The Chosen City

According to the Bible, during the time of the First Temple the united monarchy arose under King David and thereafter under his son Solomon. The founding of the kingdom was fraught with struggles against the peoples of the region, including the Philistines, the Arameans, the Edomites, the Ammonites and the Moabites. Political alliances and ties were forged with the Phoenicians and the northern kingdom of Geshur.

Scholars are divided in their opinions over the character of this kingdom, its size and its historical reality. The capital of the kingdom of David and Solomon was Jerusalem, which for the first time in history became a capital city. David brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem and his son Solomon built the Temple, completing the revolution in the history of the city. From then on Jerusalem would be the spiritual and religious capital of the Jewish people.

These actions were to determine the importance and fate of Jerusalem for the next 3,000 years. Many chapters of the Bible were written here, and some of the greatest prophets of the first Temple period, including Isaiah and Jeremiah, prophesied here.

The worship of the God of Israel was centered in the Temple in Jerusalem; however, both biblical and archaeological evidence reveal the existence of shrines at other sites in the country. These other shrines were eventually rejected in favor of the Temple in Jerusalem, following reforms carried out at the time of kings like Hezekiah and Josiah.

The kingdom split at the time of Rehoboam, Solomon’s son. Jerusalem remained the capital of the small kingdom of Judah in the center and south, ruled by kings of the Davidic dynasty for centuries thereafter. The northern kingdom, Israel, was larger and stronger and was ruled by different dynasties from various capitals, the most important of which was Shomron (Samaria).

From the very beginning of this period, the growing influence of regional superpowers can be seen over the fate of Jerusalem. Pharaoh Shishak (Sheshonk) invaded the land in the late tenth century BCE and in the ninth century the Assyrians grew stronger, and brought the kingdom of Israel to an end in 720 BCE.

The kingdom of Judah, which revolted against the Assyrian King Sennacherib during the time of Hezekiah, was saved from annihilation, but remained under Assyrian rule in the generations that followed. At the end of the seventh century BCE, the Babylonian Empire replaced Assyria as a regional power, and in 586 BCE, during the time of King Zedekiah, the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem and set the First Temple ablaze.

In the picture: Reconstruction of Jerusalem in the time of David, according to Dr. Eyal Meiron (illustration: Balage Balogh), seen from the south. Note Mount Moriah, north of the city, before the Temple was built.