Jerusalem: 3000 years old.

A busy Sunday morning and the streets of Jerusalem were a buzz with excitement-quite to my surprise. I expected the usual American “Easy like Sunday morning” to be a world-wide feeling. It’s all I’ve ever known. The foreign buzz is due to the fact we made our way through the Jewish quarter first—an area that respects Sunday as the first day of the week, the workweek that is. The Jewish quarter of Jerusalem has a high level of archeological excavation, much higher than the other three, because it is the newest quarter, only dating back to 1960-70’s. This has allowed many modern archeological digs before the buildings went up. Here I came upon a section of the ruins from the old wall built during the reign of King Hezekiah around 560 B.C. It was exposed below me, in a 30’ wide chasm 20’ deep, separating modern streets. Having stood 12’ wide by 26-30’ high, it was build around the western hill to the Jaffa gate, and then took a 90 degree turn due east back to the previously fortified temple mount. Incredible. King Hezekiah built this wall with great haste in preparation for a siege by Sennacherib, King of Persia according to the Biblical account in 2 Chronicles 32:1-5. The wall was built with such great haste that the Israelites tore down newly built homes in order to make way for the wall itself. I then proceeded south on Kardo street. An ancient road built North, South by the Romans (300-500 A.D.) lined by a grand colonnade and shops on both sides. Found on this street is the oldest map of Jerusalem. Found in Mibda, it dates back to 550 A.D. and is made entirely out of mosaic tiles.

Continuing on, we passed through the Zion gate on the south-western side of Jerusalem. The name of the gate is literally, “To point” and implies God’s pointing to Jerusalem as His city. Isaiah 60:18 says, “You will call your walls salvation and your gates praise.” The prophet is believed to be talking directly about the gate here. This prophecy has not held true, because Jerusalem has been torn by war as part of God’s judgment on Israel. While we paused at the gate, we noted the scar-like pelting of bullets on the wall, and as the future met the past, a group of Israeli soldiers passed by the gate in front of us indicative of constant turmoil since Isaiah’s days.

Next stop, church of the Dormition (late 1800’s), this is the featured land mark of the western hill. The traditional site for the last supper is here, and below is the tomb of David-neither of which are verifiable, but they serve as historical tokens to the past. On a doctrinal note, the last supper intended to help the Jews understand that Jesus was the symbolic promised Passover lamb. In fact, he was saying take this bread and this cup “in remembrance of me” fulfilling the Passover, because I am the lamb that is slain! (Luke 22:7-20)

We then passed through a catholic cemetery overlooking the Hinnom valley, past some ritual baths, and to the City of David. Here we found the Step Stone Structure. It is the largest remnant of Israeli architecture, built in the late bronze era. Further down the eastern hill, Hezekiah built the water gate as a protection for the Gihon spring. We then proceeded to Warren’s shaft, which is a deep hole which could have been used by the Philistines before David’s reign to get to the Gihon spring at the bottom, mentioned in 2 Chronicles 2:30. I then went down to Hezekiah’s tunnel which was built in order to sustain Sennacherib’s second siege to hide the water source from him. Amazement grips everyone who sees it, because there is no explanation for this ancient engineering feat. Over 1700’ long and only descending 12.5” it carries water through twists and turns from the Gihon spring to the pool of Siloam inside the city. It is an engineering marvel defying explanation.

We then continued outside the city to the well of Rogon at the intersection of the Hinnom and Kidron valleys in a small Arab town. The well is significant because Solomon was anointed there, but I didn’t hear much about it because I was busy keeping the Arabian kids away from the rest of our group. We then hiked back up the valley in order to survey some Roman style graves on the side of the hill just in time to have the Islamic evening call of prayer echoing over our heads a signal to head home. My Jerusalem journey was done for the day.