The city of Jerusalem

by C. R. Conder

Manasseh succeeded his father Hezekiah in 699 B. C., and was also a tributary of Assyrian kings; of him it is recorded[140] that he “built a wall outside the city of David, westwards to Gihon in the valley, and to the entrance of the Fish Gate, and surrounded Ophel and raised it very high.” This apparently refers to the line of the Ophel wall, which, in later times at least, ran south-west from the corner by the Horse Gate, for about 250 yards, to the Water Gate above the Kidron spring. The Fish Gate, as will appear later, was on the north side of the city.

TOMBS OF THE KINGS

Manasseh was not buried with his fathers, but in the palace garden near Siloam, where also, in the “field of burial,” the leper Uzziah had probably been buried, and perhaps Ahaz also. This cemetery is afterwards noticed as the “sepulchres of David,” but we may now inquire where the seven kings who were buried, “in” or “at” the city of David, with David himself and Solomon, were most probably entombed; for the site was clearly not the same,[141] and was either within or close to the old city of David’s time. The seven later kings buried “with their fathers” were Rehoboam, Abijah, Jehoshaphat, Amaziah, Jotham, Hezekiah, and Josiah, and of these Hezekiah is said to have been laid in the “upper chamber” (m’aalah) of the tomb, which was still known in the time of Herod, and yet later in that of the apostles.[142] Josephus gives a remarkable account of this tomb, which was opened by John Hyrcanus in 134 B. C., and “another room” by Herod yet later, in search of treasure. He says that the latter “did not come to the coffins of the kings themselves, for their bodies were buried underground so artfully that they did not appear even to those that entered into their monument.” The sepulchre was evidently one of the kind used by the Hebrews, and by the Phœnicians, with kokîm, or “tunnels”—one for each body—running in lengthwise from the sides of the chamber. But it had the peculiarity that some at least of these were under the floor, as in the earlier Phœnician examples—an arrangement which is not usual in Hebrew tombs; while the mention of an “upper chamber,” in which Hezekiah was buried, shows that a second tier, on the ground level, was excavated for later kings thought worthy to rest with David and Solomon who lay below. There is only one known ancient sepulchre at Jerusalem, in the city of David, to which this account applies—namely, the tomb in the west apse of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,[143] traditionally containing the graves of Joseph of Arimathæa and of Nicodemus. A wall has been built across it, but it appears to have had originally nine kokîm graves, of which six are on the ground level, while three (on the south) are under the floor, together with a pit[144] probably used for the purpose of funereal deposits, such as Josephus says were taken out by Herod, including “vessels of gold and precious things.” The mouths of the kokîm were originally closed by slabs, and, if these were like others which I have myself removed, it would be possible to enter the chamber without knowing—till very closely examined—that there were any kokîm behind them, while those under the floor would be even less suspected. The remarkable correspondence between the statements above noticed—in the Bible and in the accounts by Josephus—seems to make it highly probable that we have here, still existing, the tombs of the more famous kings. Whether they were just inside or just outside the north wall of the city of David is perhaps uncertain, but that they were visible in a low scarp, facing east, even later than Herod’s time, seems to be clear. This tomb of David was distinct from the cemetery in the garden of the palace near Siloam, which has not as yet been found, but to which the term “field of burial belonging to the kings” seems to be first applied in speaking of Uzziah, “for they said, He is a leper.”[145] The above suggestion has met with acceptance by several writers since I first made it thirty years ago, but it unfortunately leaves us without hope of recovering either the treasures which were abstracted by Hyrcanus and Herod, or the bodies of the kings, which, if they had not crumbled away, appear to have been removed by later desecrators of this very ancient sepulchre.

NEBUCHADNEZZAR

Passing on to the history of the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, it may be noted that the empire of Assyria collapsed suddenly on the death of Assur-bani-pal in 626 B. C. He was a very remarkable ruler who imitated ’Ammurabi by concentrating in his own hands even the most minute details of government. We possess his political letters, which give us a high opinion of his justice and courtesy. On his death, Nabopolassar, governor of Babylon, became independent, and about 610 B. C. he took Nineveh in alliance with the Medes. He died apparently in 608 B. C., when his son Nebuchadnezzar became king of Babylonia in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, king of Judah. This new race of Babylonian monarchs was apparently native to the city, for Nabopolassar says in a recently discovered text: “I and the chief rulers of the great city have purified Babylon where we dwell—our land which the oppressor seized—to establish in its midst the throne of righteousness.”[146] He refers to Nebuchadnezzar as his eldest son, the “delight of his heart,” “upholding the dominion faithfully and gloriously with my hosts.” The first attack on Palestine was made by Nebuchadnezzar as prince, after the defeat of Necho the Pharaoh at Carchemish. The latter had aided the attack on Nineveh, but the allies soon quarrelled. Josiah had been slain by Necho in 612 B. C., and Nebuchadnezzar was obliged to hurry back from Palestine on his father’s death four years later; but the respite was short, and Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians about 590 B. C.

We do not as yet possess any monumental account of Nebuchadnezzar’s campaigns in Palestine, though he has left rock texts in Lebanon and near Beirût. These record his piety in erecting temples, but one recently found attests his widespread conquests,[147] for, speaking of contributions to a temple, he says: “I gathered revenues from all peoples of mankind, from the upper sea to the lower sea, from distant lands of widespread peoples of mankind, kings ruling the mountains and the sea coast.... Princes of the land of the Hittites, near the Euphrates on the west—for by command of Merodach my lord I had swallowed up their power—were made to bring strong beams from Mount Lebanon to my city Babylon.”

IDOLATRY

There are many passing allusions in the Book of Jeremiah to the Jerusalem of this age.[148] When the city fell, in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the men of war fled towards Jericho by night, “by the way of the gate between two walls which is by the king’s garden.” This gate, as we shall see later, was at the recess above Siloam where the wall crossed the Tyropœon Valley at a re-entering angle. The whole city was then burned, and its treasures carried away, with its chiefs, priests, and all but the “poor of the land, vine-dressers and husbandmen.” Jerusalem had become a pagan city, full of ugly little statues of Ashtoreth, and of Baal shrines at each street corner; for “according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have ye set up altars to Bosheth, altars to burn incense to Baal.”[149] The ancient human sacrifices, offered to Molech, continued to be celebrated in the Valley of Topheth as in Isaiah’s time. The city in extent was the same which Nehemiah found in ruins, and its ancient walls were then merely rebuilt, but a more detailed account of this topography will be conveniently deferred till the next chapter, in which the work of Nehemiah’s time is to be considered.

FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER III

[96] 2 Sam. v. 6–9; see LXX. The Greek reads “and his house” for “and inwards.”