anxiety that the importance of his appeal should not be overlooked: To the King my Lord's secretary, thus (saith) Abdiḥiba thy bond-servant. Bring thou in plain words unto the King my Lord. It is all over with the King my Lord's dominions' (ib. p. 863).

When the Israelites invaded Canaan, Jerusalem, like many others of the fortified towns, was too strong to be captured by them. This we learn from the statements of the old narrative of Josh. xv, 63, Judges i, 21, and from the story of Judges xix, where the Levite, though overtaken by nightfall when close to Jebus (i.e. Jerusalem), refuses to shelter in 'the city of a stranger that is not of the children of Israel' (vv. 11, 12), and pushes on to Gibeah. The statement of Judges i, 7, which seems to indicate that the city passed into the hands of Judah in the early days of the Judges, comes from a later writer, in whose view the Israelite conquest of Canaan was far more thorough and immediate than the older narrative proves it actually to have been.

As we have already observed, the conquest of the Jebusite city was one of the achievements of David's reign, which is dated about 1000 B.C. The fortress standing above its precipitous ravines was counted so impregnable by the inhabitants that they are said to have boasted that the blind and lame could hold it against David; but, so far as we can gather from the narrative (which is very obscure at this point), it seems to have been taken by a storming party, which scrambled up the gutter' or 'water-course' which lay below the city (2 Sam. v, 6-8). Possibly this 'gutter' may have been the ancient shaft which has been discovered leading down to the Gihon spring as a means of reaching it from within the city.* Having captured the stronghold, David made it his headquarters, and named it 'David's Burgh.' Building operations, which he undertook to increase its defensive strength, are connected with the Millo' (2 Sam. v, 9). The character and site of the Millo (which is mentioned also in connexion with Solomon's buildings, 1 Kings ix, 15) can only be conjectured. If the name is derived from a Hebrew root, it would naturally denote something which 'fills' or 'banks up,' i.e., an earthwork or massive

* Smith, i, 106; Paton, 75.

fortress or tower built into that part of the city wall where such protection was specially needed-possibly shielding the approach from the north.

The meaning of the name Zion, applied to David's Burgh (2 Sam. v, 7), is very doubtful; but Dr Smith (i, 145) quotes evidence from the Arabic which suggests that it may mean 'protuberance' or 'summit of a ridge,' and so 'fort' or 'citadel.' This explanation, however plausible, is at best a somewhat hazardous conjecture; and Dr Smith's readers must beware of regarding as an established conclusion the easy transition by which Zion becomes 'exactly synonymous' with the term Ophel, which is elsewhere used in connexion with the old fortress, and which, according to Dr Smith (i, 152), ‘signifies "lump" or "swelling," and was applied in Hebrew to a mound, knoll, or hill, in one case with a wall round it.' It is true that Ophel should naturally denote something 'swelling'; and the usual assumption is that it refers to a knoll upon the spur on which David's Burgh was built, which was dug down in later times by the Hasmoneans when they rased the Akra. But a careful survey of the use of the term, in this connexion and elsewhere, rather suggests that it was applied to an artificial swelling, i.e., probably the rounded keep or enceinte of the citadel.* At present the name Ophel is conventionally applied to the whole of the eastern spur south of the Harâm area.

The natural features of the south-eastern spur make it probable that David's Burgh may have occupied an area nearly equivalent to that of the ancient Gezer as determined by the excavations of Mr Macalister; and it is noteworthy that Gezer figures in the Amarna letters as a city of apparently similar importance.† David's Burgh may have had a circumference of about 4250 feet, while Gezer's walls measured approximately 4500 feet round.‡ Traces of the ancient wall and rock-scarps upon which it was built have been discovered by Dr Bliss on the southern and eastern sides of the eastern hill, though no traces have as yet been found on the western side above the Tyropoeon valley.

* Cf. the writer's 'Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Kings,' pp. 282 ff.

Dr Smith thus describes the aspect which the city must have presented in David's day.

'Standing, then, on the Mount of Olives, we may discern the following to have been the aspect of Jerusalem under David. Where the great Temple platform is now spread upon large substructions, there was a rocky summit with a small plateau, the threshing-floor of Araunah. The southern flank of this fell steeply to the northern fortifications of David's Burgh with (according to some) the Millo, a solid bulwark or tower. A narrow gateway opened on the north on a steep descent to Gihon; and the road from this turned northwards for a little, with a few houses straggling up it till the Far-house was reached, and then crossed the Kidron. Within the walls stood the Stronghold, the small house of David, the house of the Gibbôrîm, with some other buildings, and close to the king's house the Tent of the Ark. Some further open space there must have been for the later graves of the kings. The wall compassed Ophel, with one principal gate, at probably the lower end of Ophel, from which the houses thickly climbed towards the citadel' (ii, 45 f.).

