For more than 2,000 years, the geographical focal point for the three Abrahamic religions has been Jerusalem. For Judaism, Jerusalem is where the temple, the house of God, is located. For Christians, it’s where Jesus, the Son of God, was crucified. And for Muslims, it’s where Mohammad was taken to heaven to receive his revelation.
As a result of these religious distinctions and the nature of being a city-state, Jerusalem has endured a lot. The city has been besieged, defended, sacked, conquered, repatriated and fought over by empires, people groups, and nations throughout history. Yet it still stands. Though many would call it a city of conflict these days, it’s widely considered THE holy city.
With all that has surrounded it throughout history, why did God choose Jerusalem? The simple answer is that God didn’t choose Jerusalem. He chose people. The complicated answer is that God chose people to thrust His relationship with His creation forward. As a result, locations were used in and out of the Holy Land, to convey importance, meaning, and detail.
In comparison, pagan religions have none of this. They were and are metaphors and similes at best. They explain life, but God created and grows life.
God is not a god of location, either. He repeatedly states that He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Which tells us that He is a God that values relationship over location. Despite this, Jerusalem kept showing up. So, if God chooses people, not locations, then what’s the deal with Jerusalem?
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How far back in history does Jerusalem go?
The first mention of Jerusalem, or the city of peace, is in Genesis 14:18, which states:
“Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was a priest of the God Most High.”
For those that don’t remember or haven’t read what happens in Genesis 14, here is a synopsis. The kings of the cities in the land of Canaan are at war with each other. Abraham’s nephew, Lot, gets captured by four kings who are in conflict with Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham goes out to rescue his nephew. He not only succeeds, but he also stops the war, which is why they celebrate.
Genesis 14 is the first mention, implicitly though, of the ancient city of Jerusalem. Its explicitly, the first mention of a tithe.
The time was around 2100 BCE. Evidence of the existence of complex societies have been found from this period. Cuneiform (clay tablet) documents found in the Mesopotamian city of Ur (Abraham’s birthplace) describe a thriving society.
In the land of Canaan, campsites and burial markers have been found dating to the same period. Large urban centers dating farther back have been discovered as well.
Although it is not explicitly stated, the place where Abraham gives the first tithe was not a barren hilltop. A city named Peace, ruled by a priest-king named Melchizedek, was there.
Who was Melchizedek?
Melchizedek was a man of God like Abraham. If you grew up in the church, you grew up hearing about Abraham but not Melchizedek. There is often a tendency to assume that Abraham was the only man of God at the time. Or that the land was empty and the mount called Moriah wasn’t named yet. Or that Jerusalem was settled by the Israelites later in the story. None of these things were true.
God chose Abraham. He also chose Melchizedek, which the author of Hebrews discusses. However, God has another purpose for Melchizedek. He is the priest-king who foreshadows the role of Jesus.
Jewish readers of Hebrews understood Melchizedek to be the priestly standard.
In Hebrews 7, the author discusses the fact that Abraham gave a tithe to Melchizedek. The priest-king was not a decedent of Abraham like the Levites were. He was outside the genetic bounds of the Israelites and therefore did not derive his role from the covenant or Levitical law.
For Jewish readers of Hebrews, Melchizedek himself and his priesthood had no beginning or end. This is because no genealogy is given. Genealogies are given or withheld for specific reasons. In this case, a lack of genealogy bestows Melchizedek with an eternal ordination. And therefore, a righteous priesthood.
The fact that Abraham gave Melchizedek a tenth of the plunder he received from battle is proof of this priesthood. Abraham acknowledged Melchizedek’s God-given authority.
From this discussion, we can see that the significance of Jerusalem isn’t the location. It’s the person at the location, Melchizedek.
God brought Moses to the City of Peace because of Melchizedek.
If a modern author were decomposing the structure of this story, he would call the meeting between Abraham and Melchizedek the inciting incident.
And then?
In Genesis 21, Isaac is born to Abraham and Sarah when they are both beyond the age of childbearing. In Genesis 22, God tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac as a burnt offering in the region of Moriah.
When the Bible refers to anything about Moriah, whoever the author is, he is referring to Jerusalem. Mount Moriah is where Solomon eventually builds the temple.
