toxawaytellit

It is the glory of the Lord to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings. (Proverbs 25:2)

When I started my series of articles about the Hebrew people five years ago I thought it might take two articles to say the things I wanted to. My goodness! What a miscalculation. There have been seven and we are not finished yet. I have attempted to give you a peek at the Old Testament history of the Jews and their land. I have no qualifications to speak of, that you should listen to me. I just have a desire to communicate a tiny bit of the magnificent saga of these, the original chosen people of God, though in fact we are all chosen, if we will accept that honor.

I began many years ago to read and investigate the early history of  Jerusalem and its inhabitants. I found many fascinating facts, and in some cases much disagreement as to facts, among my sources. I have concluded that much of what we have accepted as the “gospel truth” pertaining to this ancient era is little more than tradition. Today I hold an admittedly unpopular opinion as to the location of Solomon’s temple and its successors. Does that matter? Maybe. But I want to say up front, at the top of the page: Opinions about the temple are nothing in light of Jesus, the One greater than the temple (Matthew 12:6) who said unequivocally  Ye must be born again! (John 3:7) See my post from May 2016 “Marvel Not That I Say Unto You: You Must Be Born Again” for more.

Cuyp, Aelbert
Christ Riding into Jerusalem

Jesus was a Jew. His mother was a descendant of Abraham and his father the Creator of the universe. Yes! Jesus was no ordinary man, but he was a man. God came to us as a man. Think of that! He walked the streets of Jerusalem and the dirt roads of the countryside. He was a friend of sinners and political dissidents. He hung around with smelly fishermen as well as educated publicans. He dumbfounded priests, scholars and learned elders. And in the end he became the Lamb that took our place; he gave his blood for us; he took the punishment we deserved. Only he could do that, for he was sinless; we are not. And then he went back home, where he is waiting for those of us who love him.

 . . . .

From time to time during the three years of his public ministry Jesus had occasion to be in the city of Jerusalem. Perhaps you know some of the stories — how he was so furious they were selling animals and exchanging monies in the temple that he took a whip and drove the merchants from the temple courtyard. He was no wimp, even if he was a gentle man!  Maybe you know that he was a miracle worker: he healed sick people, blind people, even raised the dead. One time he rode into town on a donkey as people spread their cloaks and palm branches in the road before him, rejoicing and saying, Blessed is the king of Israel! (John 12:13) But he said My kingdom is not of this world. (John 18:36) Many high ranking Jewish teachers did not understand all the prophecies concerning Jesus. Isaiah clearly depicted Jesus as a suffering savior. (See Isaiah 53.) But the powerful Pharisees were looking for a political or military deliverer, which he certainly will be when he comes again.  (See Psalm 2, and then Numbers 24 and Deuteronomy 19:10) It should be noted that the Jews today for the most part still do not believe Jesus was their Messiah. Nevertheless, he is. He is indeed King of kings and Lord of lords. (Revelation 19:6)

James Tissot
Disciples Admire Buildings of the Temple

In the New Testament is recorded an occasion when Jesus and his disciples were in Jerusalem. Jesus’ disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said to them, See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down. (Matthew 24:1-2) The disciples were obviously impressed with the magnificence of the temple and attendant structures. These were remarkable, for Herod had spared no expense in building this new temple, using costly materials and employing the finest artisans. But here Jesus is saying that not one stone will be left in its place, not one! This is an important statement, for we find the same words repeated in the gospels of Mark and Luke — not one stone left upon another.

And further, there is a very ominous warning written in Luke’s gospel: And when he (Jesus) was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! But now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. (Luke 19:41-44)

As foretold by Jesus, the Romans attacked Jerusalem in 70 AD, and very soon all of Jewish Jerusalem was in ruins, including the whole of the splendid temple that Herod had built. Scavengers dug to the bedrock in various places, seeking melted gold and valuables. The toppled stones were eventually recycled into other building projects until what had been the city of Jerusalem was unrecognizable. So complete was the destruction that in time the hill where the temple and attendant buildings had stood was plowed for crops. The only remaining structure was the Roman fortress Antonia, on the hill overlooking the desolation. And that was pretty much the end of Jerusalem, for centuries.

