who destroyed the walls of jerusalem that nehemiah rebuilt

And the king and his men went to Jerusalem against the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, who said to David, You will not come in here, but the blind and the lame will ward you offthinking, David cannot come in here. 7 Nevertheless, David took the stronghold of Zion, that is, the city of David. Some attention, but how much? Judah and her capital were mostly in ruins, its population decimated, the economy destroyed. After the return from exile, the small Jewish populationunder Nehemiah's leadershiprebuilt the walls of Jerusalem with dimensions similar to Solomon's day. This was some 47 years after the temple was finished. Many biblical scholars have been allured by these texts to sketch a map of the city based on the descriptions therein - see for instance https://medium.com/@chrisvonada/the-courage-and-calling-of-nehemiah-1b64df490373. Nehemiah has a very difficult task to accomplish: rebuilding a ruined city with opposition all around & a frightened, discouraged population, fortunately Nehemiah knows how to lead in a crisis. It was only late in the Iron Age that the settlement expanded over the western hill. He can see that rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem is a restoration job on several levels. in length. It was chiseled from both ends to the middle at the same time. For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a transgressor. But when Sanballat the Horonite & Tobiah the Ammonite official, & Geshem the Arab heard of it, they mocked & ridiculed us, saying, What is this that you are doing? Under his leadership and with a small Jewish population, the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt to dimensions similar to Solomons day. In the 19th century, many building updates were made to the Old City, including the construction of New Gate and the filling in of the moat that surrounds the Tower of David. General Allenby famously entered the city through this gate when the British captured Jerusalem during the First World War in 1917. He is a true leader who leads, not one who issues commands from a safe distance. D. Ussishkin,. 1 The first exiled people, who came back seventy years later with Zerubbabel on the first order of return (Cyrus' 2 ), found only ruins and rubbles. How far does - or can - archaeology render this plausible? They were completed in 1538 and are the walls that exist today. ), M. L. Steiner, `The Palace of David Reconsidered in the Light of Earlier Excavations, op, http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/palace_2468.shtml, The Persian Period City Wall of Jerusalem. King Darius is mentioned by name in the Bible in the books Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai and Zechariah. In the Late Hellenistic period that construction then was rebuilt or restored and the older wall was not visible anymore. But is it plausible that these were repaired too by the small group of people who lived in the city after the Exile? In 722 B.C., Assyria conquered the northern kingdom, then in 605 B.C. All in all, archaeological research has not found any actual Persian fortifications but at most indirect evidence for their construction. Unfortunately, the Bible texts remain vague on the exact location of these structures. 8 And David said on that day, Whoever would strike the Jebusites, let him get up the water shaft to attack the lame and the blind, who are hated by David's soul. Therefore, it is said, The blind and the lame shall not come into the house. 9 And David lived in the stronghold and called it the city of David. Solomon, David's son, built the First Temple on the hilltop rising right above the city he had inherited, the Temple Mount, and then extended the city walls in order to protect the temple. E. Mazar, The Palace of King David. He was what we might call today a top security agent, like a member of the Secret Service. Submitted by Martin Hughes on Mon, 10/25/2021 - 01:00. The small tower that Kenyon had uncovered appeared to be on the verge of collapse and was demolished and rebuilt by her team. LOVE THE VIDEOS OR PHOTOS OF JERUSALEM or WHATEVER PHOTOS YOU MAY HAVE. Because Nehemiah cared so much for God's people, notice how he reacted to the news . 1 The words of a Nehemiah the son of Hacaliah.. Now it happened in the month of b Chislev, c in the twentieth year, as I was in d Susa the citadel, 2 that e Hanani, one of my brothers, came with certain men from Judah. [8][9] The tower as well as the entire city wall were long destroyed by the time the Ottoman Turks built theirs, possibly since 1219 when Ayyubid ruler Al-Mu'azzam Isa razed most of the city fortifications.