Nehemiah: Everybody on the Wall

Nehemiah, chapter 2

To all my blogger friends--sorry for the delay in getting this post up. What can I say--not lazy, just busy.

Anyway, I wanted to share a bit more about Nehemiah's Jerusalem. In chapter two of Nehemiah we have a brief account of Nehemiah's night-time examination of the condition of the walls around Jerusalem and then chapter three gives a very detailed account of the teams that were rebuilding the wall, and what sections they were working on. This is the best biblical description (and non-biblical, for that matter) of the Jerusalem of the post-exile period and it is rather intriguing. It leaves us and scholars trying to picture what Nehemiah's Jerusalem was like, particularly, how big was it--where did the walls actually run. A lot is still up in the air. But here are some maps and diagrams that help us picture what it might have been like.

First of all, we might ask what was the size of Jerusalem just before it was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC? In the diagram below, notice the area called "City of David" just below the rectangular Temple Mount. That was the city when David took it from the Jebusites (2 Samuel 5). He quickly moved the Ark of the Covenant there (2 Sam. 6:15) and began to make plans to eventually build a permanent temple (2 Sam 7, 1 Chronicles 22), but was forbidden by God to do so (2 Sam. 7). The task of temple building would be left for his son, Solomon. However, David began assembling material and eventually purchased the threshing floor of Araunah (2 Sam. 24:16 and 1 Chron. 21:15), which was the high ground north of the City of David, which became the Temple area and today is the Temple Mount.

This area (City of David and Temple Mount) seems to have remained the walled in city of Jerusalem for some time.Solomon expanded the walls to include his palace (which lay between the City of David and the high ground on which the Temple was built (1 Kings 3:1), but it does not seem that he extended the walls West, though no doubt some people were living there outside the walls of the old city.

We know that with the fall of the Northern Kingdom in 722 BC, there was an influx of people into Jerusalem from the North. This was during the reign of Hezekiah, and he extended the walls (2 Chron. 32:5) to include the Western Hill (the black lines on the map above).

By the way, the faded lines on the above map show the line of the current walls of Jerusalem, built by Suleiman the Turk in the 1500's.

And finally, the red line in the above map marks an additional expansion, perhaps under Hezekiah's son, Manasseh (2 Chron.33:14) or during the reign of Josiah (2 Kings 22:14, 2 Chron. 34:22), for this is the first time we read of the "New Quarter."

So on the map above, the City of David and Temple Mount walls, along with the black line of Hezekiah and the red line of later additions, comprised Jerusalem before it was destroyed in 586 BC.

But how much of that did Nehemiah rebuild. There are two views held by scholars, neither of which can be proven with any certainty. Here they are in map form. The first is the view that assumes a smaller (shorter) wall. (Note the current city walls which are not shaded and given for comparison.)

However, the other view point would suggest a larger city. Here is another map assuming longer walls.

Which is correct--don't know, but I would expect the smaller (shorter) of the two. Remember, the task was finished in 52 days.

I like this image, which is built on the shorter wall viewpoint. Link here Nehemiah's Jerusalem.

So much for the history lesson. As important as that is, it is the spiritual lessons we are really trying to learn, which I tried to lift up in the sermon for this week. if you did not hear it on Sunday, give it a listen via the link on the side of the blog.

Thanks for digging deeper.