And then, two thousand years later — Amazement! Israel officially became a nation, recognized throughout the world, in 1948. The rest is history — recent history. But by that time, for the most part, we (Christians and Jews) had lost the centerpiece of our heritage, the place where God put his name, the holy hill of Zion and the temple of his presence. Oh, there is a presence for sure, erected by the Muslims in 691 AD within the perimeter of the old fortress. But God’s house and David’s citadel seem to be misplaced. We don’t know where they are……

Stepped Stone Structure
Omerm/Wikimedia Commons

Archaeologists are digging and looking, and a lot has been found, and artifacts dated. It is wonderful to see the ancient stones exposed, and to know the era to which they pertain, even if we don’t know for certain what some of them mean structurally. But, in our desire to assemble the puzzle as quickly as possible, we have forced some pieces into places where they do not belong. Then, we have empty spaces that will never be filled until we dislodge those ill fitting places and move them to their proper locations.

…..

It is an easy thing to move a name. Moriah, for instance, or Zion. People do it every day. Read my article Whatever Happened to Whetstone Gap?  A land developer liked the name of that place apparently, and so he moved it eight miles to the west and named the road into his housing project Whetstone Gap Road. Within fifteen to twenty years everyone knew Whetstone Gap Road and where it went — to the cul-de-sac at the border of that man’s subdivision, never mind there wasn’t a hint of a gap there. In silent witness however, the little whetstones for which Whetstone Gap was originally named remain to this day, right where they always were, eight miles east, strewn across the slopes of the Whetstone Ridge. There, every day, hundreds of travelers on a busy highway pass through the Whetstone Gap. A name is nothing. It is the ground that tells the story.

I don’t know where Ornan’s threshing floor was, but I promise you the coordinates of that landmark have not moved! Was there really a threshing floor up there on that rugged wild mountain that they call Moriah, or was it within the perimeter of the walled settlement of Salem? Certainly the pockmarked stone under the Dome of the Rock does not qualify as a threshing floor. Some day that ground will give up its secrets, or lack thereof.

Gihon: The Key and Center Piece

In modern times, water from various sources supplies the city of Jerusalem. But that has not always been so. In ages past when King David and his men conquered the walled Jebusite city of Salem, the mighty Gihon spring supplied an abundance of water for that entire city. In that era the Gihon was an intermittent gushing spring whose waters washed away from the Temple the blood of the many animals sacrificed there on a regular basis. (See my article on the Gihon Spring for more information.)

The Hebrew word gihon is a verb which means to burst forth, as applied to giving birth for instance. This was the nature of Gihon in its periodic gushing. We are fortunate to have ancient documents, wherein are recorded (1) the eye witness account of Aristeas, an Egyptian official who visited Jerusalem https://www.ellopos.com/blog/4508/letter-of-aristeas-full-text-in-greek-and-english/34/and (2) the account of the historian Tacitus (The History of Cornelius Tacitus, V,11), both stating there was water springing up within the confines of the Jewish temple.

Old Water Tower
Frostproof, FL

These accounts are summarily dismissed as false or impossible. After all, the springs we are accustomed to flow from the surface of the ground downhill to lower elevations. Very well, but now think of the thousands of small towns that are served by water tanks or towers standing high above the level of the structures. The water flows down out of the tank into pipes below ground level, and then up from the ground into spigots in the various buildings. How does it do that?

