The city of Jerusalem

by C. R. Conder

Such practical considerations and historic statements fully agree with Jewish tradition. No Jerusalem Jew doubts that the Temple stood over the Ṣakhrah “rock,” which they identify with that “Stone [or, Rock] of Foundation” which, even in Herod’s time, was visible in the Holy of Holies. The Mishnah was composed in our second century, and records the statements of rabbis who had witnessed the great destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A. D., and who had seen the ruins of the Temple as the Romans left them. In the Mishnah we read[113] the description of the awful Day of Atonement, when—once a year—the high-priest, in fear and trembling, entered the Holy of Holies, where there was no longer any Ark. “When the Ark was removed, a stone was there, since the days of the first prophets” (that is, of David), “and it was called the ‘foundation’: it was three fingers above the ground, and on it he put the censer.”

THE PIERCED STONE

The Ṣakhrah is a very remarkable rock cut in steps on the west, as though to form the base of a wall, and having a cave beneath on the east, with a shaft through its roof to the surface. It is also said to have another excavation below the floor of the cave,[114] and this cave was very probably a granary originally connected with the threshing-floor, and resembling an ancient example near Nazareth.[115] To identify the rock with the Altar of the Temple is to upset the whole section of the building, and the altar was of stones, and not of rock. In the fourth century we find the Jews wailing at this “Pierced Stone,” as the site of their Holy House.[116] The Moslems have adopted their tradition, and speak of the Ṣakhrah as the foundation of the world, a rock of Paradise suspended over the abyss where souls dwell till the judgment. The Christians of the Middle Ages equally regarded the Dome of the Rock as the “Temple of the Lord.” The site is one of the very few as to which there is a general agreement and an unchanging tradition.

Of the Temple courts we have no full description in the Old Testament. The Holy House itself is said to have been double the size of the Tabernacle, not counting the three tiers of small chambers built against the walls. In the details of its architecture it recalls the art of Babylonia or of Phœnicia, rather than of Egypt, and its masons and artificers came from Tyre. The combination of large, well-hewn masonry with cedar roofs, and adornment of bronze and of gold, carved figures on the wall, and sacred Ark within, reminds us not only of the temples in Babylon which Nebuchadnezzar describes in his inscriptions, but of that famous account, in the Akkadian language, which Prince Gudea of Zirgul in Chaldea has left us, on his cylinders and statues, describing the temple which—perhaps as early as 2800 B. C.—he adorned with precious metals and with cedar wood from Lebanon. We think of the Cherubim as many-winged angels, such as Italian artists have painted; but the word Kirubu is written in Assyria over a representation of one of those winged bulls which, as “guardians,” stood in temples, or are represented flanking the mystic tree of life, just as Solomon’s cherubs flanked the palm trees. They were not painted, like the figures in the dark interior of Egyptian shrines, but carved on the walls in low relief, and overlaid with gold. They were seen by none save priests, and even to them they were only dimly visible in the darkness of a shrine unlighted from without, by the glimmer of the seven-branched golden lamp. Yet Solomon—like many later kings even down to the seventh century B. C.—disregarded the command written on the ancient “token tablets” still stored in the Ark, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image”; for besides these carvings and the huge olive-wood cherubs which overshadowed the older golden guardians of the Ark itself, he also placed his bronze laver on the necks of bronze bulls, and adorned the steps of his ivory throne with lions, after the fashion of Babylonian and Phœnician kings. In his old age the princesses from Sidon and Moab, and the daughters of the Hittites, Ammonites, and Edomites, whom he wedded, “turned away his heart after other gods.” But even in his youth he followed the ways of the Canaanites, while seeking to honour Jehovah by a splendid shrine. The making of images, in his day as in all times, was the sure sign of superstition creeping in, to guard against which the commandment of Moses was written.

