Why is Jerusalem important in the Bible?

Jerusalem sits on a ridge in the Judean hills, about 750 meters above the Mediterranean, with deep valleys on three sides: the Kidron to the east and the Hinnom to the south and west. It is not on a great river or a major trade road. Its strength was its position and, above all, its water: the Gihon spring at the foot of the eastern slope, which made a city possible on that narrow hill.

The oldest part of the city is a small spur running south from today's Temple Mount, known in the Bible as the stronghold of Zion and the City of David. From there Jerusalem grew north onto the higher ground where the temple stood, and later west across the central valley. For most of the biblical period it was a modest city by the standards of Babylon or Nineveh. Its importance was never its size. It was the place God chose for his name to dwell, and the Bible returns to it more than to any other city.

Salem and Moriah. Abraham meets Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of God Most High, who blesses him with bread and wine (Genesis 14:18); a psalm later uses Salem as a name for Zion (Psalms 76:2). Chronicles places Solomon's temple on Mount Moriah (2 Chronicles 3:1), the region where Abraham was sent to offer Isaac (Genesis 22:2).

David's city. For generations the town belonged to the Jebusites. David took it and made it his capital, a neutral city between the northern and southern tribes (2 Samuel 5:6), and brought the ark of the covenant up with dancing (2 Samuel 6:12).

The temple. Solomon built the temple, and at its dedication prayed that God, whom even the heavens cannot contain, would hear every prayer offered toward that house (1 Kings 8:27). The psalms of ascent picture pilgrims climbing to the city with joy (Psalms 122:1).

Exile and return. The prophets warned that the city's injustice and idolatry would bring judgment. In 586 BC the Babylonians burned the temple and the walls (2 Kings 25:8). Two generations later Cyrus allowed the exiles home to rebuild (Ezra 1:1), and Nehemiah led the rebuilding of the walls (Nehemiah 6:15).

Jesus' last week. Jesus was brought to the temple as a baby and taught there at twelve (Luke 2:41). Near the end he rode into the city on a donkey, wept over it (Luke 19:41), cleared the temple courts, ate the Passover with his disciples, prayed in Gethsemane, and was crucified outside the city wall. On the third day the tomb was empty.

Pentecost. The risen Jesus told his followers to wait in Jerusalem, and from there the gospel would go to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).

Jerusalem has been excavated for more than 150 years, though digging in a living, sacred city is limited. On the City of David ridge, Kathleen Kenyon in the 1960s and Yigal Shiloh in the 1970s and 80s exposed terraces, houses and the massive Stepped Stone Structure. In 2005 Eilat Mazar uncovered a large building she proposed was David's palace; others date parts of it differently, and how large and important Jerusalem was in David's century remains one of the liveliest debates in the field.

Firmer ground comes later. Hezekiah's Tunnel, a winding channel more than 500 meters long carrying the Gihon's water inside the city, fits the Bible's note that Hezekiah brought water into Jerusalem (2 Kings 20:20). The Siloam Inscription, found in the tunnel in 1880 and now in Istanbul, describes the two teams of diggers meeting in the rock. It does not name a king, but most scholars date it to his reign. In 2004, during sewer repairs, Eli Shukron and Ronny Reich found steps of a large pool from the Second Temple period, widely identified with the Pool of Siloam where Jesus sent a blind man to wash (John 9:7).

Herod's Temple Mount platform still stands, and the Western Wall is part of its retaining wall. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre marks a tradition reaching back to the fourth century; excavations show the area was a quarry with rock-cut tombs outside the walls in Jesus' day, which fits the Gospels, though no one can prove the exact spot. The Garden Tomb, proposed in the nineteenth century, is loved by many visitors, but most archaeologists date that tomb centuries before Jesus.

Jerusalem shows that God works in real places with real history. He chose an unremarkable hill town and tied his promises to it, yet he was never confined to it: Solomon himself confessed that no building could hold him, and Jesus told a Samaritan woman that true worship would not depend on a mountain or a city (John 4:21).

The city also shows how near holiness and failure can live. The same streets saw the temple's dedication and the prophets' tears, a king's repentance and a mob's cry for crucifixion. Jesus wept over Jerusalem before he died for it. And the Bible ends with a promise, not a ruin: a new Jerusalem coming down from God, where he lives with his people for ever (Revelation 21:2).