If you think about that for a little while you might get some idea of how Solomon’s temple could have been supplied with fresh water. Gravity! Pressure!  Water can and does flow uphill! Under the right conditions it does so without any assistance from us. And when it doesn’t, there’s always man’s ingenuity. Ever heard of a ram pump? Or how the Romans were able to pull water uphill into their city, using siphons they created? “Workers dug winding channels underground … to span a valley, they built a siphon … a vast dip in the land that caused the water to drop so quickly it had enough momentum to make it uphill.” https://sage-answers.com/how-can-i-make-my-water-flow-uphill-without-a-pump/

In my article about the Gihon Spring I mentioned a small (less than ten feet across) spring in South Carolina that reportedly gushed periodically as much as six feet in the air. That little spring in South Carolina worked on the same principle as the Gihon, and like the Gihon, it has ceased its spouting. But, here is a fascinating article about another of these springs — The Bubble, a man made lake in the community of Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania.  https://www.fandm.edu/news/latest-news/2017/07/06/f-m-researchers-find-ground-water-runs-deeper-than-hydrologists-thought 

This lake is fed by a group of about 30 springs arising from a whopping 1800 feet below the surface. Furthermore a recent study has determined the main source of the springs’ water (the catchment area) is some 50 miles away, on the other side of the mountain. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2017GL073790

Based on this study, water is gushing into The Bubble at the rate of 16 million gallons a day. (Figure appears to be correct. I double checked.) A 13 minute  video  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_r9y_abG2w shows two of the bubbling inflow sites; one is bubbling rapidly. Note in the following article that water under pressure is forced to the surface, creating the bubbles.  https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC680XC_the-bubble?guid=0c346836-34df-40db-9489-3bf8da62a433

Both the Gihon and The Bubble are karst springs, which means the subsurface rock is pretty much limestone, a soft rock that forms caves, pipes and cisterns due to percolating water over the millennia. Great quantities of water can be stored in these underground compartments. Karst waterways can be quite complex; and, they can be connected over long distances. In the case of the Gihon, an additional feature was present — a natural siphon  which drained a large subterranean cavern, which, when refilled to a certain level, would activate the siphon and drain again, resulting in periodic gushing.

Hezekiah’s tunnel

Presently the Gihon is no longer pulsing. http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10040-010-0600-6

However the yield is quite significant, witness the photos of Hezekiah’s tunnel. Now let us go back to the old days, when the Gihon was a gushing spring, that is during the time of the kings of Judah/Israel. I find it interesting that King Hezekiah and the people stopped up “springs” and then they stopped up the brook (Kidron, fed by the Gihon spring). (Second Chronicles 32:4) There must have been a lot of water originating at the Gihon spring. At eight pounds a gallon, even a little water can exert a lot of pressure. Now, think about The Bubble — the lake in Pennsylvania. Hydrologists have determined that water bubbles up from 1800 feet under the ground! Even if the pulsing of the Gihon had not been sufficient to raise its waters to the surface of the Jebusite ridge, some simple engineering could  have, and if necessary did remedy that problem. I am not alone in this belief. Remember the Romans! (above)

The Gihon spring is the key to the temple location. Think about how many thousands, tens of thousands, of animals, even big animals such as oxen, were sacrificed on feast days, when the twelve tribes gathered in Jerusalem. In the early days there were no aqueducts to Jerusalem. They had to get rid of that blood and gore somehow. Pity the hundreds of poor donkeys that (theoretically) would have had to trudge for days on end up and down hill from the Gihon all the way to the Dome of the Rock! No, no, no! There was a better way!

 The Akra

Now, what did King David acquire when he took the Jebusite stronghold of Salem? For one thing, a fortress or fortification inside the walls of the city. There is a consensus of opinion that the city walls of Salem at that time enclosed roughly twelve acres. Josephus In the Whiston translation tells us David took the lower city but the citadel “held out still”, whereupon King David issued a challenge to his men: the first to go up by way of the “tsinor” and smite the Jebusites would be captain, and here it was that Joab won that position for himself.  The “tsinor” (also understood as gutter or pipe) was likely an ancient exit channel for the Gihon spring which would of necessity be outside the massive walls of the city.  After David and his men conquered the Jebusites David took up residence in Salem (Jerusalem). He erected buildings from the Millo (a filled area) and inward “round about the lower city ; he also joined (See Psalm 122) the citadel to it,” and named Jerusalem The City of David . (The Antiquities of the Jews, Book 7, Chapter 3, Sections 1 and 2) (See also Second Samuel Chapter 5)

