There are many passing allusions in the Book of Jeremiah to the Jerusalem of this age.148 When the city fell, in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the men of war fled towards Jericho by night, “by the way of the gate between two walls which is by the king’s garden.” This gate, as we shall see later, was at the recess above Siloam where the wall crossed the Tyropœon Valley at a re-entering angle. The whole city was then burned, and its treasures carried away, with its chiefs, priests, and all but the “poor of the land, vine-dressers and husbandmen.” Jerusalem had become a pagan city, full of ugly little statues of Ashtoreth, and of Baal shrines at each street corner; for “according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have ye set up altars to Bosheth, altars to burn incense to Baal.”149 The ancient human sacrifices, offered to Molech, continued to be celebrated in the Valley of Topheth as in Isaiah’s time. The city in extent was the same which Nehemiah found in ruins, and its ancient walls were then merely rebuilt, but a more detailed account of this topography will be conveniently deferred till the next chapter, in which the work of Nehemiah’s time is to be considered.
FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER III
96 2 Sam. v. 6–9; see LXX. The Greek reads “and his house” for “and inwards.”
97 2 Sam. v. 7; 1 Kings viii. 1; 1 Chron. xi. 5; 2 Chron v. 2. Josephus, “Ant.,” VII. iii. 1; “Wars,” V. iv. 1.
98 Septuagint of 2 Sam. v. 9; 1 Kings xi. 27 (1 Chron. xi. 5–8 differs in the Greek).
99 Ps. xlviii. 2.
100 Zeph. i. 11.
101 Neh. iii. 8. See LXX., tou plateos.
102 Some references seem to make the city of David include the lower town—see 1 Kings viii. 1, ix. 24; 2 Chron. v. 2, viii. 11; 1 Macc. i. 33, ii. 31, vii. 32—but these are of late date. Stairs ascended from near Siloam to the city of David (Neh. iii. 15, xii. 37).
103 2 Sam. v. 11; 1 Kings viii. 1, ix. 24; 1 Chron. xv. 29; 2 Chron. v. 2, viii. 11.
104 Wellhausen’s views as to a double narrative have nothing convincing to support them.
105 2 Sam. iii. 36.
106 2 Sam. xv. 12, xxiii. 34; cf. xi. 3.
107 2 Sam. xv. 13–30, xvii. 17, xviii. 18.
108 1 Kings i. 5–53. The Hebrew eben means “a rock” as well as “a stone” (Gesenius, “Lex.”). Gen. xlix. 24; Job xxviii. 3.
109 The learned fancy which makes the Cherethites (“hewers”) and Pelethites (“swift ones”)—who are otherwise called Kāri (“stabbers”) and “runners”—to have been mercenary Philistines and Carians, has no solid foundation in any ancient statement. A “Gittite” was a dweller in Gath—like David himself—but not of necessity a Philistine.
110 1 Kings i. 33, 38, 45; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 14. The naḥal is noticed in the latter passage; and, in 2 Sam. xv. 23, the term applies to the Kidron, as also in 1 Kings ii. 37, xv. 13; 2 Kings xxiii. 6, 12; 2 Chron. xv. 16, xxix. 16, xxx. 14; Neh. ii. 15; Jer. xxxi. 40; and probably 2 Chron. xxxii. 4. Josephus (“Wars,” V. iv. 2) calls the Kidron spring “Solomon’s Pool.”
111 Ezek. xliii. 12; Micah iv. i. Josephus, “Ant.,” VIII. iii. 9, XI. iv. 1; “Wars,” V. v. 1, tô anôtatô khthamalon autou.
112 “Ant.,” XIV. iv. 2; “Wars” V. v. i.
113 Yoma, v. 2.
114 The Bîr el Arwâḥ, or “Well of Souls.”
115 See my account of the rock granary at Yâfa, near Nazareth (“Mem. West Pal. Survey,” i. pp. 353, 354). It is a cave with inner chambers, and two tiers of grain wells under the floor.
116 Bordeaux Pilgrim, 333 A. D., “Sunt ibi et statuæ duæ Hadriani, et non est longe a statuis lapis pertusus, ad quem veniunt Judæi singulis annis et unguent eum et lamentant se cum gemitu,” etc.
117 1 Kings vi. 1–35.
118 1 Kings vi. 36.
119 See Exod. xxvii. 9, 12.
120 2 Chron. iv. 9; see 2 Kings xxi. 5. The “Higher Gate” (2 Kings xv. 35) is perhaps the “High Gate of Benjamin” (Jer. xx. 2; see Ezek. ix. 2); the Gate Sur (“of departure”), 2 Kings xi. 6, may be Shallecheth (“casting out”), 1 Chron. xxvi. 16, on west; the “Foundation” or “Middle” Gate (2 Chron. xxiii. 5; Jer. xxxix. 3), the Gate of the “Muster” (Miphkad, Neh. iii. 31) or “Guard” (Neh. xii. 39; 2 Kings xi. 19, “of Runners”), and the “New Gate of the Higher Court” (Jer. xxvi. 10, xxxvi. 10) are doubtfully placed. The “King’s Gate” (1 Chron. ix. 18) was on the east.