With this picture before us, we may notice such references as indicate the additions which were made to David's Burgh in later times. It is unlikely that any part of the south-western hill was enclosed with a wall in David's day, though it is probable that there were houses upon it. The cliff or slope (lit. ' shoulder') of the Jebusites, mentioned in Josh. xv, 8, xviii, 16, is most easily explained as referring to the south-western hill; and it may have been so named as inhabited by the Jebusites whom David had expelled from the fortified city, but who were apparently allowed (if we may judge from the case of Araunah) to dwell peaceably in the immediate vicinity of David's Burgh. Dr Paton (p. 76) draws an inference from the fact that

'2 Sam. xiv, 28 states that Absalom dwelt two full years in Jerusalem and saw not the King's face. If the Jerusalem of David was limited to the small area of the south-east hill, it is difficult to see how Absalom could reside there without coming into contact with his father. If, however, the city extended to the western hill, he might be banished from the palacequarter and still reside in the capital. . . . On the whole, the evidence seems favourable to the idea that settlements on the western hill were in existence as early as the time of David;

but there is no evidence that the western hill was inclosed with a wall at this early date. The fact that no buildings on the western hill are mentioned indicates that this region was still unprotected.'

The walling of the south-western suburb was most likely undertaken by Solomon. We learn that, when he had married Pharaoh's daughter, he brought her into the City of David until he had made an end of building his own house, and the house of the Lord, and the wall of Jerusalem round about' (1 Kings, iii, 1; cf. also ix, 15). The course of the city wall under Solomon is probably correctly described by Josephus ( War,' v, 4: 2) when he gives an account of the old wall,' which he attributes to 'David, Solomon, and the following kings.' Starting from Hippicus, the Herodian tower which stood in the position of the north-western tower in the present citadel near the Jaffa gate, he carries the line due east (along the line of the modern David Street) up to the western cloister of the Temple. Then returning to Hippicus, he traces the wall along a course which faced west and south, giving a description which shows that it ran round the southwestern hill, curved past Siloam (which it apparently did not enclose), and reached 'a certain place which they call Ophel, where it joined the eastern cloister of the Temple.

Besides walling in the new city, Solomon directed his attention to the repair of David's Burgh (1 Kings xi, 27). But by far his most important work was the building of the Temple and the palace buildings on the eastern hill immediately to the north of the old city. These buildings are described in great detail in 1 Kings v-vii. The most northerly was the Temple, which doubtless stood immediately to the west of the present Dome of the Rock.' That the Sakhra or sacred rock, now enclosed by the Dome, was the site of the altar of burnt-offering is held by most modern investigators. According to Dr Smith (ii, 60), 'the Rock itself bears proof of having been used as an altar. A channel penetrates from the surface to a little cave below, whence a conduit descends through the body of the Hill, obviously designed to carry off either the blood or the refuse of sacrifices. Similar arrangements are seen on other Semitic altars.'

* Cf. also the description, with diagrams, in Kittel, pp. 12-24.

The story of 2 Sam. xxiv, 25, 1 Chron. xxii, 1, regards David's altar on the threshing-floor of Araunah as the original of the altar of burnt-offering for Israel'; and such a threshing-floor would naturally be a more or less flat rocky summit freely exposed to the breeze.

Col. Conder (pp. 54 ff.) argues that the Sakhra was 'the stone of foundation' upon which, according to the Mishna, the Ark rested within the Holy of Holies, and objects to its identification as the site of the altar, on the ground that the rock-level commences to fall away immediately to the west of the Sakhra, at the point where, according to this latter view, the Temple must have stood. The fall, however, on the assumed Temple site is not great, and the level could easily have been banked up; and, apart from the indications that the Sakhra has been used as the site of an altar, the objections which can be advanced against making it the site of the Holy of Holies are very considerable.* The fact that the Temple stood west of the altar, with its entrance to the east and the Shrine or Holy of Holies to the west, is indicated by Ezek. viii, 16. Here the five-and-twenty men who are worshipping the sun stand between the Porch and the altar, with their backs to the Temple and their faces eastward.

Solomon's other buildings lay south of the Temple, and occupied what is now the southern portion of the Ḥarâm area, the whole series rising apparently upon successive terraces from south to north. The Temple was enclosed in its own court; and, south of this, Solomon's house and the house of Pharaoh's daughter stood within 'the Other Court' or The Court of the Porch of the Palace.' South of this again stood the Throne Hall, the Hall of Pillars, and the House of the Forest of Lebanon ; and all these buildings, including the two courts abovementioned, were enclosed by the Great Court.t

There is little information bearing on the topography of Jerusalem between the reign of Solomon in the early part of the tenth century B.C. and the latter part of the eighth century. We have only to notice the fact that

* Smith, ii, 61, note.

+ See 1 Kings vii, 9, 12, as emended by the present writer; quoted by Smith, ii, 69,