Here in the words of Josephus we have an excellent clue as to where the citadel was, and its relation to the rest of Jerusalem. The lower city mentioned here is that part of ancient Jerusalem  that was lower in elevation than the citadel — which would have been the entire remainder of the city. Remember, these were the first days, the beginning of David’s Jerusalem. If we look at ancient Jerusalem today — the 12 acre crescent shaped southeast ridge known today as The City of David — there is no evidence of an elevation significantly higher than the rest of the ridge. However, we know the citadel was higher than its surroundings. Josephus plainly states this later on in The Antiquities. Further, we find scriptures in First Maccabees that also support this conclusion. So? Shortly we are going to find that the high hill that supported the citadel/Akra in the ancient city was leveled to the bedrock by the citizens of Jerusalem under the Hasmonean king/priest Simon. Small wonder we can not find the Akra today!

A Section of Hezekiah’s Wall

Akra is a Greek word meaning citadel or fortress. Obviously the Jebusites had within their city walls a fairly impervious structure. Six hundred years later we hear about the citadel again. By that time the Jews who had been taken captive to Babylon were allowed to return to Israel and the rebuilding of Jerusalem began. In 444 BC Nehemiah asks King Artaxerses for timber to make gates for the citadel by the temple and for the city wall. (Nehemiah 2:8)  Here the writer of the narrative indicated the citadel was by (beside) the temple. The fortress (citadel) is mentioned again in the book of Nehemiah after the rebuilding of the wall is completed. In this instance, one Hananiah is identified as commander of the fortress. (Nehemiah 7:2)

It is worth noting here that before the Babylonian captivity King Hezekiah had rebuilt and strengthened the ancient Jebusite mid-slope walls. They were very strong, being several feet thick. Nevertheless the Babylonians had toppled some of them in their invasion. These were the walls that Nehemiah repaired. Sections of these massive walls are extant today. The Bible says it took the people 52 days to repair the wall. (Nehemiah 6:15) During the whole of that time the inhabitants of the land hindered the work at every opportunity and intended to attack the workers on the wall. When Nehemiah heard of this he divided the men and the work continued with half working on the wall and the other half standing guard with shields, spears and bows. (Nehemiah 4:16)

When the repairs were done a great dedication processional was held, complete with musicians and singers, and with much pomp, ceremony and celebration. Jewish officials, the “princes” of Judah, priests and Levites and many others gathered in  two great companies of them that gave thanks. (Nehemiah 12:31) Walking on top of the wall, these two companies of celebrants began on the west side of the city, one group going northward on the wall and the other to the south, with loud rejoicing and blowing of trumpets and much jubilation. Going around the city, they met at the double gates before the temple (the Prison Gate and the Water Gate) and proceeded in two rows into the house of God. The Bible says the joy of this celebration was heard afar off. (See Nehemiah 12:31-43)

Tomb of Mattathias ben johanan
Father and First Leader of Maccabean Revolt
Ariel/Wikipedia

We find more about the Akra in the books of First and Second Maccabees. These books (and others) were taken from most Bibles in the 1800’s. However they are still available from booksellers in the collection known as the Apocrypha. The Maccabean Revolt took place in the interim between the recordings of the Old Testament and the Gospels of the New Testament. The story of the Maccabees and their leadership in the struggle for Jewish independence during that time is quite inspiring.

