2 The Sieges of Jerusalem, and the Fortunes of Its Walls
“In considering the annals of the city of Jerusalem,” says Mr W. Aldis Wright, “nothing strikes one so forcibly as the number and severity of the sieges which it underwent. We catch our earliest glimpse of it in the brief notice of the first chapter of Judges, which describes how ‘the children of Judah smote it with the edge of the sword, and set the city on fire;’ and almost the latest mention of it in the New Testament is contained in the solemn warnings in which Christ foretold how Jerusalem should be compassed with armies, and the abomination of desolation be seen standing in the Holy Place. In the fifteen centuries which elapsed between these two points, the city was besieged no fewer than seventeen times; twice it was razed to the ground, and on two other occasions its walls were levelled. In this respect it stands without a parallel in any city ancient or modern.”
The first siege appears to have taken place soon after the death of Joshua. The men of Judah and Simeon “fought against it and took it, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and set the city on fire” (Judges i. 8). Josephus adds that the siege lasted some time, and that the part of the city captured at last was “the lower,” but that the part above them21 was so difficult, by reason of its walls and from the nature of the place, that they relinquished their attempt upon it. As long as the strongest part of the city remained in the hands of the Jebusites they practically had possession of the whole. The Benjamites followed the men of Judah to Jerusalem, but they could not drive out the Jebusites (Judges i. 21). A Jebusite city it remained until the days of David.
Jerusalem was taken by David, circa 1044 B.C. He took the castle of Zion, which is the City of David, and dwelt in the castle (2 Sam. v. 6; 1 Chron. xi. 4). Then David built round about, from Millo and inward, and Joab repaired the rest of the city.
As long as Solomon lived the visits of foreign powers to Jerusalem were those of courtesy and amity; but with his death this was changed. Rehoboam had only been on the throne four years when Shishak, king of Egypt, invaded Judah, and advanced against the capital. Rehoboam opened the gates to him, and Shishak did not depart without plundering the temple and the palace. B.C. 886.
In the reign of Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, the Philistines and Arabians attacked Jerusalem, broke into the palace, spoiled it of all its treasures, sacked the royal harem, and killed or carried off the king’s wives and all his sons but one. This was the fourth siege. B.C. 881.
Amaziah, king of Judah, victorious over the Edomites, was foolish enough to challenge Jehoash, king of Israel. The battle took place at Bethshemesh of Judah, 12 miles west of Jerusalem. Amaziah was routed, and the victorious Jehoash, after the gates of Jerusalem had been thrown open to him, broke down 400 cubits length of wall, from the Corner Gate to the Gate of Ephraim. (This must have been at the north-west part of the city walls, the favourite point of attack in after times.) B.C. 857.
King Uzziah, after some campaigns against foreign princes, devoted himself to the care of Jerusalem. He rebuilt the wall broken down by Jehoash, and fortified it with towers. In Uzziah’s reign the city suffered from an earthquake; a serious breach was made in the Temple, and below the city a large fragment was detached from one of the hills and rolled down the slope, overwhelming the king’s paradise or park. B.C. 770.
The hill above En Rogel was called Ophel, and might be otherwise described as the slope south of the Temple. The royal palaces were there, and it was protected by a strong wall. We have no record of the first erection of this wall; but Jotham, the son of Uzziah, built much upon it, and also built the upper gateway to the Temple (2 Chron. xxvii. 3). According to Josephus, he also repaired the city walls wherever they were dilapidated, and strengthened them by very large and strong towers. B.C. 740.
Before the death of Jotham the clouds of the Syrian invasion began to gather, and they broke on the head of Ahaz, his successor. Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, king of Israel, joined their armies and invested Jerusalem (2 Kings xvi. 5). In a battle which took place outside the walls Ahaz was defeated. This induced him to send to Assyria and obtain help from Tiglath Pileser, whose vassal he became, and whose sun-worship he adopted. B.C. 730.