121 1 Kings iii. 1, ix. 24 (see vii. 8); 2 Chron. viii. 11; Josephus, “Ant.,” VIII. v. 2 (see 1 Kings vii. 1–12); Isa. xxii. 8; “Middle Court,” 2 Kings xx. 4; the “throne,” 1 Kings x. 18; “Great Court,” 1 Kings vii. 9; “Horse Gate,” 2 Kings xi. 16; 2 Chron. xxiii. 15; Neh. iii. 25, 28; “High House,” Neh. iii. 25; “House of David,” Neh. xii. 37.
122 Stade’s plan, given by Dr. G. A. Smith (“Jerusalem,” vol. ii. p. 59), is purely conjectural, and the Temple is wrongly placed on the west slope of the hill.
123 2 Kings xxv. 4; Neh. iii. 15; Jer. xxxix. 4; see 2 Kings xxi. 18, 26; Zech. xiv. 10; Ezek. xliii. 8: see LXX., “in the midst,” for “in high places.”
124 1 Kings xi. 5, 7; 2 Kings xxiii. 10, 13; Isa. xxx. 33.
125 2 Kings xiv. 13; 2 Chron. xxv. 23.
126 2 Chron. xxvi. 15, 20.
127 2 Chron. xxvii. 3.
128 Isa. vii. 1.
129 Isa. vii. 3, viii. 6, xxii. 9, 11, xxxvi. 2.
130 Josephus, “Wars,” V. xii. 2.
131 2 Kings xvi. 10–16.
132 2 Kings xvi. 18.
133 Now Tell en Naṣbeh; see Isa. x. 32, xx. 1.
134 2 Kings xx. 20; 2 Chron. xxxii. 4, 5, 30.
135 The level of the bottom is 2,080 feet above sea-level, or 7 feet lower than that of the commencement of the tunnel.
136 See my report, “Mem. West Pal. Survey,” Jerusalem vol., 1883, pp. 345–65. The inscription was copied by me on July 15, 1881.
137 See my article “Weights and Measures” in “Murray’s Bible Dictionary,” 1908, p. 944, for details.
138 Taylor cylinder; 2 Kings xviii. 17.
139 2 Kings, xviii. 14. The Assyrian reads: Sasu kima iṣṣuri kuuppi kirib ali Urusalimmu alu sarrutisu esir-su: khalsi ilisu urakisma, aṣie abulli ali-su utirra ikkibus, etc.
140 2 Chron. xxxiii. 14.
141 2 Chron. xvi. 14, xxvi. 23, xxviii. 27, xxxiii. 20; Neh. iii. 16. See for the suggested tomb of David my “Handbook to the Bible,” 1879 (3rd edit. 1882, p. 341). Rev. Selah Merrill has recently adopted this suggestion: “Anct. Jer.,” 1908, p. 258.
142 2 Chron. xxxii. 33; Tosiphta, Baba Bathra, ch. i.; Josephus, “Ant.,” VII. xv. 3, XIII. viii. 4, XVI. vii. 1. The kings elsewhere buried were Asa, Jehoram, Uzziah, Ahaziah, Joash, Ahaz, and Manasseh. See Acts ii. 29. The Mishnah (Baba Bathra, ii. 9) says that tombs should be 50 cubits outside the city, but the Tosiphta says that those of the family of David were inside it.
143 “Mem. West Pal. Survey,” Jerusalem vol., 1883, pp. 319–31.
144 This pit is too short to have been a grave.
145 2 Chron. xxvi. 23. This tomb is again noticed in chap. x.
146 Hilprecht, “Nippur Memoir,” I. i. plate 32.
147 Hilprecht, “Nippur Memoir,” I. i. plate 34. This translation of these two texts is from the original.
148 2 Kings xxv. 2, 12; Jer. xxxii. 1.
149 Jer. xi. 13. It is very doubtful whether Bosheth means “shame.” Jeremiah refers to Topheth (vii. 32, xix. 6), to the tower Hananeel and the Corner Gate (xxxi. 38), to Gareb (“the plantation”) and Goath (ver. 39), to the valley of dead bodies and ashes, and the “enclosures” of Kidron, with the “corner of the Horse Gate” (ver. 40), to the “East Gate” or “Pottery Gate” (xix. 2), and to “the graves of the common people” (xxvi. 23), as well as the “Higher Court” and “New Gate” of the Temple (xxxvi. 10), and the “Gate of Benjamin” (xxxvii. 13) already noticed. See also Ezek. viii. 3; Joel iii. 2; Zech. xiv. 10. There was also a baker’s bazaar in Jerusalem (Jer. xxxvii. 21).