Jerusalem is one of the easiest cities to spot on a blank map. Draw a horizontal line from the top of the Dead Sea and extend it to the Mediterranean coast. Divide the line into three equal parts. Jerusalem is located a third of the way out towards the coast. Geographically, the city is located on the ridge that forms a central spine running north-south parallel to the Jordan Rift Valley, along which runs the route connecting cities like Bethelehem and Hebron to the south and Bethel and Shechem in the north, about a 1000m above sea level.
The City of Jerusalem is defined by three valleys (green in the map below): the Kidron on the east and separating the City from Mount Olive, the Tyropoeon or Central Valley, and the Hinnom. The original "Hill of Jebus" or "Zion" that David conquered was a ridge (orange) protected on three sides by the steep slopes of the Kidron and the Tyropoeon. Before David's death the city was already extending northwards; David purchased Araunah's threshing floor on which he built an altar (2 Sam 24). Solomon further developed the city northwards, building the temple, possibly on the site of David's altar, and his palaces there. The temple area was renovated by Herod the Great in 1st Cent BC, the remnants of which is what we call today the Temple Mount (blue). The wall surrounding the present day Old City (brown) is the work of the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (1520-66); the project began in the north in 1537, continued east and west, and finished in the south in 1540.
Mount Scopus was so-named because it was the crest from which pilgrims coming from the north caught their first sight of the city. East of Mount Scopus and Mount of Olive the land decline steeply through the Judean desert to the Jordan Rift Valley.
Low Chai Hok
©Alberith, 2014