Why Jerusalem?

In Luke 21 Jesus tells his disciples, “When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near.  For this is the time of punishment in fulfillment of all that has been written. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.” And in Matthew 23 he says, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

Jesus is making several prophecies, but two concern us here: ‘Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled’ and ‘you will not see me again until you say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”’

Both feature Jerusalem. So, Christians, let me ask you:  Why Jerusalem? What is its importance? Psalm 125:3 reads, As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people both now and forevermore.

It seems to me that Jerusalem is a very important place to the Lord.

It is also a very hilly place, I should say mountainous because the Hebrew word used in psalm 125 is HAR, mountain. TEL is the Hebrew for hill as in Tel Aviv, Spring Hill. One of these mountains of Jerusalem is called Mount Zion. This is where the word Zionism comes from, the movement for a national home for the Jewish people in their ancestral land. Their actual temple was built on a nearby mountain called Mount Moriah, the mountain where Abraham was asked by God to sacrifice his son Isaac (Genesis 22,2).

When Jerusalem is first mentioned in the Bible in Genesis 14 it is called Salem. ^“And Melchizedek, the king of Salem, priest of God Most High brought out bread and wine.  And he blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Maker of heaven and earth”.

Hebrew is a consonant, Semitic language, thus Salem is written S L M or שלמ(read from right to left.)

In Hebrew consonant patterns follow themes. SLM means to Destroy the Authority of Chaos. In the four examples below, note also that the Hebrew letter M in English, has a different form at the end of a word. A similar consonant pattern is observed in the words ISLaM and MuSLiM because Hebrew and Arabic are related languages.    

שלמ (SLM)

יְרוּשָׁלַיִם   Jerusalem

שָׁלֵ֔ם         Salem

שלום        Shalom

שְׁלֹמֹה֙      Solomon

By the time of Joshua, 500 or 600 years after Abraham, the city is called Jerusalem. Psalm 76 provides the link with Salem.  ^‘God is renowned in Judah; in Israel his name is great.  His tent is in Salem, his dwelling place in Zion.’

So much for Salem. What about Jeru?

Sources argue. I believe it is important not to impose modern thinking on ancient thought and ancient languages. Classical Greek, for example, which modern scholars are very familiar with, nevertheless has verbs with no equivalent in English. Hebrew is far more ancient than Greek – it’s even in another language family – so its grammar is very different and the meanings can’t be sourced by modern rationalism. I mention this to guard against jumping to conclusions. I’ve read various proposals for Jeru and one believes that it comes from the Hebrew YIREH (Genesis 22,14) and means ‘to manifest his life’, referring to God. https://www.calebsjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Jerusalem-Identified.pdf

Now let’s get back to Jesus and Jerusalem. In the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus seems to preach mostly around Galilee (Isaiah 9,1), only returning to Jerusalem before the Crucifixion. However, John’s gospel mentions Jesus during his ministry going to Jerusalem for Passover three times, then once for Chanukah, once for the Feast of Tabernacles, and once for another festival. After the Resurrection he tells the apostles that their mission to preach repentance and forgiveness of sins will begin in Jerusalem. The birth of the church at Pentecost with the arrival of the Holy Spirit also happened in Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem in Revelation 21 and 22 where God will dwell with his people, comes down from heaven like a bride adorned for her husband. It seems a very Jewish place.  ‘The city had a great high wall with twelve gates with twelve angels at the gates, and on each gate was written the name of one of the twelve tribes of Israel.’ (21,12 )

Jesus predicted that the gentiles would trample upon Jerusalem but also that this time would come to an end. Many Christians say it ended in 1967 when Israel captured the Old City during the Six Day War. Jesus also predicted that his fellow Jews who had rejected him would one day say ‘blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’. The Mount of Olives just outside Jerusalem (to its east) is mentioned as the place of Jesus’ return but also figures prominently at the end of time in Zechariah 14.

So I wonder Why Jerusalem? But then, I’m no theologian, I’m just discussing evidence that I find interesting. King David conquered Jerusalem around 1000 BC. But a thousand years before that, when God was establishing his covenant with Abraham, we have the enigmatic figure of Melchizedek, King of Salem, who seemed on very good terms with God because he was described as priest of God Most High.

For all of these reasons, I have trouble thinking of Jerusalem as anything but the city of the God of the Jews. Jesus was a Jew and whatever the Crusaders might have believed, there is nothing in the scriptures that says Jerusalem is a Christian city and nothing in history that pronounces it Muslim either. Mohammed was dead before the Arabs even conquered it. There can be no arguing about Jerusalem. Whoever lives there must live in peace.