And now approached the greatest crisis that had yet occurred in the history of the city. Hezekiah reformed the worship and declined to be a dependent on Assyria. Sennacherib had succeeded Tiglath Pileser, and the dreaded Assyrian army approached. Hezekiah stopped the springs round Jerusalem, repaired the walls of the city, breaking down houses to get the material—even raised the wall in some places up to the towers; and built a second wall at some exposed part, and strengthened Millo (2 Kings xx. 20; 2 Chron. xxxii. 3–5, 30; Isaiah xxii. 10). On this occasion it would appear that the city escaped, but at the cost of the treasures of the palace and the temple. B.C. 700.
In the middle of the long reign of Manasseh Jerusalem was taken by Assur-bani-pal, the grandson of Sennacherib, B.C. 650.
But Manasseh, in the latter part of his reign, sought to repair and strengthen the city. He built a fresh wall, extending “from the west side of Gihon-in-the-valley to the Fish Gate;” and he also continued the works which had been begun at Ophel, and raised the structure to a very great height. B.C. 640.
During the reign of Jehoiakim Jerusalem was visited by Nebuchadnezzar, with the Babylonian army lately victorious over the Egyptians at Carchemish, and it is thought that there must have been a siege, but we have no account of it. Jehoiakim was succeeded by his son Jehoiachin, and hardly had his short reign begun before the terrible army of Babylon reappeared before the city, again commanded by Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kings xxiv). Jehoiachin surrendered, and the city was pillaged. Jehoiachin being carried off to Babylon, his uncle Zedekiah was made king; but he was imprudent enough to seek the help of Pharaoh Hophra of Egypt, and upon this Nebuchadnezzar marched to Jerusalem again and began a regular siege. The walls and houses were battered by rams, and missiles were discharged into the town. After some delays a breach was made in the north wall, and the city suffered all the horrors of assault and sack. Zedekiah had stolen out of the city on the south side, but was pursued and overtaken. The Babylonians burnt the Temple, the palace, and other public buildings, and threw down the city walls. B.C. 577.
When Nehemiah obtained leave to return and rebuild the city of his fathers he found heaps of disordered rubbish everywhere on the ground. By his amazing zeal and energy he stirred up the people to work; and in due time all the gates and walls were set up, on the old foundations. B.C. 457.
There is no need for us to pursue the history in detail. Further stormy periods succeed.
| B.C. | |
| Ptolemy, son of Lagus takes Jerusalem, | 305. |
| Antiochus the Great takes the city, | 219. |
| Antiochus Epiphanes takes the city without siege, | 170. |
| Antiochus Eupator takes the city, | 163. |
| Jonathan builds a new wall, | 143. |
| Simon takes the Akra citadel, | 139. |
| Antiochus Sidetes besieges Jerusalem, | 134. |
| Aretas, the Arab, besieges the city, | 65. |
| Pompey takes the city, | 63. |
| Antipater rebuilds the walls, | 58. |
| Herod and Sosius take Jerusalem, | 37. |
| A.D. | |
| Agrippa builds the third wall, | 43. |
| Cestius Gallus attacks Jerusalem, | 66. |
| Titus takes Jerusalem (fifteenth siege) and utterly destroys it, | 70. |
| Bar Cocheba revolts, | 132. |
| Bar Cocheba is expelled, | 135. |
| Rufus ploughs the temple site, | 135. |
| Hadrian founds Ælia Capitolina, | 136. |
| The Jews revolt and are excluded from the city, | 339. |
| Eudoxia rebuilds the walls, | 450. |
| Chosroes II. takes Jerusalem, | 614. |
| Omar the Caliph takes the city, | 637. |
| Caliph Moez takes possession of the city, | 969. |
| Turkomans expel Egyptians from the city, | 1094. |
| The Egyptians retake Jerusalem, | 1098. |
| Crusaders take Jerusalem (nineteenth siege), | 1099. |
| Walls of Jerusalem repaired, | 1178. |
| Saladin takes Jerusalem (twentieth siege), | 1187. |
| Saladin repairs the walls of the city, | 1192. |
| Melek el Muazzam dismantles the walls, | 1192. |
| Frederic II. rebuilds the walls, | 1229. |
| Daud, Emir of Kerak, destroys the walls, | 1239. |
| Christians obtain Jerusalem by treaty, | 1243. |
| Soliman the Magnificent builds walls, | 1542. |
| Muhammed Aly takes Jerusalem (no siege), | 1832. |
| The Fellahin seize Jerusalem, | 1834. |
| Syria and Jerusalem restored to Turkey, | 1840. |