Archaeologists have found and uncovered a lot of ancient ruins from the time of and preceding Abraham. But these sites are often discovered under landscape that has gone untouched for thousands of years. Jerusalem is not like this.
Ancient Jerusalem is covered by layers upon layers of civilization. So, it’s difficult to say how large the city was at the time of Abraham. But it was certainly there because it was there in Genesis 14.
Before Abraham can follow through on the sacrifice of Isaac, God stops him. Then God provides a ram for Abraham to put in the place of his son Isaac on the altar.
The story of Abraham and Isaac has a lot of symbolism and connection to the crucifixion of Jesus. What is often missed is the location. And that is something to take note of. The references to Jerusalem in Genesis and Exodus aren’t by name.
Jerusalem is referred to by a pseudonym. The region of Moriah. The City of Peace. And in a little bit, a man and his threshing floor.
The point here is that God uses Jerusalem to establish a connection between important events. The Earlier events foreshadow later events.
It certainly sounds like God chose Jerusalem.
In both the tithe and sacrifice events, God leads Abraham to Jerusalem. However, at this point in history, there was nothing particularly important about the City of Peace. It wasn’t even the focal point of pagan worship, or conflict, or industry.
Throughout the Old Testament, Jesus is foreshadowed a lot.
In the stories above, the foreshadowing is done through action, vice poetry and prophesy. Like in Psalms and the book of Isaiah. The tithe and sacrifice were performed in and around Jerusalem. So, it’s no wonder that the crucifixion also occurs in Jerusalem.
In storytelling, themes and symbolism are relayed through devices that connect symbolic events. The symbolism is center stage, while the connections are in the background or are the stage itself.
In essence, Jerusalem is the stage, and the story of God and His people is the action taking place on it.
There was something God wanted His people to see and He used Jerusalem to help us see it. The significance of the city as holy is our doing.
In a moment, we’ll see that David is also lead to Mount Moriah, where he makes an announcement.
Nowhere in the Bible does God designate a location His or holy in and of itself. Ground becomes holy only in His presence. We see this in Exodus 3, where a bush and the ground surrounding it become holy because of God’s presence.
God does not possess. He dwells.
One theme that works its way through the entire Bible is the idea of God dwelling in us. This isn’t something that comes up until the New Testament, but it is something modeled in the Old testament.
In the book of Exodus, intricate details of the Tabernacle and all of the instruments of religious practice are given to Moses by God. The chapters are boring to read, and often misinterpreted as the establishment of legalistic religious practices. But this is not the case.
Ancient pagan religious practices were barbaric and satanic at best. Child sacrifice was common, which is why the event with Isaac comes across as a big deal in Genesis.
Pagan deities inhabited locations, objects, graven images, animals, and much more. You name it, they worshipped it and killed other humans to show loyalty.
God established religious laws to make the distinction between godly worship and pagan worship clear. Defined religious practices were needed so that more pressing matters could be attended to.
In the desert, God had the Israelites set up the Tabernacle to be His dwelling place among His people while they traveled.
The Tabernacle was torn down, packed up, transported, and reassembled on a routine basis. If the Tabernacle were perpetually holy, it could have never been moved.
What about the Ark of the Covenant, you ask? If it was fully holy, not even the Levites would have been able to touch it.
The lesson of the desert was that no tent, structure, object, or location is holy in and of itself. Only His presence makes holy.
The Tabernacle and the temple were places for God to reside among His people. And eventually, God would reside in us instead of the Tabernacle and the temple.
What happened to the Tabernacle in the Promised Land?
In Joshua 18, the Israelites meet to hand out the allotments. They set up the Tabernacle, but not in Jerusalem. They set up in a city named Shiloh.
Shiloh is north of Jerusalem, in the area allotted to Ephraim. It sits in the hill country, which is made up of hard limestone rock. Hills with deep v-cut valleys fill the area.
Travelers in the ancient world made their way through the area by taking the ridge route. This was a pathway or road that kept to the ridgeline as best as possible. To minimize traversing the v-cut valleys, travelers sought out saddles between the hills.
Shiloh was not an easy place to get to. And this is most likely why Joshua chose it.
Today the site at Shiloh is still under excavation. In 2019, the edges of the altar were discovered.
