The Biblical Background of Jerusalem
From the beginning the Lord, God of Israel had a plan and purpose for the city He chose to be His dwelling place, the Holy City, Jerusalem.
Jerusalem is mentioned more than 800 times in the Bible. There are some 650 references in the Hebrew Bible and some 150 references in the New Testament. Zion, which is another name for Jerusalem, is mentioned 152 times in the Hebrew Bible and 7 times in the New Testament. Together Jerusalem and Zion are mentioned more than 960 times in the Bible. Jerusalem is not mentioned a single time in the Koran.
Jerusalem, in Hebrew Yerushalaim, means – Yeru (they will see) Shalem, or Salem – (peace, wholeness.) The city was originally a Jebusite city called Salem. The Jebusites were one of the descendants of Canaan that inhabited the land of Canaan, promised by God to Abram and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob. (Gen. 15-16; Gen. 15:18-21.)
God says in His word that He Himself will drive out from the Land of Canaan, (later changed to the Land of Israel,) the Jebusites together with the other six Canaanite peoples
“…but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD your God is driving them out before you (Children of Israel,) in order to confirm the oath which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. (Deut. 9:5b)
“I will send an angel before you and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite. (Exodus 33:2.)
“When the LORD your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you,..and thou shalt smite them; then thou shalt utterly destroy them: thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them; (Deuteronomy 7:1-2.)
“Three times in a year all your males shall appear before the LORD your God in the place which He chooses, at the Feast of Unleavened Bread and at the Feast of Weeks and at the Feast of Booths, and they shall not appear before the LORD empty-handed… “You shall bring the choice first fruits of your soil into the house of the LORD your God. (Deut.16:16; Ex. 23:19)
In no other religion is pilgrimage to Jerusalem mandated.
Abraham and Jerusalem
Abraham went to battle the four Mesopotamian kings who captured his nephew Lot. He defeating them and rescued Lot and all the other captives, and recovered all the property seized by the Mesopotamian kings. On the road back to Hebron, Abraham came to Salem (now Jerusalem), to the Valley of Shaveh, just south of present-day Jerusalem.
“And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the Most High God. And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth: And blessed be the Most High God, which hath delivered your enemies into your hand. And he gave him tithes of all.” (Gen. 14:17-18) (See also the passage in the New Testament where Melchizedek is mentioned. Hebrews 7:1-3)
A few years later, God tested Abraham’s faith and told him to take his only son Isaac to be offered up to Him. (Abraham had other sons from his foreign concubines, but as far as God was concerned, Isaac was his only son, the only son with his Hebrew wife Sarah, because he was the son of promise: “for through Isaac shall your seed be named,” (Gen. 21:12. Also, Isaac, was a direct ancestor of the Messiah Yeshua). God tells him exactly where to go, up to Mount Moriah, known today as the Temple Mount in Jerusalem (very near to the place where Yeshua would be crucified.) After he passed the test successfully, Abraham called the place, Yehwa Yeraeh (the Lord will be seen) (Genesis 22:14.) Jerusalem, is the place where the Lord, the Prince of Peace will be seen.
The first time that the name Jerusalem is mentioned in the Bible is when its king, Adonizedek, lead the Jebusites along with the people from nearby cities to fight against Joshua (Joshua 10:1,) eventually Joshua won the battle and killed the king of Jerusalem. (Joshua 10:26.)
In Judges, Jerusalem was captured by the people of Judah. (Judges 1:8.) Judah didn’t utterly destroy the Jebusites, and they continued to live in Jerusalem with the children of Judah. (Joshua 15:63.)
The First Temple Period (1010-970 BC)
The Jebusites protested against King David’s arrival in Jerusalem, but David captured the stronghold of Zion (Jerusalem) and named it the City of David. (2 Samuel 5:6-9. (Hebrews 7:1-3) After King David’s conquest of the city, about 1004 BCE, he made Jerusalem his official royal residence. David bought prosperity and honor in Jerusalem. Being also a prophet, David didn’t just choose Jerusalem out of human desire; it was a divine choice based of God’s will. It was “the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put His Name there.”
