Jerusalem

Jerusalem

I.                    Jerusalem in the OT

A.     Mt. Moriah to “the city of David”

1.      Mt. Moriah – Gen 22:2 and 2 Chron 3:1

a.        Abraham is told to take his only son Isaac and offer him as a sacrifice.  God leads him to Mt. Moriah.  Abraham is stopped from sacrificing his son and the Lord provides a ram.  Abraham renames the place Adonai-yireh (22:14) which means “The Lord will provide” (cf 22:8). 

b.      22:14 also says “On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided. 

c.       2 Chron 3:1 – identifies Mt. Moriah as Jerusalem.

d.      Luke 9:51 – Jesus “turns his face to Jerusalem”.  This is where he had to go to be offered up for our sin.  The Lamb who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29).

e.       Heb 13:12 – Jesus was taken outside the city gates to be crucified.  He was not put to death in a holy place, but rather in a defiled location – Golgatha – the place of the skull (Mt 27:33).  But, from that unholy spot the work of our sanctification was done.  Our holy standing before God does not come from the location where we stand, but rather from Christ. 

B.     Josh 10:1-14 – prior to David Jerusalem was a Canaanite city.  Joshua defeats a coalition of kings at Gibeon (a town a few miles north of Jerusalem [ROR 18]), with one of the kings being the king of Jerusalem. This is the battle where the sun stood still.

1.      Judges 1:21 – Benjamin could not drive out the Jebusites in Jerusalem. Joshua 15:63 – Judah could not drive out the Jebusites from Jeruasalem.

2.      Jebus -  Judges 19:10-12 – the Levite refused to spend the night in Jebus because the people were foreigners.  They travel on to Gibeah (ROR 37)where the story takes a bad turn.

C.     II Sam 5:1-9 – After Saul’s death “all Israel” comes to David in Hebron and anoint him king over Israel. 

1.      David reigns from Hebron for 7 ½ years. 

D.     David takes Jerusalem

1.      Hebron was a secure place in a secure part of the country.  High in the mountains, sufficient water, good agriculture but out of the way.  David would not challenge the Philistines from Hebron.

a.       The Philistines, while Saul was king, attacked Israel further to the north – I Sam 7:5 – Mizpah; I Sam 13,14– Gibeah and the hill country of Ephraim.

b.      For David to deal with the Philistines he had to move his capital city to Jerusalem – closer to the area where the Philistines were causing trouble. (I Sam 18:30). Once David is king and moves to Jerusalem, the first thing the Philistines do is oppose him. (2 Sam 5:17).  They know he has set up his capital in a place that will challenge them. He had been king in Hebron for 7 ½ years.  His move from Hebron to Jerusalem set the Philistines off.

c.       David would have been familiar with the area around Jerusalem as he fought the Philistines and dealt with Saul, who ruled from Gibeah. 

2.      David takes the Jebusite city of Jerusalem (which Benjamin and Judah previously could not do).  Under David the city of called “the city of David” (2 Sam 5:9).  And it was not really considered a city of Judah or a city of Israel (the north).  It is similar to Washington D.C. 

a.       2 Sam 5:6 – The Jebusites told David he would never get into Jerusalem. The blind and the lame would turn him away. That was probably part of a curse (Jewish Study Bible).

b.      2 Sam 5:6-8 – David’s men apparently invade the city through the water shaft. The Gihon spring, was Jerusalem’s earliest source of water. 3000 years ago the Jebusites put an underground waterway to the spring which was outside the walls of the city in the Kidron Valley. You will probably visit this spring.

1)      Gihon means “to gush forth”.  The stream did not flow steadily.  The spring is fed by groundwater that accumulates and in an underground cave. When the cave fills up, it empties suddenly through cracks in the cave and is siphoned out. 

2)      Solomon was crowned king at the Gihon spring. 1 Kings 1:38,45

3)      Hezekiah, channeled the water to the pool of Siloam, which was inside the walls of the city. He stopped the waters outside the city. (2 Chron 32:1-5).  2 Kings 20:20 & 2 Chron 32:11 – with the tunnel to bring water in the city, the taunts of Sennacherib were proven false. 

4)      Hezekiah’s tunnel is “s” shaped – it curves.  Workers worked from both ends and met in the middle. It is about a 600 yard tunnel that you can walk through – if you can deal with tight spaces and wet feet.

5)      The pool of Siloam is where Jesus healed the blind man – John 9:11.

c.       Jerusalem’s rise to prominence is not due to its natural features.  There were more defensible places than this.  Nor was it centrally located or easy to get to. It rose in prominence due to the things that God did there.  It is the city of David, but more so the city of God. (Ps 46:4).  It is the place of the presence of God. He dwells there. He chose to put his name here– I Kings 11:36.)

