According to 2 Sam 5:7, where the name appears for the firt time, originally Zion was the name of the ridge between the Kidron Valley and the Tyropoeon Valley occupied by the fortress-city of the Jebusites that was captured by David and renamed "the City of David."
When Solomon built the temple on the mount further to the north, that hill then acquired the name Zion, and eventually, the name became synonymous with the city of Jerusalem itself. In the expression "the daughters of Zion" especially we find the nation of Judah in its semantic embrace (e.g., 2 Ki 19:21; Psm 97:8; Isa 3:16, though see also Psm 48:11; 78:68). Nonetheless, the term is seldom used as a geographical synonym for Jerusalem but denotes "the city of God in the new age" (TWOT), viewing it rather as the center for the outworking of Yahweh's purpose as promised in His covenant with David. Thus, it the 'place' where "Yahweh dwells" (Psm 74:2; 135:21; Isa 8:18; Joel 3:21) and is "enthroned" (Psm 2:6; 9:11) and where He will fulfill His redeeming work on behalf of Judah (Isa 4:4; Mic 4:10); hence it was a city where they could "shout aloud and sing for joy, for great is the Holy One of Israel among you" (Isa 12:6). Psm 48:2 lifts the hopes in Yahweh's work from Zion to its acme when it proclaims that "it is beautiful in its loftiness, the joy of the whole earth. Like the utmost heights of Zaphon is Mount Zion, the city of the Great King." Psm 50:2 calls it "perfect in beauty."
If this was how the worshippers viewed the city that is Zion, the prophets also remind them that it is not exempt from Yahweh's judgment. In His holy wrath, the Lord "roars from Zion" (Amos 1:2) and commands "woe to you who are complacent in Zion" (Amos 6:1). For their sins "Zion will be ploughed like a field" (Mic 3:12) and "the daughters of Zion [will writhe in agony] like a woman in labour" and go into exile in Babylon (Mic 4:10). No human institution, no matter how much Yahweh may approve of them (and especially if Yahweh approves of them) is exempt from His judgment and purging when it becomes stained with sin, injustice, and idolatry. Lamentations, in particular, tells us what it is like when that happens.
How the Lord has covered the Daughter of Zion with the cloud of his anger! He has hurled down the splendour of Israel from heaven to earth; he has not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger. (2:1)
The Lord has given full vent to his wrath; he has poured out his fierce anger. He kindled a fire in Zion that consumed her foundations. (4:11)
Women have been ravished in Zion, and virgins in the towns of Judah. Princes have been hung up by their hands; elders are shown no respect. Young men toil at the millstones; boys stagger under loads of wood. The elders are gone from the city gate; the young men have stopped their music. Joy is gone from our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning. The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned! Because of this our hearts are faint; because of these things our eyes grow dim for Mount Zion, which lies desolate, with jackals prowling over it. (5:11-18)
Yahweh's covenant with David, of which His decision to dwell in Zion is the potent symbol, however, means that Zion will eventually be the city to which the ransomed of the Lord will return, with singing, with everlasting joy crowning their heads, and gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away (Isa 35:10//51:11), to which He says, "I will return to Zion and dwell in Jerusalem. Then Jerusalem will be called the City of Truth, and the mountain of the Lord Almighty will be called the Holy Mountain" (Zec 8:3). And in ultimate fulfilment of Yahweh's promise, first to Abraham and then to David, "Many nations will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths." The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem" (Mic 4:1). When he first came, Jesus taught that he was the fulfilment of all these promises for Zion. He was the king coming to her "gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey" (Matt 21:5; Jn 12:15, fulfilling Zec 9:9). Peter and Paul saw Jesus as the fulfilment of Yahweh's promise through Isaiah, "See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who trusts will never be dismayed" (1 Pet 2:6 and Rom 9:33, citing Isa 28:16). And in a vision of the consummated Kingdom of God, John saw "the Lamb,standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads" (Rev 14:1).
Resources:
Peter J. Leithart, "Where was Ancient Zion?" Tyndale Bulletin 53.2 (2002): 161-175. N
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