Chr. 11:4-8). Here he built an altar to the Lord on the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite (2 Sam. 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 (1010 B.C.). He also greatly strengthened and adorned the city, and it became the great centre of all the civil and religious affairs of the nation (Deut. 12:5; compare Deut. 12:14; 14:23; 16:11-16; Ps. 122).

After the disruption of the kingdom on the accession to the throne of Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, Jerusalem became the capital of the kingdom of the two tribes. It was subsequently often taken and retaken by the Egyptians, the Assyrians, and by the kings of Israel (2 Kings 14:13, 14; 18:15, 16; 23:33-35; 24:14; 2 Chr. 12:9; 26:9; 27:3, 4; 29:3; 32:30; 33:11), till finally, for the abounding iniquities of the nation, after a siege of three years, it was taken and utterly destroyed, its walls razed to the ground, and its temple and palaces consumed by fire, by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon (2 Kings 25; 2 Chr. 36; Jer. 39), 588 B.C.. The desolation of the city and the land was completed by the retreat of the principal Jews into Egypt (Jer. 40-44), and by the final carrying captive into Babylon of all that still remained in the land (Jer. 52:3), so that it was left without an inhabitant (582 B.C.). Compare the predictions, Deut. 28; Lev. 26:14-39.

But the streets and walls of Jerusalem were again to be built, in troublous times (Dan. 9:16, 19, 25), after a captivity of seventy years. This restoration was begun 536 B.C., “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 331 B.C.; and thereafter, for about a century and a half, under the rulers of the Greek empire in Asia, till 167 B.C.. 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.