city in a plain, but because while in Damascus Moslem religion and
Oriental custom are unmixed with any foreign element, in Jerusalem every
form of religion, every nationality of East and West, is represented at one
time.”
Jerusalem is first mentioned under that name in the Book of Joshua, and
the Tell-el-Amarna collection of tablets includes six letters from its
Amorite king to Egypt, recording the attack of the Abiri about B.C. 1480.
The name is there spelt Uru-Salim (“city of peace”). Another monumental
record in which the Holy City is named is that of Sennacherib’s attack in
B.C. 702. The “camp of the Assyrians” was still shown about A.D. 70, on
the flat ground to the north-west, included in the new quarter of the city.
The city of David included both the upper city and Millo, and was
surrounded by a wall built by David and Solomon, who appear to have
restored the original Jebusite fortifications. The name Zion (or Sion)
appears to have been, like Ariel (“the hearth of God”), a poetical term for
Jerusalem, but in the Greek age was more specially used of the Temple
hill. The priests’ quarter grew up on Ophel, south of the Temple, where
also was Solomon’s Palace outside the original city of David. The walls of
the city were extended by Jotham and Manasseh to include this suburb
and the Temple (2 Chronicles 27:3; 33:14).
Jerusalem is now a town of some 50,000 inhabitants, with ancient
mediaeval walls, partly on the old lines, but extending less far to the south.
The traditional sites, as a rule, were first shown in the 4th and later
centuries A.D., and have no authority. The results of excavation have,
however, settled most of the disputed questions, the limits of the Temple
area, and the course of the old walls having been traced.
- JERUSHA possession, or possessed; i.e., “by a husband”, the wife of
Uzziah, and mother of king Jotham (2 Kings 15:33). - JESHAIAH deliverance of Jehovah. (1.) A Kohathite Levite, the father of
Joram, of the family of Eliezer (1 Chronicles 26:25); called also Isshiah
(24:21).
(2.) One of the sons of Jeduthum (1 Chronicles 25:3, 15).
(3.) One of the three sons of Hananiah (1 Chronicles 3:21).
(4.) Son of Athaliah (Ezra 8:7).