B) JAMES, “THE LORD’S BROTHER”
IV. GENERAL TOPOGRAPHY OF JERUSALEM
Under the present surface it is here separated from the temple summit by a deep rocky trench.
The central, or central-eastern, summit is that appearing as es Sakhra, the sacred temple rock, which is 2,404 ft. high. This is the highest point from which the ground rapidly falls East, West, and South, but the natural contours of the adjacent ground are much obscured by the great substructures which have been made to sustain the temple platform.
The sloping, southeastern, hill, South of the temple area appears today, at any rate, to have a steady fall of from 2,350 ft. just South of the Charam southern wall to a little over 2,100 ft. near the Pool of Siloam. It is a narrow ridge running in a somewhat curved direction, with a summit near 200 ft. above the Kidron and 100 ft. above the bed of the Tyropeon. In length it is not more than 600 yards, in width, at its widest, only 150 yards, but its chief feature, its natural strength, is today greatly obscured on account of the rubbish which slopes down its sides and largely fills up its surrounding valleys. In earlier times, at least three of its sides were protected by deep valleys, and probably on quite two-thirds of its circumference its summit was surrounded by natural rocky scarps.
According to Professor Guthe, this hill is divided from the higher ground to the North by a depression 12 ft. deep and 30-50 yards wide, but this has not been confirmed by other observers. The city covering so hilly a site as this must ever have consisted, as it does today, of houses terraced on steep slopes’ with stairways for streets.
feature, the bisection of the city-site into two main hills. Farther on, however, in the same passage — one, it must be admitted, of some obscurity — Josephus distinguishes 5 distinct regions:
(1) The Upper City or Upper Market Place:
(The hill) “which sustains the upper city is much higher and in length more direct. Accordingly, it was called the citadel ([frou>rion, phrourion]) of King David .... but it is by us called the Upper Market Place.” This is without dispute the southwestern hill.
(2) Akra and Lower City:
“The other hill, which was called Akra, and sustains the lower city, was double-curved” ([ajmfi>kurtov, amphikurtos]). The description can apply only to the semicircular shape of the southeastern hill, as viewed from the
“upper city.” These names, “Akra” and “Lower City,” are, with reservations, therefore, to be applied to the southeastern hill.
(3) The Temple Hill:
Josephus’ description here is curious, on account of its indefiniteness, but there can be no question as to which hill he intends. He writes: “Over against this is a third hill, but naturally lower than the Akra and parted formerly from the other by a fiat valley. However, in those times when the Hasmoneans reigned, they did away with this valley, wishing to connect the city with the temple; and cutting down the summit of the Akra, they made it lower, so that the temple might be visible over it.” Comparison with other passages shows that this “third hill” is the central-eastern — the
“Temple Hill.”
(4) Bezetha:
“It was Agrippa who encompassed the parts added to the old city with this wall (i.e. the third wall) which had been all naked before; for as the city grew more populous, it gradually crept beyond its old limits, and those parts of it that stood northward of the Temple, and joined that hill to the city, made it considerably larger, and occasioned that hill which is in number the fourth, and is called `Bezetha,’ to be inhabited also. It lies over against the tower Antonia, but is divided from it by a deep valley, which was dug on purpose. .... This new-built part of the city was called
`Bezetha’ in our language, which, if interpreted in the Greek language, may be called the `New City.’ “ This is clearly the northeastern hill.
(5) The Northern Quarter of the City:
From the account of the walls given by Josephus, it is evident that the northern part of his “first wall” ran along the northern edge of the southwestern hill; the second wall enclosed the inhabited part of the northwestern hill. Thus Josephus writes: “The second wall took its beginning from the gate which they called Gennath in the first wall, and enclosing, the northern quarter only reached to the Antonia.” This area is not described as a separate hill, as the inhabited area, except on the South, was defined by no natural valleys, and besides covering the northwestern hill, must have extended into the Tyropeon valley.
2. Summary of the Names of the Five Hills:
Here then we have Josephus’ names for these five districts:
(1) Southwestern Hill:
Southwestern Hill, “Upper City” and “Upper Market Place”; also the Summary [Phrourion], or “fortress of David.” From the 4th century AD, this hill has also been known as “Zion,” and on it today is the so-called
“Tower of David,” built on the foundations of two of Herod’s great towers.
(2) Northwestern Hill:
“The northern quarter of the city.” This district does not appear to have had any other name in Old Testament or New Testament, though some of the older authorities would place the “Akra” here (see infra). Today it is the “Christian quarter” of Jerusalem, which centers round the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
(3) Northeastern Hill:
“Bezetha” or “New City,” even now a somewhat sparsely inhabited area, has no name in Biblical literature.
(4) Central-eastern Hill:
The “third hill” of Josephus, clearly the site of the Temple which, as Josephus says (BJ, V, v), “was built upon a strong hill.” In earlier times it
was the “threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” On the question whether it has any claims to be the Moriah of <012202>Genesis 22:2, as it is called in <140301>2 Chronicles 3:1, see MORIAH. The temple hill is also in many of the
Hebrew writings called Zion, on which point see ZION.
(5) Southeastern Hill:
This Josephus calls “Akra” and “Lower City,” but while on the one hand these names require some elucidation, there are other names which have at one period or another come to be applied to this hill, namely, “City of David,” “Zion” and “Ophel.” These names for this hill we shall now deal with in order.
3. The Akra:
In spite of the very definite description of Josephus, there has been considerable difference of opinion regarding the situation of the “Akra.”
Various parts of the northwestern, the northeastern, the southeastern hills, and even the central-eastern itself, have been suggested by earlier
authorities, but instead of considering the various arguments, now largely out of date, for other proposed sites, it will be better to deal with the positive arguments for the southeastern hill. Josephus states that in his day the term “Akra” was applied to the southeastern hill, but in references to the earlier history it is clear that the Akra was not a whole hill, but a definite fortress ([a]kra, akra] = “fortress”).