3.      Israel now has a king like all the other nations (I Sam 8:10-22).  Their king has a capital city.  And in 2 Sam 5:13 – he takes more concubines and wives from Jerusalem, like the kings of other nations (Dt 17:17).  Right from the start, though David is a man after God’s heart (I Sam 13:14) – the people will need one even greater than David.  (Ps 72)

a.       2 Sam 6 (I Chron 15)- David brings the ark into Jerusalem and his wife, Michal, the daughter of Saul despises him (2 Sam 6:16).  A tension existed between the family of Saul (the tribe of Benjamin) and the tribe of Judah over who the real king should be.  (I Sam 2:8-10).  Should the king be from Saul’s line or David’s?  The ark in Jerusalem answered that question – David.  

b.      2 Sam 24:24f & I Chron 21:18f – David buys the threshing floor which belonged to Ornan (Araunah), the Jebusite to build an altar to stop a plague.  I Chron 22:1 – It is here that David says the house of the LORD shall be. 

E.      Solomon builds the Temple in Jerusalem and worship was centered there.  

F.      At Solomon’s death the kingdom splits (922 BC)– North and South.  Jereboam, an Ephraimite is in the northern kingdom – Ephraim or Israel and Rehoboam, the son of Solomon is in the south, Judah. 

1.      Jereboam sets up its centers of worship for the north with golden calves in Bethel and in Dan.  (I Kings 12:29f).  Tirzah was the initial capital of the north (I Kings 15-16:23) until Omri moves it to Samaria.

a.       The north is taken into exile in 722 BC by the Babylonians.

2.      The south continues to have Jerusalem as its capital and center of worship.

a.       Isaiah – worship in Jerusalem is corrupt – Isaiah 1:12f; the faithful city of Zion becomes a harlot and righteousness is no longer present – Isaiah 1:21f

b.      Ezekiel 11:22-25 – the glory of the LORD departs Jerusalem and stands upon the mountain on the east side (Mt of Olives)

c.       Ezekiel 43:1 – Ezekiel sees the LORD returning to the Temple from the east – across the Judean desert and the Mt of Olives and through the east gate.

d.      The south is taken into exile in 586 BC when Nebuchadrezzar, the Babylonian, destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple. (Jer 52:12ff)

G.     The Medes defeated the Babylonians and Darius allows Israel to return home, rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple. (539 BC)

1.      Never before has something like this happened - an exiled nation is allowed to return home and rebuild.

/[There is a lot of history omitted here – it is a one hour intro to Jerusalem]

II.                 The Temple

A.     The Temple of Solomon

1.      The temple was in the forefront of Israel’s worship.  Even after it was destroyed in 586 BC by the Babylonians.

2.      Songs of Zion (Ps 46,48,76,84,87,122) and the Psalms of God’s enthronement in Jerusalem (Zion) (Ps 47, 93, 96-99)

3.      Ps 87:1-3 – Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God.  To be where the LORD made his dwelling was a privilege. 

B.     The Second Temple

1.      The temple was rebuilt but smaller.  However, the splendor of the second temple will be greater than that of the first.  Haggai 2:9.  Christ himself would enter its courts.

2.      During the period of the second temple the Jews were under the rule of the Persians, the Greeks and the Romans.

3.      Herod the Great began enlarging and rebuilding the temple in 20 BC. 

a)      John 2:20 – the Jews respond to Jesus and say “It has taken forty six years to build this temple…”

b)      It actually was not finished until around 65 AD.

c)      It was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD – Mt 24:2 – When the disciples pointed out the buildings of the temple to Jesus, he said, “there will not be one stone upon another that will not be thrown down”. 

d)      When Titus took Jerusalem in 70 AD and destroyed the temple area he ordered the rubble to be thrown into the Tyropoeon Valley.  The Western Wall or the Wailing Wall formed part of the outer court of Herod’s temple in the Tyropoeon Valley remains.

C.     The Temple under Herod

1.      Herod was a great builder.  He built Caesarea (which you visited) and made a port city that rivaled any other port in the world.  He built a winter palace in Jericho, rebuilt and fortified Samaria and renamed it Sebaste, he built the fortress Masada, the Herodium located just south of Jerusalem near Bethlehem. 

2.      He also built pagan temples, along with many other buildings.

3.      When he re-built the temple in Jerusalem he made it the largest building in the world – an architectural marvel.  

4.      Listen to your guide on the temple – and when we go through Exodus in SS we will cover the ark and the temple.

III.               The geography around Jerusalem

A.     The 3 valleys of Jerusalem

1.      The Kidron Valley – Jerusalem is on the west side of the valley and the Mt of Olives on the EAST side.  It is also known as the King’s Valley because it is where David and Solomon and other kings were thought to be buried.  (Also Jer 31:40) (Note the remark by the Chronicler in 2 Chron 21:18-20 ! Not a desirable obituary.)

a.        I Kings 2:37 – Solomon tells Shimei, who cursed David and threw  dust at him (2 Sam 16:5) that he could build a house in Jerusalem, but the day he crossed the Kidron brook he would die. 

b.      The Kidron Valley may be the “valley of the shadow of death” because during the Feast of Tabernacles the lights from the city cast a shadow over the valley and it is the site of many burial sites. 

c.       Christ, after his arrest, was taken from the Mt of Olives across the Kidron Valley – the valley of the shadow of death. 