Joshua never broke camp at Shiloh. From the city in the hills, Joshua gave the tribes their allotments. Judah did not get Jerusalem. Instead, it went to the tribe of Benjamin. The Israelites failed to take Jerusalem and it remained in the hands of the Jebusites.
After Joshua, the Israelites entered into the period of the judges. They grumbled, and God finally gave the Israelites a king.
The bible does not say much about the Tabernacle until King Saul’s reign. Under the new king, the Tabernacle was moved to Nob, where Saul had the priests killed. He then moved the Tabernacle to his home town of Gibeah.
David establishes his Kingdom in Jerusalem.
Up and through Saul’s reign, Jerusalem was not part of the equation for the Israelites. Except that it and many other cities were a thorn in their side. The Israelites had failed to fully claim the Promised Land during the time of Joshua.
The first mention of Jerusalem during the period of the kings is when David kills Goliath. After taking the head off the giant, David brought it to Jerusalem (1 Samuel 17:54). Nothing is said about the reason for this, though.
For the first seven years of David’s reign, David kept his headquarters in Hebron while the Tabernacle sat in Gibeah.
David eventually laid siege to the Jebusite stronghold and captured Jerusalem. He then established his headquarters and palace there.
The bible does not explicitly tell us why he decided to take Jerusalem. Many scholars have made the argument that he was looking to finish claiming the Promised Land.
Another argument is this. Jerusalem is a well-placed city. Like Shiloh, it sits on top of hard limestone rock. Surrounding hills and v-cut valleys also fortify Jerusalem from attacks. In addition to this military advantage, Jerusalem was and is more centrally located than Shiloh.
The Temple is built in Jerusalem.
In 1 Chronicles 21:18-30 and 2 Samuel 24:18-25, David receives direction from the prophet Gad. David goes to Araunah, the Jebusite, and builds an altar on his threshing floor.
If we were paying attention, which we were, we know that the Jebusites formerly had possession of Jerusalem. This means that the threshing floor David built the altar on was somewhere in or around Jerusalem.
David bought the floor and all the animals associated with giving a sacrifice. He made a sacrifice to God. David then stated, “the house of the LORD God is to be here, and also the altar of burnt offering for Israel.”
So, God lead Abraham to Mount Moriah to make a sacrifice. But it was David who proclaimed where God’s house would be.
During his reign, King Solomon built the temple on the spot where David made his sacrifice. The mount on which the temple sat is also known as Mount Moriah.
There is no reason provided for why God directs David to build the altar on this location. However, there is a future event which will usher in a new era for God’s relationship with His people.
At this point, the significance of the temple is two-fold. It brings to completion the intention to build God a permanent dwelling place among His people. And, it develops the stage on which Jesus’s sacrifice will play out.
Ultimately, God chose a relationship with His creation. He used locations to do this. Jerusalem may have been the main stage, but it was also one of many stages where His story played out.
What you will find in Jerusalem today.
The City of David archaeological dig (direct link) is small compared to the Temple Mount, but it’s fascinating. To date, the Gihon Spring and Hezekiah’s tunnel have been found, as well as Nehemiah’s wall. A ruinous structure that could have been David’s palace has been uncovered as well.
The Temple Mount is much younger in comparison to the City of David dig. The large stone slabs at the base of the mount are from the Herodian era, or Second Temple period.
Most of what you will find in and around the Temple Mount date back to the first-century Roman occupation.
Muslim control of the Temple Mount has proved to be problematic. Archaeologists and the Israel Antiquities Authority have desired for decades to see the inside the Temple Mount. Access is strictly prohibited.
In 1999, Muslim construction inside the Temple Mount began. Truckloads of dirt and debris were dumped outside the Old City, prompting archaeologists to rush to the scene.
The Israeli government was able to stop the construction. In 2005, with the help of volunteers, archaeologists began sifting through the dumping ground. Artifacts dating back to the first temple period were discovered and logged.
Scholars widely assume that Herod razed the top of Mount Moriah to rebuild the temple. As a result, archaeologists are curious to find what is inside the Temple Mount.
Are the ruins of an altar waiting to be discovered? Is the layout of the first temple hidden underneath a layer of dirt or construction material?
With modern Jerusalem sitting on top of most of the ancient city, the Temple Mount offers the biggest opportunity for exploration. However, it is most likely the case that whatever was there has been destroyed by the recent construction.
