Zion

Zion (Hebrew צִיּוֹן Zijjōn), according to 2 Sam 5:7 EU, was originally the name of a Jebusite tower-castle on the southeastern city limits of the pre-Israelite city-state of Jerusalem. Since its conquest by King David and the building of the first Jerusalem temple under Solomon, Zion became synonymous in the Tanakh with the dwelling place of YHWH, the God of the Israelites (e.g. Isa 8:18 EU). It thus moved to the center of Judaism's hopes for worldwide recognition of this God and his legal order. This theology of Zion runs through the prophecy in the Tanakh since Isaiah and also determined the expectation of the end time of early Christianity.

History of Zion in the representation of the Old Testament

Jebusiterburg

The former Jebusite city of Jerusalem with the castle of Zion was located on a narrow steep ridge south of the later Temple Mount. The Israelites of the pre-state era did not succeed in conquering this fortified city-state (Jos 15:63 EU). It remained for them, as it says in the book of Judges, a "foreign city" (19:10, 12 EU) and formed with other city-states of Canaan a kind of barrier between the territories of the Israelite northern tribes and southern tribes.

City of David

Only David conquered Jerusalem with the castle of Zion and made it as the city of David his royal seat and the cultic and political center of his kingdom (2 Sam 5 EU). He chose this city because it was located approximately on the border between the territories of the Israelite northern tribes - the later northern kingdom of Israel - and the southern tribes - the later southern kingdom of Judah - and gave both territories the territorial unity they had lacked until then.

By having the ark of the covenant transferred there (2 Sam 6 EU), David tied the religious traditions of the former confederation of tribes to his royal seat and made possible their connection with elements of the religion of Canaan cultivated in the city-state of Jerusalem. After his victories over the neighboring kings and the successful expansion of his kingdom, he probably received from the court prophet Nathan the promise of the eternal existence of his dynasty (2 Sam 7:8 ff. EU). The later theology of Zion followed on from this.

In the Middle Ages, the fortified mound of Zion Castle was mistakenly identified with a hill located to the southwest of Jerusalem in front of the present city wall, so that it was given the name Mount Zion (also "Mount Zion", "Har Zijon"). In the 19th century, however, the southern ridge of the Temple Mount was assumed to be Ophel or City of David. This assumption was confirmed by archaeological excavations in the 20th century in the tell there with the settlement layer of Bronze and Iron Age Jerusalem.

Temple City

David had already planned the construction of a temple on Mount Zion, which his son and successor Solomon realized around 930 BC. Thus the actual Mount Zion, the City of David, became the Temple Mount. This remained the cultic center of Judea after the division of the empire, which also remained attractive beyond its borders (1 Kings 12:27 f. EU; Jer 41:5 EU).

With the cult reform of King Josiah, who made a preform of Deuteronomy state law (2 Kings 22 f. EU), the remaining Canaanite or syncretistic sanctuaries in Judea were eliminated and thus the position of Jerusalem as the only dwelling place of the God of Israel was further strengthened. Thereupon the name Zion (Isa 10:12 EU), transferred to the built-up Temple Mount, became in Judaism the epitome of the royal and temple city chosen by God (e.g. Ps 78:68 ff. EU).

Temple destruction, exile, reconstruction

After the destruction of the Temple in 586 BC (see → Babylonian exile), Zion became the place of remembrance and longing of the exiled Jews (Ps 137 EU), determined their direction of prayer (Dan 6:11 EU), and shaped the hopes for the future of exilic prophecy, making it synonymous with the return of the Jews gathered around the sanctuary to the "promised land" (eretz jisrael). With the rebuilding of the Temple (ca. 520-515 BCE), Zion once again became the cultic center of post-exilic Judaism, which saw it as the center of the world and also incorporated the surrounding world of nations into Zion theology.

Zion Theology in the New Testament

Zion as the place of the coming revelation of the God of Israel, to whom all nations would one day stream, helped to determine the presentation of the story of Jesus Christ in early Christianity: For this Messiah was for them the one who, through his teaching, healing, substitutionary death and resurrection, would embody and initially realize the kingdom of God, so that through him all nations would come to know and one day acknowledge the covenant God of Israel (Matt. 28:10; Phil. 2:12, etc.).

Mt 2,1-12 EU tells of oriental astrologers (magoi) who learn by a bright star of the birth of a new king of the Jews and travel to Jerusalem, but from there are led to his birthplace in Bethlehem to fall down before him and honor him with royal gifts. This story presents Jesus' birth as the initial fulfillment of the biblically promised pilgrimage of nations to Zion. With the star of Bethlehem, the evangelist recalled the prophecy Num 24:17, according to which a future Jewish king would defeat Israel's enemies. This was interpreted in Judaism of the time to refer to the coming Messiah, for example in one of the Dead Sea Scrolls (4Q175), in the Targum Onkelos, and in letters of Simon Bar Kochba. The joy of the stargazers at the discovery of Jesus' birthplace foreshadows the eschatological joy of all peoples in the kingdom of God (Isa 60:5; 65:17 ff.; 66:14; cf. Matt 5:12; Luke 2:10). Moreover, according to Mic 5:1ff; Isa 49:6, among other things, biblical prophecy expected the Messiah to restore the twelve-tribe people of the Israelites and to glorify them before their former enemies, the foreign peoples, in order to bless them as well.

Jesus of Nazareth probably helped to initiate these expectations by his own words and deeds: for example, by appointing twelve apostles pars pro toto (Mt 4:13-16; 19:28), which confirmed the permanent election of all Israel to the people of God. Jesus' words Mt 8:11/Lk 13:29 announced the coming of the "far ones," i.e., the gentiles, to the end-time banquet with the arch-fathers of Israel: This banquet had been promised by Isa 25:6 ff. together with the destruction of death as a result of God's ascension to the throne of Zion (cf. Isa 49:12). After that the Gentile nations shall receive a share of the promises of salvation for the progenitors of Israel through the resurrection of the dead in the kingdom of God.

The story of Jesus' entry on a donkey into Jerusalem (Mk 10:1-9 EU par) takes up the messianic promise of the peace king (Zech 9:9) who would command comprehensive disarmament as God's will to the peoples without power of their own. The following prophetic sign act of Jesus in the temple courtyard for proselytes and gentiles (Mk 11:17 ff.) should enable the unhindered participation of gentiles in the prayer in the temple and thus anticipate and enable the common worship of the only God on Zion promised in Is 56:7, in which according to Is 60:11 the renewal of Israel would come to its goal.