THE TEMPLE GATES

The description of the Temple need not be further detailed,[117] as it is clearly understandable in the Bible narrative. The buildings included an “inner court,”[118] and probably, therefore, an outer one as well, but we are not told what space these covered, though it has been conjectured that the former was double the size of that of the Tabernacle, which would mean roughly about 300 feet east and west by 150 feet north and south.[119] In late accounts we read of a Court of the Priests and of a great court, and there are passing allusions to gates, on each side of the enclosure at different levels, and to a “higher court” by the “new gate.” It would seem that there was a west gate called that of “Departure” or “Casting Out,” in various passages, a north gate called “the High Gate of Benjamin,” a “Foundation Gate,” perhaps in the lower court, and—in the outer wall, which was that of the city itself—a gate where the “guard” or garrison of the Temple mustered, by the “Court of the Guard” (or “Prison,” as rendered in the English). The gate of “Runners” (light troops), on the way to the palace south of the Temple, was perhaps not the same. The king held his court of justice at the High Gate, which was “towards the north”; but another “King’s Gate” seems to have been on the east side of the outer court. All these were swept away when the Temple was enlarged and its courts rebuilt by Herod; but the general impression is that the Temple courts were at first confined to the immediate neighbourhood of the plateau surrounding the holy house, and that outside them there was only the city wall on the east; while on the west the natural slope of the hill remained visible, and no wall divided the Sanctuary from the city. On the south also the ridge sloped down to Ophel, where the great court of the palace extended towards the Horse Gate and the Court of the Guard.[120]

After the Temple the new palace of Solomon was built. It was not in the city of David, for “the daughter of Pharaoh” remained there “until he had made an end of building his own house,” and then “came up out of the city of David unto her house which he had built for her.”[121] Thus Josephus is apparently right in saying that the queen’s house “adjoined” that of the king, being in fact the ḥarîm of the palace. This palace resembled those of Assyrian or of Egyptian kings, as well as that of later times at Persepolis. It included a main building measuring 100 cubits by 50 cubits, with cedar pillars and a cedar roof. There were also separate halls, each 50 by 30 cubits, and two residences, for the king and queen, as well as a hall of justice, or throne-room, in which was the ivory throne. Round and within these buildings there were open courts, besides the “Great Court,” which apparently included the stables for the king’s horses, which came in by the “Horse Gate” in the city wall, at which gate Queen Athaliah, fleeing back from the Temple to her palace, was slain: this gate was to the south of the Temple courts, as described by Nehemiah. In the latter book also we find that the “King’s High House” lay on Ophel, near the “Water Gate,” which was above the Gihon spring, and which had a rock shaft leading down to the water. In Nehemiah’s time this palace was called “the house of David,” meaning, apparently, that of David’s family, just as certain royal tombs are called—in the same account—“sepulchres of David,” because certain kings of Judah were there buried; for David would himself evidently not need more than one sepulchre.

THE PALACE

The description is not sufficiently detailed to allow of any plan of these buildings being drawn,[122] but—including the courts—it is clear from the dimensions that the palace covered the greater part of the little Ophel spur, which became the royal quarter, where also—in later times at least—the high-priest had his house, and where the Nethinim lived. Moreover, the “king’s garden” was in the Tyropœon Valley, near Siloam, and in or near it were the “king’s wine-presses,” which are noticed as marking the south limit of the later city. The city of David was no doubt densely crowded, and there was no room in it for a new palace. This was, moreover, placed close to the Temple for convenience in attending the daily services. In later times Ezekiel denounces the proximity of the dwelling of idolatrous kings to the Temple of Jehovah, and the building of a wall of separation, as well as the burial of the kings inside the city.[123]

The latest buildings of Solomon were shrines in honour of foreign gods, including Ashtoreth, Milcom, Chemosh, and Molech.[124] The three former were on “the hill facing Jerusalem”; the last named was no doubt at Topheth, in the valley which was devoted to the worship of this savage deity. They are again noticed in the time of Josiah, nearly four centuries later, and (except Molech) stood on “the Mount of Corruption” (or, more correctly, of “anointing”), which was apparently the Mount of Olives. A much-defaced Phœnician text, found by M. Clermont-Ganneau at the village of Silwân, contains the words “Beth-Baal,” and has been supposed to be possibly connected with one of these shrines.