(1) It was situated on the site, or on part of the site, which was considered in the days of the Maccabees to have been the “City of David.” Antiochus Epiphanes (168 BC), after destroying Jerusalem,
“fortitled the city of David with a great and strong wall, with strong towers and it became unto them an Akra” (1 Macc 1:33-36). The formidable fortress — known henceforth as “the Akra” — became a constant menace to the Jews, until at length, in 142 BC, it was captured by Simon, who not only razed the whole fortress, but, according to Josephus (Ant., XIII, vi, 7; B J, V, iv, 1), actually cut down the hill on which it stood. He says that “they all, labouring zealously, demolished the hill, and ceasing not from the work night and day for three whole years, brought it to a level and even slope, so that the Temple became the highest of all after the Akra and the hill upon which it was built had been removed” (Ant., XIII, vi, 7). The fact that at the time of Josephus this hill was evidently lower than the temple hill
is in itself sufficient argument against any theory which would place the Akra on the northwestern or southwestern hills.
(2) The Akra was close to the temple (1 Macc 13:52), and from its walls the garrison could actually overlook it (1 Macc 14:36). Before the hill was cut down it obscured the temple site (same place) . (3) It is identified by Josephus as forming part, at least, of the lower city, which (see below) bordered upon the temple (compare BJ, I, i, 4;
V, iv, 1; vi, 1).
(4) The Septuagint identifies the Akra with Millo (<100509>2 Samuel 5:9;
<110915>
1 Kings 9:15-24; <143205>
2 Chronicles 32:5).
Allowing that the original Akra of the Syrians was on the southeastern hill, it is still a matter of some difficulty to determine whereabouts it stood, especially as, if the statements of Josephus are correct, the natural
configuration of the ground has been greatly altered. The most prominent point upon the southeastern hill, in the neighborhood of Gihon, appears to have been occupied by the Jebusite fortress of ZION (which see), but the site of the Akra can hardly be identical with this, for this became the “City of David,” and here were the venerated tombs of David and the Judean kings, which must have been destroyed if this hill was, as Josephus states, cut down. On this and other grounds we must look for a site farther north.
Sir Charles Watson (PEFS, 1906, 1907) has produced strong
topographical and literary arguments for placing it where the al Aqsa mosque is today; other writers are more inclined to put it farther south, somewhere in the neighborhood of the massive tower discovered by Warren on the “Ophel” wall (see MILLO). If the account of Josephus, written two centuries after the events, is to be taken as literal, then Watson’s view is the more probable.
4. The Lower City:
Josephus, as we have seen, identified the Akra of his day with the Lower City. This latter is not a name occurring in the Bible because, as will be shown, the Old Testament name for this part was “City of David.” That by Lower City Josephus means the southeastern hill is shown by many facts.
It is actually the lowest part of the city, as compared with the “Upper City,” Temple Hill and the Bezetha; it is, as Josephus describes, separated from the Upper City by a deep valley — the Tyropeon; this southeastern
hill is “double-curved,” as Josephus describes, and lastly several passages in his writings show that the Lower City was associated with the Temple on the one end and the Pool of Siloam at the other (compare Ant, XIV, xvi, 2; BJ, II, xvii, 5; IV, ix, 12; VI, vi, 3; vii, 2).
In the wider sense the “Lower City” must have included, not only the section of the city covering the southeastern hill up to the temple precincts, where were the palaces (BJ, V, vi, 1; VI, vi, 3), and the homes of the well- to-do, but also that in the valley of the Tyropeon from Siloam up to the
“Council House,” which was near the northern “first wall” (compare BJ, V, iv, 2), a part doubtless inhabited by the poorest.
5. City of David and Zion:
It is clear (<100507>2 Samuel 5:7; <131105>1 Chronicles 11:5) that the citadel “Zion”
of the Jebusites became the “City of David,” or as G. A. Smith calls it,
“David’s Burg,” after its capture by the Hebrews. The arguments for placing “Zion” on the southeastern hill are given elsewhere (see ZION), but a few acts relevant especially to the “City of David” may be mentioned here: the capture of the Jebusite city by means of the gutter (<100508>
2 Samuel 5:8), which is most reasonably explained as “Warren’s Shaft” (see VII); the references to David’s halt on his flight (<101523>2 Samuel 15:23), and his
sending Solomon to Gihon to be crowned (<110133>1 Kings 1:33), and the common expression “up,” used in describing the transference of the Ark from the City of David to the Temple Hill (<110801>1 Kings 8:1; <140502>2 Chronicles 5:2; compare <110924>1 Kings 9:24), are all consistent with this view. More convincing are the references to Hezekiah’s aqueduct which brought the waters of Gihon “down on the west side of the city of David” (<143230>
2
Chronicles 32:30); the mention of the City of David as adjacent to the Pool of Shelah (or Shiloah; compare <230806>Isaiah 8:6), and the “king’s garden” in
<160315>Nehemiah 3:15, and the position of the Fountain Gate in this passage
and <161237>
Nehemiah 12:37; and the statement that Manasseh built “an outer wall to the City of David, on the west side of Gihon” in the [nachal], i.e.
the Kidron valley (<143314>2 Chronicles 33:14).
The name appears to have had a wider significance as the city grew.
Originally “City of David” was only the name of the Jebusite fort, but later it became equivalent to the whole southeastern hill. In the same way, Akra was originally the name of the Syrian fort, but the name became extended to the whole southeastern hill. Josephus looks upon “City of David” and
“Akra” as synonymous, and applies to both the name “Lower City.” For the names Ophel and Ophlas see OPHEL.