Jerusalem #1

Jerusalem rises through Scripture from a Jebusite hill fortress to the eternal city of biblical hope. It first appears as Salem, ruled by the priest-king Melchizedek, who brings out bread and wine and blesses Abram after his rescue of Lot (Genesis 14:18-20). Centuries later the city is still in Jebusite hands, its defenders so confident of its walls that they taunt the approaching David: “Except thou take away the blind and the lame, thou shalt not come in hither” (2 Samuel 5:6). David takes the fortress anyway, renames it the City of David, and brings the Ark of the Covenant into it with dancing and sacrifice (2 Samuel 5:7-9; 6:12-17).

Capital and Temple

David’s son Solomon builds the Temple on the city’s ridge, and at its dedication the priests cannot continue ministering, “for the glory of the LORD had filled the house of the LORD” (1 Kings 8:10-11). Jerusalem becomes the fixed center of Israelite worship, the place the psalmist urges pilgrims to bless: “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee” (Psalm 122:6). That peace proves fragile. The divided kingdom, foreign alliances, and repeated warnings from the prophets culminate in the Babylonian siege of 586 BC, when Nebuchadnezzar’s army breaches the walls, burns the Temple and the king’s house, and carries off the leading citizens into exile (2 Kings 25:8-10). Decades later, under Persian rule, Zerubbabel rebuilds the Temple and Nehemiah rebuilds the walls, restoring the city as Judah’s religious and civic center.

Jerusalem in the Gospels and Acts

Jerusalem dominates the climax of all four Gospels. Jesus approaches the city he loves and weeps over it, foreseeing its coming destruction: “If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes” (Luke 19:41-42). Within the week he is arrested, tried before the Sanhedrin and Pilate, crucified outside the city walls, and raised from a nearby tomb. The church itself is born in Jerusalem at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit falls on the disciples gathered there, enabling them to be heard, each in his own language, and about three thousand are added to their number that day (Acts 2:1-4, 2:41). From this city the gospel spreads outward, by Jesus’ own charge, to Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). Revelation closes the biblical story by returning to the image one final time, describing “the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Revelation 21:2).

Today

Jerusalem remains sacred to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam alike, and few cities anywhere have been so continuously excavated. In the City of David, south of the Old City walls, archaeologists have uncovered Hezekiah’s Tunnel and the Gihon Spring, along with fortifications and structures debated as remains of David’s own palace. The Old City itself, encircled by walls rebuilt under the Ottomans in the sixteenth century, holds the Western Wall, a retaining wall of Herod’s Temple platform and the holiest site in Judaism; the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, venerated since the fourth century as the site of the crucifixion and resurrection; and the Temple Mount, known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, home to the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque. The city’s competing claims and shared holiness make it one of the most contested, and most continuously venerated, places on earth.