In reflecting upon such a history as this, two things become very clear; the first is that the details of the events would be much better understood if we had an accurate map before us; the second is that the events themselves—the successive destructions and rebuildings—must have changed the city considerably from what it was. Even in the city of London the floors of Roman dwellings are found 15 or 18 feet below the present surface of the streets. In Jerusalem, we need not be surprised to learn, the depth of debris is much greater, and since it has accumulated chiefly in the valleys, and very nearly obliterated some of them, it has, of course, obscured the topography. An accurate map of modern Jerusalem is in our hands, but it does not show us what the ancient city was like. Therefore it is not sufficient to have this modern map before us when we read the ancient history. We read in the history that Zedekiah fled (from his palace) through the gate between two walls and by the way of the king’s gardens; but in modern Jerusalem there is no king’s palace or garden and no gate between two walls. The history describes how Nehemiah rebuilt the wall, from the Sheep Gate to the Tower of Meah, and thence to the Fish Gate, and the Old Gate, &c., but in modern Jerusalem we find no such places and names. We are still worse off when we read in Josephus about Titus encamping within the third wall, and then making a breach in the middle wall and encamping in the middle city, and still having a wall between him and the Jews in the Upper City: for the Jerusalem of to-day shows only one wall besides the rampart of the temple. Naturally there has been much conjecture concerning the ancient city, and the best authorities have differed from one another in their ideas. It was with the hope of settling the disputed questions as well as with the object of uncovering antiquities, that the Palestine Exploration Society began the work of excavation.
It has often been said that there is not a single topographical question connected with ancient Jerusalem which is not the subject of controversy. This is, however, rather overstating the case, for there are points concerning which all authorities are in accord. First, as regards the natural features of the site, it is agreed that the Mount of Olives is the chain of hills east of the Temple Hill, and that the valley beneath it on the west is the Brook Kedron. It is agreed that the Temple stood on the spur immediately west of the Kedron, and that the southern tongue of this spur was called Ophel. It is also agreed that the flat valley west of this spur is that to which Josephus applies the name Tyropœon, although there was a diversity of opinion as to the exact course of the valley, which has now been set at rest by the collection of the rock-levels within the city. It is also agreed by all authorities that the high south-western hill (to which the name Zion has been applied since the fourth century) is that which Josephus calls the hill of the Upper City, or Upper Market Place.
The site of the Pool of Siloam is also undisputed, and the rock Zoheleth was discovered by M. Clermont Ganneau at the present village of Silwan. As regards the walls of the ancient city, all authorities, except Fergusson, agree in placing the Royal Towers (of Herod) in the vicinity of the present citadel, and all suppose the scarp in the Protestant cemetery to be the old south-west angle of the city. The Tyropœon Bridge—or stairway and arch—is accepted by all writers since Robinson as leading to the royal cloisters of Herod’s temple, and all plans of Herod’s temple start with the assumption that the south-west angle of its courts coincided with the present south-west angle of the Haram. All plans also agree in accepting the east wall of the Haram as an ancient rampart of the city. We have thus various data to begin with which must be considered as certain, because writers who differ on all other points agree on these.22
The “other points” upon which writers have differed may be stated as follows:—
1. What was the extent of the city on the north before the destruction of A.D. 70?
2. What was the line of the second wall, which bounded the city on the north, in those early times before there was any third wall, or any need of one?
3. What was the line of the south wall in Nehemiah’s time, and again in the time of the siege by Titus?
4. Which is the true Mount Zion or City of David?
5. On what spot did the Temple itself stand within the Haram enclosure; and what were the limits of its courts, first in Solomon’s day, and secondly, after they were enlarged by Herod?
6. Does the Church of the Holy Sepulchre stand upon the true site of Calvary?
7. What is the probable site of the royal sepulchres where David and so many other kings lie buried?
[Authorities and Sources:—Smith’s “Dictionary of the Bible.” “Survey Memoirs,” Jerusalem volume.]