Mount Zion #50

Mount Zion is the name of a hill in Jerusalem that becomes, in Scripture, one of the great names for God’s dwelling among his people. It began as the fortress of the Jebusites that David captured, and through the psalms and prophets it widened to mean the temple hill, the whole city, and the people of God. The New Testament then applies it to the heavenly Jerusalem.

Biblical Significance

The first mention is in the account of David’s conquest of Jerusalem: he took the stronghold of Zion from the Jebusites, lived in it, and called it the city of David (2 Samuel 5:6-9). After Solomon built the temple on the hill to the north, the name Zion extended to the temple mount and the entire city. Psalms celebrate Zion as beautiful in elevation, the joy of all the earth, and the city of the great King (Psalm 48:1-3), a place the Lord has chosen for his dwelling (Psalm 132:13-14). Those who trust in the Lord are compared to Mount Zion, which cannot be moved but abides forever (Psalm 125:1-2). The exiles in Babylon wept when they remembered Zion (Psalm 137:1).

The prophets look ahead to a Zion that becomes the center of blessing for all nations. Isaiah and Micah both foresee peoples streaming to the mountain of the Lord’s house, where instruction will go out from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem (Isaiah 2:2-3; Micah 4:1-2). The name also appears in the second psalm, where God installs his king on Zion, his holy hill (Psalm 2:6).

In the New Testament, Zion becomes a picture of the heavenly city. Believers are said to have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant (Hebrews 12:22-24). The book of Revelation shows the Lamb standing on Mount Zion with the redeemed (Revelation 14:1).

Today

The location of Zion has shifted over time. The original Jebusite fortress and City of David lay on the narrow southeastern ridge south of the Temple Mount, and most scholars identify biblical Zion with that area. From the Byzantine period, however, Christian and later Jewish tradition attached the name to the higher southwestern hill, which now lies just outside the walls of the Old City. That hill holds the Dormition Abbey, and a building called the Cenacle is venerated as the site of the Last Supper. A tomb there is traditionally identified as David’s, though this identification from medieval times is not supported by the biblical text or by archaeology, which places the royal tombs in the City of David.