2.      The Hinnon Valley – this valley runs along the SOUTH side of Jerusalem beside Mt. Zion and joins the Tyropoeon Valley and the Kidron Valley on the south east side of Jerusalem.

a.       It is also known as “Gehenna”  (Gehinnom). 

b.      Jer 19:1-9 – a valley of slaughter – it is where the blood of innocents was spilled in human sacrifice to false gods. 

c.       Mt 5:22-29 – the place where the trash was dumped and continually burned and stunk.  Gehenna – akin to hell. (It is a park today.)

3.      The Tyropoeon Valley – cuts through the CENTER of the walled city of Jerusalem.  It separates Mt. Moriah from Mt. Zion.

IV.              Places to see in and around Jerusalem

A.     In Jerusalem – inside the walls

1.      John 5:2 – The pool of Bethesda which had John says had 5 porticoes.  That had been doubted by some until archeologists found it. Jesus heals the paralytic here on the Sabbath. The pool is located near St. Anne’s Church.

2.      The Pinnacle – South East corner of the Temple area.  Mt 4:5 – Satan temps Christ here.

3.      Hezekiah’s tunnel – in the Kidron Valley – EAST-SOUTH-EAST side of Jerusalem.

4.      Pool of Siloam – near Hezekiah’s tunnel.  ESE side

5.      The Via Dolorosa – various places where Christ was taken after his arrest, his trials, the cross, and burial and resurrection.

6.      Church of the Holy Sepulchre – (It is on the Via Dolorosa) – the tomb where Christ was placed and the resurrection took place.

7.      Mt. Zion – SOUTH WEST side (outside the wall).  Jerusalem is often called Zion.  Together Mt Zion and Mt. Moriah make up biblical Jerusalem. 

8.      Mt. Moriah/Temple area (Dome of the Rock there now) – EAST side of the city. 

EAST SIDE OF JERUSALEM – outside the walls

B.     Gihon springs – East side – provided water for the city.

C.     Mt of Olives – on the EAST side (temple side) of Jerusalem.  The Judean desert lies between it and the Jordan River.

1.      When Absalom rebels against David, David flees across the Kidron Valley (2 Sam 15:23 and across the Mt of Olives (15:30) where he is told Ahithophel iswith Absalom.

2.      Zech 14:4 – On the Day of the Lord the nations will gather to fight against Jerusalem and the Lord’s feet will stand on the Mt of Olives and it will be split in two. Living waters will flow from Jerusalem with half going to the Mediterranean Sea and the other half to the Dead Sea. (See Ez 47)

3.      Mt 23:27 – On the Mount of Olives there is a Jewish cemetery with white tombs.  One of the tombs is said to be Absalom’s.  When Jesus spoke of white washed tombs he was in Jerusalem looking over it and lamenting – probably in the area of the Mt of Olives – where the tombs would have been in plain site. (Mt 23:37; 24:1-3)

4.      Mt 24:3 – Jesus gives the Olivet Discourse – the end times discourse to his disciples from the Mt of Olives

5.      The Garden of Gethsemane is on the Mt of Olives – this is where Christ went to pray before his arrest and the place he was arrested and Judas betrayed him with a kiss.  Mt 26:36-55

a. John tells us he crossed the Kidron Valley which is between Jerusalem’s east wall and the Mt of Olives– John 18:1

D.    Bethany

1.      Bethany is about a mile and a half east of  Jerusalem through the Kidron Valley over the Mt of Olives on the road to Jericho. (Not the same as Bethany beyond the Jordan).

2.      John 11 – This is where Lazarus lived, died and was raised from the dead by Christ.  You may visit the tomb where Christ called him from the dead.  Christ did leave Bethany beyond the Jordan to go to this Bethany (John 10:40, 1:28)

3.      Luke 10:38-42 – Bethany is also the place Jesus was when Martha complained about Mary sitting at the feet of Christ while she did all the work.

4.      John 12:1-8 – Bethany is also the place where Christ was anointed with oil in the house of Simon the leper by Mary.  Lazarus, who had just been raised from the dead is one of the guests. The next day, Jesus would travel from Bethany to Bethphage at the Mount of Olives (Lk 19:28-35). 

d.      Bethphage is the starting point of the Triumphal Entry on Palm Sunday. It is on the eastern side of the Mount of Olives. He rode down the mountain into the Kidron Valley and through the Golden or Eastern Gate and into the Temple to cleanse it.  Ezekiel 44:1-3 – The Messiah would enter through this gate. It is shut today.  It was open during the time of Christ.

1)      It may also be the Beautiful gate – Acts 3:2 where Peter heals a lame man.

AWAY FROM THE WALLED CITY

E.      Model of Ancient Jerusalem – a huge model of Jerusalem at the time of Christ.  You can see just how big the Temple really was.  Worth visiting.

F.      Near the tomb of Rachel (not the tomb in Bethlehem) there are the remains of an aqueduct that brought water to Jerusalem.