The city of Jerusalem

by C. R. Conder

[147] Hilprecht, “Nippur Memoir,” I. i. plate 34. This translation of these two texts is from the original.

[148] 2 Kings xxv. 2, 12; Jer. xxxii. 1.

[149] Jer. xi. 13. It is very doubtful whether Bosheth means “shame.” Jeremiah refers to Topheth (vii. 32, xix. 6), to the tower Hananeel and the Corner Gate (xxxi. 38), to Gareb (“the plantation”) and Goath (ver. 39), to the valley of dead bodies and ashes, and the “enclosures” of Kidron, with the “corner of the Horse Gate” (ver. 40), to the “East Gate” or “Pottery Gate” (xix. 2), and to “the graves of the common people” (xxvi. 23), as well as the “Higher Court” and “New Gate” of the Temple (xxxvi. 10), and the “Gate of Benjamin” (xxxvii. 13) already noticed. See also Ezek. viii. 3; Joel iii. 2; Zech. xiv. 10. There was also a baker’s bazaar in Jerusalem (Jer. xxxvii. 21).

CHAPTER IV
EZRA AND NEHEMIAH

SANBALLAT

The seventy years of Babylonian oppression reckon from the accession of Nebuchadnezzar to the first year of Cyrus in 538 B. C., when the cruel policy of transplanting the population of the empire was abandoned, and the Jews were permitted to return to Jerusalem. We do not as yet know what the religious beliefs of Cyrus may have been. A Babylonian text represents him to have been a worshipper of Babylonian gods. The first known monumental notice of Ahuramazda, the Persian “All-wise Being,” occurs in the famous texts of Darius I. This deity was regarded by him as the maker of heaven and earth, and the Hebrews—speaking to Persian kings—made use of the title “god of heaven,” which would be understood by Persians as referring to the deity they themselves adored.[150] The first Persian kings were famed for their justice and tolerance, and Darius I. not only permitted the building of the Jerusalem Temple, but equally permitted the restoration of the temple of the goddess Neith, which Cambyses had respected, but which had fallen into ruin. He sent an Egyptian priest from Persia to carry out this work, just as his descendant sent Ezra and Nehemiah to Jerusalem. It has also quite recently been discovered that Darius II. was memorialised, by Jewish priests in Egypt, to permit the restoration of a house of Jehovah at Elephantine, which was built before Cambyses conquered Egypt in 529 B. C. In this Aramaic petition the title “god of heaven” is used as meaning Jehovah, just as in the Bible, and the ancient spelling of the divine name as Iahu is preserved just as it occurs in the text of Sennacherib, and on early Hebrew signet-rings. The letter, moreover, mentions Delaya and Shelemya, the sons of Sanballat, “governor of Samaria,” side by side with the Persian officials Bagohi and Arshama, thus serving to show that Ezra and Nehemiah lived in the time of Artaxerxes I.[151] We see from such records that the restoration of the Jews was part of the settled policy of the Persian kings in dealing with their foreign subjects.

Zerubbabel began the rebuilding of the Temple in 536 B. C. The old men “that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes wept with a loud voice, and many shouted for joy.” Haggai the prophet, who urged on this work, says, “Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory, and how do ye see it now? is it not in your eyes in comparison to it as nothing?”[152] We may conclude that it was but an humble edifice, without any of the adornment with precious metals and carvings that had existed in Solomon’s Temple. But it stood on the old site, and probably followed the old dimensions. The building was suspended in the time of Cambyses, and resumed in 520 B. C., after the accession of Darius I., being completed four years later. Ezra arrived in 459 B. C.—the seventh year of Artaxerxes I.—and brought with him vessels and treasures granted by the king. But it appears that the city walls still remained in ruins, till Nehemiah was made governor of Jerusalem fifteen years later. On his departure, in 433 B. C., the enemies of the Jews renewed their activity.[153] They had already obstructed the building of the Temple in the time of Xerxes, and had given much trouble to the patriotic Nehemiah. Rehum the “master of edicts” and Shimshai the scribe complain to Artaxerxes I. that the Jews have come to Jerusalem, “building the rebellious and bad city, and have set up the walls and joined the foundations.” They obtained a decree “that this city be not builded,” which remained in force for nine years. All work on the Temple was also suspended for the same period, or to the second year of Darius II., which was 423 B. C. This monarch was apparently a degenerate descendant of his great ancestors, and his reign was troubled by many intrigues, assassinations, and rebellions. But the Persians had by this time intermarried with the Babylonians and other Semitic races,[154] and he appears to have been regarded as a friend by the Jews in Palestine and in Egypt alike. The great satraps of the western provinces were, however, almost independent rulers, and the letter of Yedonya—the Jewish priest in Egypt above noticed—was addressed to “my Lord Bagohi of Judah,” the Persian governor of Judea a generation later than Sanballat, the Babylonian “governor of Samaria.” Darius II. may have desired to control the power of such Persian satraps by his protection of Semitic subjects, and the power of the Semitic race in his age is witnessed by the coins of the satraps in Asia Minor inscribed in Aramaic.[155]

NEHEMIAH’S RIDE

The book of Nehemiah contains the fullest account of Jerusalem topography to be found in the Bible, and casts light on the condition of the city in earlier times, since his work consisted in rebuilding the walls which appear to have stood in ruins, for nearly a century and a half, since their destruction by Nebuchadnezzar. On arrival, in 444 B. C., Nehemiah’s abode was established in the “seat of the governor on this side the river” (Euphrates),[156] which seems to have been a house on the west side of the lower city. Thence he went out by night to view the walls[157]; and, leaving the city by the “Gate of the Gai,” somewhere near the present Jaffa Gate, he found the walls of the upper city broken down as far as the Dung Gate at the south-west corner, and the gates burned with fire. Thence he crossed over the hill eastwards,[158] and reached the “Gate of the Spring” near the “King’s Pool.” There is no doubt that the latter is the Pool of Siloam, which—though only a tank—is called a “spring” by Josephus also, because it was fed by spring water through the aqueduct. The “Gate of the Spring” appears to have been at the point where the wall of the upper city formed a re-entering angle, crossing the Tyropœon Valley above the Siloam Pool. Here Nehemiah found masses of ruins, among which “the beast that was under” him could not find footing. He viewed the east wall by going up the naḥal or Kidron Valley, and then returned by the same way to the Gate of the Gai and to his house.

THE WALLS