The word Maccabee is from the Hebrew word for hammer which seems a fitting description of this family. However Maccabee was not a surname, at least to start with. The resistance was led by Mattithias, a priest from a settlement near Jerusalem, and his five sons, of which the high priest Simon was the last survivor. The Maccabees are better known as the Hasmoneans. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/history-and-overview-of-the-maccabees

In Nehemiah’s time the Jews had been subject to the Persians, But by the time of the Maccabees (around 170 BC) the Persians had yielded to the authority of the Greeks. Consequently the area of Judea and Samaria came to be ruled by one of Alexander the Great’s successors, namely Antiochus of the Seleucid/Greek empire who at the time reigned from Syria. The Greeks cared naught for the God of Israel, being pagans, worshippers of Zeus and other false gods. They began to oppress the Jews, forbidding reading of the Torah, observance of the Sabbath, circumcision of boys —  in effect requiring them to turn from the worship of the one true God to the worship of idols. In 168 BC Antiochus IV devastated Jerusalem, and among other things, sacrificed a pig on the altar of the temple, an act that defiled the temple causing temple worship to cease. The Maccabean Revolt broke out when  Antiochus’ officers attempted to force Mattathias, the priest at Modein, to sacrifice to the pagan god Zeus. Mattathias was quite elderly at that time and died about 166 BC. After his death a son, Judas, about 164 BC, freed Jerusalem from domination by the foreigners, with the exception of those Greeks and Jewish sypathizers who had fled when Judas took the city and were holed up in the Akra. The Jews today celebrate Judas’ successful routing of the hated Seleucids and the rededication of the temple as the Festival of Lights or Hanukkah.

It must be understood that Judas led a resistance movement, not an army. The Maccabees and their forces were a thorn in the side of their Syrian oppressors and their Hellenist sympathizers in Judea, but the Jews did not fully gain their freedom until some years later. While the Hellentists held the Akra they harassed and even killed Jews who attempted temple worship, having an advantegeous position overlooking the Temple. The Maccabees however, with God’s help, were eventually successful in their revolt against the Syrians (Seleucids), Greeks and Eqyptians and the many powers that had sought to enslave the Jews and take away their heritage, though it was a long and hard fought battle that cost thousands and thousands of lives. In the end, around 142 BC, Simon, the last of the Maccabee sons, high priest and ruler of Judea, successfully attacked and took the Akra from the Seleucid forces.

Josephus gives a pretty good location for the Akra. He describes the hills of the city of Jerusalem. Then he says, “But the other hill, which was called ‘Acra’ and sustains the lower city, is of the shape of the moon when she is horned.” This is the southeastern ridge, the original Jebusite city, which is in roughly the shape of a crescent. Here Josephus is calling the entire southeastern ridge the ‘Acra’. He goes on to say “However in those times when the Hasmoneans (the Maccabees) reigned, they filled up that valley (Cheezemongers or Tyropean) with earth . . . Then they took off part of the height of Acra, and reduced it to be of less elevation than before, that the temple might be superior to it. (The Wars of the Jews, Book 5, Chapter 4, Section 1, paragraph 137)

Reinforcing this statement we go to Josephus again for more detail: “Simon, (high priest of Jerusalem, of the Hasmonean family above) took the citadel of Jerusalem by seige (which was then occupied by the Hellenistic Syrians/Greeks and apostate Jews) and cast it down to the ground, that it might not be any more a place of refuge to their enemies . . . And when he had done this he thought it . . . for their advantage to level the very mountain itself upon which the citadel happened to stand that so the temple might be higher than it. And indeed when he had called the multitude to an assembly he persuaded them to have it so demolished, . . . so they all set themselves to the work and leveled the mountain, and in that work spent both day and night without intermission, which cost them three whole years before it was removed, and brought to an entire level with the plain of the rest of the city. After which the temple was the highest of the buildings.” (The Antiquities of the Jews, Book 13, Chapter 6, Section 7, Paragraphs 215-217)

