In Jesus's Footsteps 
跟随基督的脚步

Mount Zion

 

 

Mount Zion (Hebrew: הַר צִיוֹן, Har Tsiyyon) is a hill in Jerusalem just outside the walls of the Old City.

 

The term Mount Zion has been historically associated with the Temple Mount, but its meaning has shifted and it is now used as the name of ancient Jerusalem's so-called western hill. 

 

In a wider sense, the term is also used for the entire Land of Israel.

 

The Tanakh reference to Har Tzion (Mount Tzion) that identifies its location is derived from the Psalm 48 composed by the sons of Korah, i.e. Levites, as "the northern side of the city of the great king", which Radak interprets as the City of David "from the City of David, which is Zion (1 Kings 8:1-2; 2 Chron. 5:2)". 2 Samuel 5:7 also reads, "David took the strong hold of Zion: the same is the city of David," which identifies Mount Tzion as part of the City of David, and not an area outside today's Old City of Jerusalem. 

 

Rashi identifies the location as the source of "joy" mentioned in the Psalm as the Temple Courtyard, the location of atonement offerings in the northern part of the Temple complex.

 

According to local legend, the two engineers who planned the restoration of the Old City walls in 1538 mistakenly left Mt. Zion and King David’s tomb outside the walls.

 

The Turkish sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, was so enraged that he had the two put to death

 

Important sites on Mount Zion are Dormition Abbey, King David's Tomb and the Room of the Last Supper.

 

Most historians and archeologists today do not regard "David's Tomb" there to be the actual burial place of King David.

 

The Chamber of the Holocaust (Martef HaShoah), the precursor of Yad Vashem, is also located on Mount Zion. Another place of interest is the Catholic cemetery where Oskar Schindler, a Righteous Gentile who saved the lives of 1,200 Jews in the Holocaust, is buried.