David brought the Ark of the Covenant to the city with the intention of building a Temple to the Lord and making Jerusalem the religious and political capital of the people of Israel. But God had other plans. David’s son Solomon would be the one who would build the Holy Temple of God on the Temple mount, on the site of the threshing floor purchased by David from Ornan the Jebusite, which is identified as Mount Moriah:
“so David gave Ornan six hundred shekels of gold by weight for the place. And David built there an altar to the Lord and offered offerings and peace offerings and called on the Lord and God answered him from heaven and by fire on the altar of burnt offerings.” (Chronicles 21:18, 25–26 II Chronicles 3:1)
It is the same place God led Abraham to offer up his son Isaac to the Lord.
God made a covenant with the house of David, through a dream He gave to the prophet Nathan that He would establish the house of David to stand forever, and that He would plant His people Israel in the land to dwell in it in peace (2 Samuel 7) Yeshua is called “Messiah Son of David, and He will reign over Israel forever. King David was buried in the City of David, which at that time was the southeastern ridge below the Temple Mount. (1 Kings 2:10)
King Solomon (970-930 BC)
Solomon ruled in a time of peace. With peace and great wealth, Solomon was able to build the Temple in only seven years. Solomon was considered the world’s richest, wisest and greatest king. Under his reign, Jerusalem prospered and was one of the richest and greatest cities of its time. Solomon built the Temple on a specific spot on Mount Moriah: the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem.
Solomon realized in humbleness that as magnificent and great the Temple he built was, God cannot be confined to a man-made building:
“Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You; how much less this house which I have built?” (1 Kings 8:27, II Chronicles 2:6, 6:18.)
After the dedication of the Temple and the Glory of God filling the Temple, the city became the spiritual center that united the entire nation, and to which the people came up regularly to worship the Lord. God affirmed in many scriptures that this was indeed the place of His choosing: Mount Zion and Jerusalem.
Unfortunately, toward the end of Solomon’s life, he left God and followed the Gods of his foreign wives. God tore his kingdom in two, but not in Solomon’s lifetime, for the sake of his servant and man after His own heart, his father David, and the sake of Jerusalem:
“However, I will not tear away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of My servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen.” “that My servant David may always have a lamp before Me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen for Myself, to put My Name there.” (Kings 11:36)
Solomon reigned in Jerusalem for forty years and was buried in the city of David.
Northern Kingdom of Israel – beginning and end
After Solomon’s death the kingdom was divided into two, with the ten northern tribes setting up the Kingdom of Israel, with Samaria as the capital, and the tribes of Judah and Benjamin continued the lineage of David in the Kingdom of Judah, with Jerusalem as the capital. After a succession of kings in the northern kingdom of Israel, all evil in the sight of God following the gods of the local gentiles, God sent the Assyrians in 721 BCE to conquer the kingdom and take many Israelites into exile, while bringing Assyrians into the land to mix them up. Until this day the 10 tribes are considered “lost” and assimilated with gentiles, both in the Samaria area of Israel and in the rest of the world.
Southern Kingdom of Judah
There were some good kings in the kingdom of Judah who did what was right in the sight of God, but many strayed and followed the gods of the land. The kingdom of Judah was finally conquered by the Babylonians in the year 586 BCE the walls of Jerusalem were torn down and the magnificent temple was destroyed (read in 2 Kings 25 the account of the fall of Jerusalem into the Babylonians)
“Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, a servant of King Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. He burned the house of the LORD, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; even every great house he burned with fire. So all the army of the Chaldeans who were with the captain of the guard broke down the walls around Jerusalem.”
Jews were taken captive into the Babylonian exile. While a few inhabitants remained in the city, the old glory of Jerusalem was gone.
Babylonian Rule (606-536 BC)
The exiled Jews in Babylon could not forget their beloved city. They sat there, in diaspora, by the rivers of Babylon and mourned while remembering the beauty and splendor that once was Jerusalem, they couldn’t forget her, and Jerusalem would forever be in the hearts of the people of Israel, no matter where they would be scattered, they would always long to come back.
“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I (God) prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.” (Psalms 137)
That verse would become the most important one Jews will recite in times of sorrow and joy, such as weddings.
Jeremiah prophesied that the Jews would be in captivity in Babylon for seventy years (Jeremiah 25). At the end of that captivity, God would judge Babylon and allow the Jews to return to the land. Because of His everlasting covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and promise to David that his seed would sit on the throne of Zion, and His prophecies, that God would not be angry with His people forever, He will always bring His people Israel back to the Land.
At the end of that captivity, God would judge Babylon and allow the Jews to return to the land.
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