Dr. Ernest Martin, author of The Temples That Jerusalem Forgot believed the Akra was built on a tel or layered hill, south of that other rise known as the Ophel summit, where the temple was. If you read my article about Joshua you remember the city of Jericho had been occupied by many preceding civilizations, building one upon another, and had grown to a great height. Obviously the mound supporting the Akra was somewhat higher than the Ophel because the citadel overlooked the temple. This excess of elevation could well be the reason the citadel “held out still”  (The Antiquities of the Jews, Book 7, Chapter 3, Secion 1, Paragraph 63) when David attacked it. If Dr. Martin’s supposition is correct and the high southernmost hill that Simon dug down and carried away was in fact a tel, (and it might have been; after all it took three years to reach bedrock) it would be very interesting to find what is in the filled ravine of the Cheesemongers and at the bottom of the corresponding section of the Kidron Valley. Three years of digging day and night must have misplaced or, sadly, destroyed very many artifacts.

The Temple

Unknown Artist’s Rendering of the Temple
Public Domain

The southeast hill of Jerusalem was long and narrow, though today the northern section of that hill is substantially wider, due to having been filled in and added to a number of times over the years. When Solomon built the first temple, “the plain at the top was hardly sufficient for the holy house and the altar . . . but when King Solomon had built a wall to it on its east side, there was then added one cloister founded on a bank cast up for it . . . in future ages the people added new banks, and the hill became a larger plain.” (The Wars of the Jews, Book 5, Chapter 5, Section 1, Paragraph 184-185) It is here that Whiston in his translation of the works of Josephus in a footnote totally discredits Josephus, arguing that the wide and spacious Temple Mount is the correct location and that Josephus is just plain wrong!  If we side with Josephus we accept that the “plain” upon which the temple was built was very skimpy, so much that a bank had to be cast up for a cloister. These words of Josephus pretty much settle the issue as to the location of the temple.

Painting of Solomon Dedicating the Temple
James Tissot/public domain

When Solomon dedicated the temple many thousands of Jews were present as the fire of God fell from heaven and consumed the sacrifice and a dense cloud of glory filled the temple (First Kings 8:10) insomuch as the priests were unable to carry on their functions and the people fell on heir faces in worship. And when Solomon had made an end of praying the fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the Lord filled the house. And the priests could not enter into the house of the Lord, because the glory of the Lord had filled the Lord’s house. (Second Chronicles 7:1-2) Our God is a supernatural God!

But for all that, in time people turned away from the temple. Sometimes the ruling class, the kings and their officers and associates were the worst offenders. Even Solomon, when he was old, was lured away from the Lord by his many pagan wives, whom he sought to please. Intrigue developed; the northern tribes split off from Judah and Benjamin, and began to worship golden calves. The rulers of the northern kingdom were basically apostates. Nor were the kings of Judah much better. However there were some Judean kings who sought the Lord’s direction, obeyed the commandments, and obtained divine assistance in desperate times. One of these was Hezekiah. And he (Hezekiah) did what was right in the sight of the Lord. (Second Kings 18:3) 

Ahaz, Hezekiah’s predecessor, had worshipped heathen gods, and sacrificed his children to them, and had done very wickedly in his reign. As a result Judah had been invaded repeatedly, and a number of its citizens carried away captive by the neighboring countries.  When Hezekiah came to the throne succeeding Ahaz he found the house of the Lord neglected and in disarray, dirty and filled with rubbish. Right away he assembled the Levites And said to them, Hear me ye Levites, sanctify yourselves and sanctify the house of the Lord God of your fathers, and carry forth the filthiness out of the holy place. For our fathers have trespassed and done that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord and have forsaken him and have turned away their faces from the habitation of the Lord and turned their backs . . . Wherefore the wrath of the Lord was upon Judah and Jerusalem and he hath delivered them to trouble . . . Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel that his fierce wrath may turn from us . . . And the priests went into the inner part of the house of the Lord to cleanse it, and brought out all the uncleanness that they found in the temple of the Lord into the court of the house of the Lord. And the Levites took it, to carry it out abroad into the brook Kidron. It took the priests and eighteen Levites and their brethren of which we have no number, eight days to clean and sanctify the temple. For shame! (Second Chronicles 29:5-17) Note here the rubbish was not taken far off, but to the brook Kidron. I can’t help wondering if the temple had been situated where the Dome of the Rock now stands, would they have gone to the trouble to carry the trash all the way to the brook — round trip probably more than a mile. Probably not.