[9]. King Hezekiah fortified the existing walls of the city and built a new wall in a rapid manner to protect those living outside the city walls. Courtesy Nathan Steinmeyer. The most famous cemetery is that of Ketef Hinnom, in the southwest part of the present-day city, where a number of tombs have been excavated, most of them robbed except one which was full of luxury material from the Late Iron Age, the Babylonian and the Persian periods (Barkay 1994). Upon their reconstruction, much of the southern part of the ancient city, including the City of David, was left outside the new walls. Arabic inscription inside Lions Gate. Source: Chronological Reference Points,Middle East Insight, January-February 1999. Many of the places mentioned cannot be identified. Archaeologist have not been silent either. During this time, observant Jews refrain from certain joyful activities and commemorate the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem, as well as other historical tragedies. km.). ), Ancient Jerusalem Revealed, Jerusalem 1994, 85-106. The length of the walls is 4,018 meters (2.497 miles), their average height is 12 meters (39 feet) and the average thickness is 2.5 meters (8.2 feet). The book of Nehemiah in the Old Testament of the Bible is more than an account of rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem. The wall of Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians about 586 BC. That could be two years later, a hundred years later or a thousand years later. Recently, the Israeli archaeologist Eilat Mazar conducted excavations on the top of the hill, where she found the so-called `Palace of David' (Mazar 2009; see for a refutation of that interpretation Steiner 2009). Next, we learn about Ezra's trip back to Jerusalem to beautify the temple. Nehemiah 1:13: Now it happened in the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Susa the citadel, 2 that Hanani, one of my brothers, came with certain men from Judah. when it was destroyed by the Babylonians who conquered Jerusalem and took much of the population into exile (2 Kings 25:10). [6] Some remains of this wall are located today near the Mandelbaum Gate gas station. The fish bones analysed come from fish from the Mediterranean Sea and Lake Tiberias. ), The Fire Signals of Lachish; Studies in the Archaeology and History of Israel in the Late Bronze Age, Iron Age and Persian Period in Honor of David Ussishkin, Winona Lake, Ind. in length. Upon hearing that the wall of Jerusalem was down and destroyed, along with the gates being burned down, Nehemiah cried. And those interpretations can be quite diverse. The Late Iron Age and the Maccabean period were two prosperous periods in the history of the town, in which solid city walls were erected around the southeastern hill. An example of these records are the Amarna letters which are dated to the 14th century BCE, several of which were written by the chieftain of Jerusalem Abdi-Heba and call Jerusalem either Urusalim (URU -ru-sa-lim) or Urualim (URU -ru-a10-lim) (1330s BCE). The length of the walls is 4,018 meters (2.497 miles), their average height is 12 meters (39 feet) and the average thickness is 2.5 meters (8.2 feet). It also included the reconstruction of the temple and the restoration of the walls. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah detail the rebuilding of the Temple, the walls of Jerusalem, and the gates under Zerubbabel, the Governor of Judea. A portion of the wall was discovered in the 1970s by Israeli archaeologist Nahman Avigad and dated to the reign of King Hezekiah (716-687 BC). In the Old Testament, Nehemiah and the Israelites were asked to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem! How many times was the Temple in Jerusalem destroyed and rebuilt? This would indicate that rich families still lived in or around Jerusalem in the Persian period. During the Middle Bronze Age, the city of Jerusalem was fortified for the first time, with walls having been found in several areas around the City of David and surrounding the strategically important Gihon Spring. The Titanic was built by professionals. The Persian king even gives Nehemiah an armed escort and resources to fulfll the project of the walls. A series by Phil & Kath Henry. 4:1-14). Submitted by Jason Silverman on Sun, 11/28/2021 - 12:20. The wall had been broken down, community had broken down and with everyone thinking about themselves, people worked on their own places but no one was working for the common good. The walls surrounding the Old City encompass an area of barely a third of a square mile (1 sq. Spoiler alert: there are as many opinions as there are scholars, and the archaeological evidence is meagre. According to Jewish tradition, as expressed in the Tanakh, Jerusalem remained a Jebusite city until the rise of David, who conquered Jebus, renamed it City of David and started expanding it. Jerusalem would remain in ruins for some six decades and without protective walls for over two centuries. [7], At