Jerusalem: The Legacy of Ancient Israel
By Dore Gold

Jerusalem emerges as both the political and religious capital of ancient Israel in the Hebrew Bible, which refers to the Holy City nearly 700 times. Jerusalem was also “the goodly mountain” that Moses saw from far across the Jordan River when he beseeched God to allow him to enter the Promised Land (Deut. 3:25). Consequently, the memory of Jerusalem and its key historic elements – the House of David (the Israelite dynasty established by King David, the first ruler of the united Kingdom of Israel) and the Temple (first built by David’s son, Solomon) – remained at the heart of the collective identity of the Jewish people for centuries, even after ancient Israel lost its independence. But the city’s unique importance in the development of Judaism is not limited to the early biblical period alone, for Jerusalem became permanently fixed in the hopes and prayers articulated by the prophets of Israel for the future of their nation.
It is essential to look back at the city’s biblical history to understand why, for three millennia, Jerusalem has remained central to the Jews’ spiritual aspirations and national unity. Before the reign of King David, Jerusalem was situated along the boundary separating the lands of the Israelite tribes of Benjamin and Judah. Although it was technically within the tribe of Benjamin’s territory, the city had not formally incorporated by any tribe and was still largely inhabited by the Jebusites, along with other Hittite and local peoples (Note: The tribe of Judah briefly captured Jerusalem just after the death of Joshua ben Nun, according to Judges 1:8, but consequently lost control of the city).
As a result, as the twelve tribes of Israel settled throughout Canaan, Jerusalem was one of the last areas left outside all of their jurisdictions. Thus the city provided a convenient neutral ground to serve as the Israelites’ united capital once King David captured it from the Jebusites in 1000 BCE. David believed the new capital could bind the tribes together as a single people under the authority of his newly created United Monarchy. So he situated himself there rather than in Hebron, where he had previously ruled over the tribe of Judah.
Undoubtedly, Jerusalem’s status as the Jewish people’s eternal national and spiritual focal point was not sealed until after David’s reign, when his son and successor, Solomon, constructed the Temple. He built this on Mt. Moriah, where Jewish tradition taught that Abraham had been tested generations earlier with the binding and near sacrifice of his son, Isaac. It was also where Jacob slept and dreamt of a ladder serving as the ling between heaven and earth (Genesis 28:11). The site seems to fulfill prophecy from Deuteronomy, which foreshadows the temple as Israel’s sole religious center: “But look only to the site that the Lord your God will choose amidst all your tribes as His habitation, to establish His name there” (12:5). For the ancient Israelites, the Temple linked the religious practices of the Davidic monarchy with the monotheistic legacy established centuries earlier by their ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and conveyed in revelation to Moses.
What was the Temple’s significance to the Israelites? In 1961, an ancient Judean tomb dating from 700 BCE was discovered with a Hebrew inscription that is one of the earliest testaments to the existence of the First temple. It read: “The (Mount of) Moriah Thou hast favored, the dwelling of Yah, YHWH.” In short, the Israelites viewed the Temple as the House of God. They never believed that God physically dwelled inside the Temple, as was the belief concerning gods of pagan temples, but rather that the Temple represented the early place where man could come closest to God. Indeed, the word in biblical Hebrew for the burnt offering made in Temple ceremonies was korban, which did not mean “sacrifice” but rather was derived from the word kirvah, or “closeness.” In later centuries, rabbinic literature would assert that the Temple was situated opposite the “Gate of Heaven.”
The idea that Jerusalem was home to the divine presence, or even brought the individual closer to that presence, was a powerful stimulant to both the development of the city and the unity of the Israelite nation. Worshipers flocked to the capital, where the Temple service bonded the people together in acts of religious piety. Pilgrims streamed to Jerusalem both for Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), when the nation’s sins were forgiven, and for three yearly festivals: Pesach (Passover), Shavuot (Pentecost), and Succot (Tabernacles). Indeed, to this day these holidays are known as the three pilgrimage festivals (Note: The Hebrew word for these pilgrimage festivals in Jerusalem, hag, closely resembles the Arabic word for the pilgrimage to Mecca, hajj, became one of the pillars of Islam centuries later).
The Temple of Solomon had two main functions. First, it served as the permanent home to the altar where the sacrificial service was conducted (according to biblical law this service was led by priests descended from Moses’ brother, Aaron). Additionally, a sanctuary within the Temple called the Holy of Holies housed the Ark of the Covenant containing the original Ten Commandments. In Hebrew, this area was called the debir (pronounced dvir) which, according to rabbinic literature, came from the same root as dibur (speech) and referred to the place where God God’s word went forth to the world. The Holy of Holies could only be entered once a year, and only by one person – the High Priest. Moreover, according to the Oral Law of Judaism, it was built over the even shetiyya (foundation stone) – the point at which the creation of the world began. This assertion would be incorporated into the Zohar (Book of Splendor), which serves as the foundation of Kabbalah, or Jewish mysticism. (Note: In Tractate Yoma of the Talmud (54:b), reference is made to the foundation stone as follows: “A stone was there in the Holy of Holies from the days of the early prophets, and it was called Shetiyah (foundation).
Thanks to the vital role played by its Temple in Jewish ritual, Jerusalem eclipsed all other Jewish religious sites and became the faith’s spiritual center. Even Mt. Sinai, where Moses received divine revelation, could not compete with Jerusalem, for it was the Ark of the Covenant and its sacred contents that retained the sanctity of the Sinai revelation. By housing the foundation stone and the Ark of the Covenant, the Temple linked together two moments of divine intervention on earth: the creation of the world and the revelation of the en Commandments at Sinai. It would tie the particularistic faith of the ancient Israelites to a universalistic mission. And because the Sanhedrin, the supreme legal body of ancient Israel, was housed on the temple Mount as well, the whole area linked the evolution of Judaistic common law, especially in the Second Temple period, with principles derived from divine revelation.
The Temple replaced the Tabernacle, or Tent of Meeting, as the focal point of Jewish ritual. The Tabernacle was a large tent in which the same Temple services were conducted while the Israelites were in the Sinai desert during the exodus from Egypt. Afterward, as the Israelites moved through canaaan, they established a number of temporary locations for the Tabernacle – Gilgal, Shiloh, Nov, and Giveon – before it finally came to rest in Jerusalem. If the Tabernacle’s portability symbolized the period of the Israelites’ wanderings, then the Temple represented the permanent home they planned for Jerusalem. The Prophet Isaiah stressed this point in his description of the Temple as “a tent that shall not be transported. Whose pegs shall never be pulled up and none of whose ropes shall break” (Isaiah 33:20).

(Dore Gold is the author of the New York Times bestseller Hatred’s Kingdom and the president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He served as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations from 1997 through 1999, was foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, has been a diplomatic envoy to the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, the Persian Gulf states, and the Palestinian Authority, and has been intimately involved in Arab-Israeli negotiations. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife and two children)

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Jerusalem: The Legacy of Ancient Israel By Dore Gold

Jerusalem: The Legacy of Ancient Israel
By Dore Gold