This wonderful old book illustration shows worshippers and their sacrificial animals going up to Jerusalem (presumably) from the Gihon spring.

I have made my point; however Hezekiah’s story is worth the re-telling and so we continue. After the purification of the Lord’s house Hezekiah sent word to all the tribes, even to the northern tribes who had earlier broken away from Judah, inviting them to the feast of unleavened bread. A multitude of people from all Israel came. It was such a joyous occasion that when the feast was over, they elected to add another week to the festivities. After that the people went out and destroyed the heathen worship places before they went back to their homes.

In case you are wondering … Yes! This is the same Hezekiah of Hezekiah’s tunnel, that famous waterway in Jerusalem that is mentioned in the Gihon Spring section of this post. When the king of Assyria had in mind to invade the nation of Judah Hezekiah heard of it. He began to prepare his city for that possibility. At that time, the Bible says, he stopped the fountains and closed the Gihon spring exit (the brook, where they took the rubbish), turning the water into an underground tunnel whose exit was inside the city wall, so as to deprive the Assyrians of water, should they attack Jerusalem. He built up and strengthened the city wall, and made shields and weapons and organized the soldiers for war.

Sure enough, before long the king of Assyria sent his servant with a message to taunt and threaten Hezekiah and the people of Judah. The Assyrians made a gross error however, in that they spoke against the Almighty saying: Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive thee, saying Jerusalem shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria. Behold thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly: and shalt thou be delivered? (Second Kings 19:10-11) When Hezekiah received this message from the Assyrian king’s servant he went to the temple and prayed earnestly for deliverance from the Assyrians. In a little while Hezekiah received word from the prophet Isaiah that God had heard his prayer and that God himself would prevent the Assyrians from harming Jerusalem. And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred, fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. So Sennacherib King of Assyria departed. (Second Kings 19:35-36)

photo by
Dietmar Rabich
Wikimedia Commons

Continuing on we read that later Hezekiah was sick. Again Isaiah came. This time Isaiah told him the Lord had said to get his house in order that he was going to die. In response to this the scriptures say that Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and that he cried and prayed. Then the Lord changed his mind and sent Isaiah back to tell him that he would heal him. The Lord said he would add fifteen years to his life, and that furthermore he would deliver Jerusalem from the Assyrians. Hezekiah then asked for a sign from the Lord that he would do what he promised. Here the prophet asked him, Shall the shadow (sundial) go forward ten degrees or go back ten degrees? Hezekiah said he wanted it to go back. And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the Lord; and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward. (Second Kings 20:9-11)  This was the second time the Lord in his wisdom altered the spinning of the heavenly orbs for one of his servants. See Joshua Chapter 10 for the story of how the sun stood still for Joshua. They laid a lump of figs on Hezekiah (he had a boil). Hezekiah’s sickness was healed and he lived fifteen more years.

. . . . . . .

Now we have looked at the Akra, the Temple, and the Gihon spring. As promised in the first edition of this post, here is a map that depicts the topography of the ancient Jebusite city of Salem and the high area to the north as it was when King David and his men took the city. The dot on the map is the approximate location of the Gihon spring. The Jebusites had waterways from the spring, but they are not shown. The numbering of the contours is in meters above sea level; the interval is 10 meters.  The rise in the far north represents the area of the Roman fortress, now occupied by the Dome of the Rock. The middle rise going south is my opinion of the approximate location of the temples. The southernmost hump represents what I believe to be the area of David’s citadel, the Akra, which land feature Simon the Hasmonean high priest and the citizens of Jerusalem dug down and dumped into the Tyropean and Kidron valleys.

God Bless You! It’s Easter! He is risen!

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