The southern section of Zion is now outside the city wall; and there a high minaret and cupola mark the Tomb of David. From it the hill sinks into the Valley of Hin"nom in steep terraced slopes, covered with vineyards, olives, and corn-fields. As I looked, a moving object in one of the fields riveted my attention. "Haste! give me the glass," I said. I turned it towards the spot. Yes, I was right; -a plough and yoke of oxen were there at work. Jeremiah"s prophecy was being fulfilled before my eyes: "Zion shall be ploughed like a field. "Along the farther side of Zion runs the deep glen of Hinnom, which, turning eastward, sweeps round the southern end of the hill and joins the Kidron at En-rogel. These two ravines form the great physical boundaries and barriers of Jerusalem; they completely cut it off from the surrounding tableland; and they isolate the hills on which it stands, and those other hills, too, or hill-tops, which, as the Psalmist tells us, "are round about Jerusalem." These natural barriers also serve to confine the city within regular and definite limits-to prevent it from sending forth straggling suburbs and offshoots, as most other cities do; hence it was said, "Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together. "A high battlemented wall encompasses the modern city. Itruns for half a mile along the brow of the Kidron valley, facing Olivet, then turns at right angles and zigzags across Moriah, the Tyropean, and Zion, to the brow of Hinnom. The whole circuit is two miles and a half. The city was always fortified, and the walls and towers formed its most prominent features. Hence the language of the exulting Psalmist: "Walk about Zion, and go round about her: tell the towers thereof, mark ye well her bulwarks."Jerusalem has no suburbs. There is no shading off of the city into the country-no long streets radiating from a centre, then straggling houses, and villas, and gardens, such as we are accustomed to see in English towns. The moment you pass the gates of Jerusalem you are in the country, -a country open, bare, without a single house, and almost desolate. Not a green spot is visible, and not a tree, save here and there a little clump of gnarled, dusky olives. Rounded hill-tops, and long reaches of plain, strown with heaps of gray limestone, extend from the walls far away to the north and to the south. There is no grandeur, beauty, or richness in the scenery. It is bleak and featureless.
Hence the sad disappointment felt by most travellers on approaching Jerusalem from the west and the south. They can only see the serrated line of gray Saracenic walls extending across a section of a bleak, rocky plateau. But when I stood that morning on the brow of Olivet, and looked down on the city, crowning those battlemented heights, encircled by those deep and dark ravines, and when the rising sun bathed in a flood of ruddy light the terraced roofs of the city, I involuntarily exclaimed, -"Beautiful for situation, the joy ofthe whole earth, is Mount Zion, the city of the great King! "- J. L. PORTERWORDSaccustomed, used. battlemented, fortified. confused, irregular. dazzling, overpowering. desolate, deserted. diversified, varied. encaustic, enamelled. encompassed, surrounded. exulting, triumphant. familiar, well known. interspersed, mingled. involuntarily, spontaneously. octagonal, eight-sided.
opportune, convenient. precipitously, steeply. prominent, outstanding. radiating, diverging. riveted, enchained. serrated, notched. straggling, scattered.
topography, position of places.
undulating, rising and falling; irregular.
unique, unmatched.
venerated, revered.
NOTES
① Olivet, or the Mount of Olives , a ridge running north and south on the eastern side of Jerusalem. It is the hill on the right of the picture on page 199. The central summit rises two hundred feet above Jerusalem, and affords the finest view of the city and its surroundings.
② Kidron, the valley and stream separating Olivet from Jerusalem.
③ Plateau(pla-toe"), table-land.
④ Mount Moriah, the hill on which the Temple stood.
⑤ Cyclopean, gigantic; lit . like the Cyclopes , a fabulous race of one-eyed giants, said tohave lived in Sicily, and to have been the workmen of Vulcan, the god of fire and furnaces.
⑥ Moslem, a Mussulman or Mohammedan.
⑦ Mecca, in Arabia, the birth-place of Mohammed. It attracts pilgrims in thousands every year, from all parts of the Mohammedan world.
⑧ Mosque of Omar.-A mosque is a Mohammedan place of worship; and the Mosque of Omar, built on the site of Solomon"s Temple, is by far the most magnificent building in modern Jerusalem. It was built to commemorate the capture of Jerusalem by the Saracens under the Caliph Omar in 637 A. D. The date generally assigned for its completion is 687 A. D.
⑨ Tyropean Valley, between Mounts Moriah and Zion; called also, in its lower part, the Valley of Cheesemongers . This is only a translation of the other name, which is derived from Greek tyros, cheese, or a cheese-market.
⑩ Armenian Convent; a convent of the Armenian Church (from Armenia, a province of Asia Minor, south of the Caucasus), which professes a form of Christianity resembling that of the Greek Church. It is governed by patriarchs.
Castle of David.-So it is commonly called; but it is supposed by many to be the great tower of Hippicus mentioned by Josephus as the point from which the Jews made an unsuccessful sally upon the Romans, during the siege before the destruction of the city, A. D.
70.It is situated at the Jaffa gate, on the north-western corner of Mount Zion.
Zion, &C.-See Jeremiah, xxvi. 18, where the prophecy is assigned to Micah. CompareMicah , iii. 12.
Round about Jerusalem-See Psalm cxxv. 2. Compact together.-See Psalm cxxii. 3.
Her bulwarks.-See Psalm xlviii. 13.
Saracen"ic walls.-The modern wall of Jerusalem was built by the Saracens in 1542. Beautiful for situation-See Psalm . xlviii. 2.
JERUSALEM AND THE SURROUNDING COUNTRY
QUESTIONS
What is the best point for obtaining a general view of Jerusalem? Where is Mount Olivet? At what time did the writer ascend the tower on that mount? What glen lay at his feet? What Mount, on the other side of Kidron? Why is the platform on Moriah so deeply interesting? What great building stands upon it now? What valley separates Moriah from Zion? What divides Zion into two sections? Where is David"s tomb? How is its position marked? What valley runs on the farther side of Zion? What effect have the valleys of Hinnom and Kidron on Jerusalem? Why are most travellers disappointed with the first view of Jerusalem?