the northwest corner of the Ottoman wall, archaeologists have discovered the meager remains of a large tower, c. 35x35 metres, probably first built in the 11th century during the Fatimid period, that fell to the Franks at the end of the First Crusade in 1099, and was apparently expanded by the Ayyubids after Saladin's reconquest of the city in 1187. Then they said, Let us start building! So they committed themselves to the common good. Nehemiah has a very difficult task to accomplish: rebuilding a ruined city with opposition all around & a frightened, discouraged population, fortunately Nehemiah knows how to lead in a crisis. Ironically, rather than raising peoples feelings of fear & anxiety; facing the brutal facts can have a remarkable impact on peoples confidence & motivation. After Jerusalem fell to the Umayyads in 638 C.E., the citys Byzantine walls saw major repairs, and large parts of the Tower of David and the walls around the Temple Mount were constructed. First, he describes himself as one of the inhabitants of Jerusalem. He also made weapons and shields in abundance. The curving tunnel is 583 yards (533 m.) long and has a fall of 12 inches (30 cm.) In 70 CE, as a result of the Roman siege during the First JewishRoman War, the walls were almost completely destroyed. the area where today's Jewish and Armenian Quarter (Jerusalem) Quarters are located. Nehemiah says that after his westward journey from Susa, he spent three days personally reviewing the walls so that he has firsthand knowledge & intelligence of the situation. This made it necessary to reinforce western Palestine, especially the provinces of Yehud and Samaria and the coastal areas (Carter 1999, 293). In 586 BC the Babylonians left behind a town largely destroyed. In the Middle Bronze Age, a period also known in biblical terms as the era of the Patriarchs, a city named Jebus was built on the southeastern hill of Jerusalem, relatively small (50,000 square meters) but well fortified. Nehemiah knows there will be opposition so he waits to share what God has put on his heart to do. When Nehemiah took this responsibility, by God's help and through his effective leadership, the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt only in 52 days. One of the keys to rebuilding not only the wall but rebuilding community is a sense of the common good. When a church makes a positive influence in a community it is because the people who comprise it are committed to the common good & not just to their particular group or ministry. What he encounters is terrifying. Moriah upon the threshing floor of Araunah. When that happens, the result is often that people like Josephs brothers try to kill the visionary. Only when Nehemiah knew all the facts did he make his final plans. They appointed a governor over Judah, who sat in Mizpa, not Jerusalem. Courtesy Nathan Steinmeyer. During the time of Hezekiah, Jerusalems urban population had grown far outside the old walls of the city and were unprotected. (Courtesy Ancient Jerusalem Project). These texts have clearly been written for people who lived in Jerusalem and knew exactly where the constructions mentioned were located, not for later generations not acquainted with the town. 2 Samuel 5:610: And the king and his men went to Jerusalem against the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, who said to David, You will not come in here, but the blind and the lame will ward you offthinking, David cannot come in here. 7 Nevertheless, David took the stronghold of Zion, that is, the city of David. Dig into the illuminating world of the Bible with a BAS All-Access membership. The Jewish Quarter (Hebrew: , HaRova HaYehudi; Arabic: , Harat al-Yehud) is one of the four traditional quarters of the Old City of Jerusalem (part of Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem).The 116,000 square meter area lies in the southwestern sector of the walled city, and stretches from the Zion Gate in the south, along the Armenian Quarter on the west . It went as far as the royal cemetery, . I am aware that this is only indirect evidence. In some places it is impossible to continue because of the amount of debris on the slope. Having faith doesnt mean we ignore problems, that were blind to the facts, or that we are ignorant of what has taken place over time. What is the Dung . The emphasis is on the exiles and on the return to the old land after the Persians had conquered Babylon in 539 BC and included Judah into their empire. Why is a broken-down wall such a big deal? The work took some four years, between 1537 and 1541. The Jerusalem Wall That Shouldnt Be There, Jerusalem Down Under: Tunneling Along Herods Temple Mount Wall, Old, New Banquet Hall by the Temple Mount. An accurate analysis of the material found during excavations shows, in my opinion, a more nuanced picture.