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The name "Zion" originally applied to the Jerusalem
that David conquered: I Sam. 5:7 "Nevertheless, David captured the
stronghold of Zion, that is the city of David." This original city was
located on a southern spur of the mountain where the Temple was later built.
After the city expanded to include a higher hill to its west, the
prophets, the prophets continued to use the name Zion as a synonym for
Jerusalem, e.g. Isaiah: "For out of Jerusalem will go forth a remnant, and out
of Mount Zion survivors." (2 Kings 19:31.)
However, in the Byzantine period (if not earlier), the term came
to mean just the western hill. The reason has to do with the way people read the
following verses from Micah (3:12):
Therefore, on account of you
Zion will be plowed as a field,
Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins,
And the mountain of the temple will become
high
places of a forest.
Often the prophets say the same thing consecutively in
different ways (a stylistic usage known as parallelism), but a pilgrim
from Bordeaux (333 AD:
our earliest Christian source describing the holy places) speaks of
coming "out of Jerusalem to go up Mount Zion," with the pool
of Siloam on the left. A few lines later cites the text from Micah. He
appears to have understood it as follows: Jerusalem is the whole thing.
We know that the mountain of the temple was the eastern hill. Zion must
refer, therefore, to Jerusalem's other, western hill. O'Connor
suggests that on the basis of such interpretations, the application of
the name contracted to the western hill.
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Although outside the present Old City wall, the part of the
western hill that we today call Mt. Zion was inside the wall in Jesus' time:
Sites on Mt. Zion include:
The Upper
Room
St. Peter in Gallicantu
©
2003
Near East Tourist Agency
(NET)
Text
© 2003 Stephen
Langfur
Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN
STANDARD BIBLE(r),
(c) Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977,
1995 by
The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
(www.Lockman.org)
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