Written by Stephen Langfur
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The first Jerusalem and the City of David:
Historical Geography
[The following article deals with the first Jerusalem as seen from the Mount of Olives. For our more complete coverage, see here.]
We can locate the original Jerusalem from the Mt. of Olives. We must look south of the golden Dome of the Rock, to the left of the bend in the modern street, outside the present Old City walls. Three houses left of that bend, we find what was probably the northernmost point of the pre-Solomonic city (see photo, below). From there, that is, Jerusalem extended to the left (south), on the ridge. If the open palm of the right hand represents the Old City, then the original Jerusalem is the last two sections of the pinky.
 Note that the original Jerusalem was protected by deep valleys. These were the Kidron and an unnamed valley to its west (in Herod's time called the Tyropoeon or "Cheesemakers" Valley). It has been largely filled in by garbage and sewage, but in antiquity it was deep. A third valley stretched from the early city's southern tip westward. This is the Hinnom, Gai Benai Hinnom in Hebrew, which came to be called Gehenna (associated with hell). Thus the original Jerusalem, about 300 yards long by 80 wide, had excellent natural defenses on all sides except the north, where a saddle 12 feet deep linked it to the hill on which the temple would be built. This hill can be considered part of the plateau of Benjamin (to be discussed shortly).
Here is a view from the south:
Jerusalem had a spring, the Gihon or "gusher," which is located today in an opening just beneath the floor of the Kidron Valley. (The Kidron was 60 feet deeper in David's time.) The Gihon can supply about 2500 people.
Why wasn't the city on a higher hill? The answer, of course, is the spring. But that is not all. The hill had to be small enough so that the number of soldiers produced by the population would suffice to defend its wall.
Here is a view from the west:
It has become fashionable to point out what a tiny village Jerusalem was in the time of David and Solomon. Indeed the spur is small. Yet the city was already important enough 900 years before David to attract an Egyptian curse in the Execration Texts.
What made this first Jerusalem important? The answer includes two factors.
First, on its north side begins a plateau (10 miles south-to-north by 4 miles east-to-west). Since most of it belonged to the tribe of Benjamin, we can call it the Benjamin plateau. The southernmost good link road between the international trade routes here met the only north-south route in the central highlands. This road used an unbroken ridge (rare in these parts), ascending from the west through Beth Horon toward Gibeon on the plateau, then descending to Jericho and crossing the Jordan to Heshbon on the King's Highway.
The photograph (right) shows the western part of the ridge road, not included in the map above.
Armies coming from the west to attack Jerusalem tended to take this unbroken ridge road, reaching the plateau and turning south: for example, the Seleucids on their second attempt to squash the Maccabean revolt, the Romans under Cestius Gallus, the Crusaders, and the British in 1917.
Now we come to the second reason for Jerusalem's early importance. Many cities enjoyed the commercial advantages of the central Benjamin plateau: Bethel, Beeroth, Mizpah, Rama, Gibeon, Gibeah, while Jerusalem clung to its southern edge. But although these other towns were closer to the intersections, only Jerusalem had deep valleys for defense, as we have seen. (Perhaps, for this reason, it remained independent of the Israelite tribes until the arrival of David.)
Jerusalem's access to the Benjamin plateau, combined with its defensibility, were among the factors that led David to make it his capital.
David had other reasons too for choosing Jerusalem as his capital:
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| Choice of Jerusalem as capital |
After the death of Saul, the whole land was exposed to the Philistines. David, chief of a warrior band, went up to Hebron and ruled Judah. Hebron is ideally situated for controlling the southern quarter of the central highlands, but no more than that. After seven years, in response to the Philistine threat, the other tribes asked David to rule over them. Hebron would not be suitable as a capital for such an expanded kingdom: it lay too far south, and its connection with the north was tenuous. Now David cast his eye on Jerusalem: it bordered his home tribe of Judah, and it gave him access to the Benjamin plateau. From here he could connect to all points.
In addition, Jerusalem was a Jebusite city: it did not already belong to any Israelite tribe, and none would have reason for envy.
So David conquered Jerusalem and made it his capital. Solomon built the Temple there. This was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC but restored 70 years later by returning Jewish exiles. In 23 BC, Herod began to rebuild it in grander style. To this city and its Temple Jesus made pilgrimage around 30 AD, followed by the many pilgrims who came in his footsteps starting 300 years later. Several centuries after that, Muslims identified Jerusalem as the place of Muhammad's ascent into heaven. All these traditions have led to the growth of the metropolis that we see before us today.
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