{"id":83672,"date":"2020-11-18T17:26:20","date_gmt":"2020-11-18T15:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=83672"},"modified":"2020-11-18T17:26:20","modified_gmt":"2020-11-18T15:26:20","slug":"a-zion-hymn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/a-zion-hymn\/","title":{"rendered":"A Zion Hymn"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[],"acf":{"old_id":"83672","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34243,"related_cahpter":"615","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Jerusalem is a toponym and a big idea\r\n\r\n","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cOn Mondays, [the Levites in the Temple] would recite \u2018The LORD is great and much acclaimed in the city of our God, His holy mountain\u2019\u201d (Mishnah Tamid 7:4).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In his <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Songs of the Heart<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (NY: Shocken, 1993), Nahum Sarna wrote: \u201cZion is lauded many times in the Book of Psalms\u2026 Psalm 48 is the most prominent and exemplary of the compositions that focus on the city\u201d (153).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Utilizing Sarna\u2019s insights along with our standard medieval and early modern commentaries, I would like to offer several interpretations focusing on Jerusalem as both a toponym (place-name) and an idea.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cHis holy mountain\u201d (2). In the Jewish tradition, nothing is intrinsically holy; all sanctity derives from proximity to God who can so endow it. Since He chose Jerusalem, it is His holy city (`<\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ir hakodesh<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, Isaiah 52:1, Nehemiah 11:1), His holy mountain (Isaiah 27:13), or, in combination thereof: \u201cJerusalem will be called the City of Faithfulness (<em>`<\/em><\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ir ha\u2019emet<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">), and the mount of the Lord of Hosts the Holy Mount\u201d (Zechariah 8:3).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cSummit of Tzaphon\u201d (3). Ibn Ezra and Radak explained that the Temple was situated in the northern portion of Jerusalem\u2014which it is, relative to the City of David that lies to its south. Sarna, however, took it as a place-name, citing Isaiah 14:13 that has the king of Babylonia manifest his arrogance by declaring, \u201cI will sit in the mount of assembly, on the summit of Zaphon.\u201d In Ugaritic literature, too, Ba`al, the chief of the Canaanite pantheon, dwells atop a holy mountain named Zaphon. Sarna wrote: \u201cIn Israel, the term Zaphon, like Olympus in English, lost its geographic denotation\u2026 and became purely metaphorical for the divine abode\u201d (157).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cAs the Tarshish fleet was wrecked in an easterly gale\u201d (8). East, like north (right above), may have lost its directional origins and became, instead, a metaphor for a sudden, destructive wind. 1 Kings 20:49 tells of the destruction of a \u201cTarshish fleet\u201d during the reign of King Jehoshaphat, and Ezekiel 27:25 describes the like destruction of a \u201cTarshish fleet\u201d carrying goods to or from Tyre (Phoenicia). Most interesting here is Malbim:<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This psalm was composed about a great tempest at that time, which smashed mountains and boulders, while Mt. Zion, struck by the same tempest, suffered no damage because God, who dwells there, protected it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>image:\u00a0Image: Charles O\u2019Donnel, The ancient city of Jerusalem with Solomon&#8217;s Temple, c. 1871 \/ wikimedia<\/p>\n","image":{"ID":70533,"id":70533,"title":"jer21-ancient_city_of_Jerusalem","filename":"jer21-ancient_city_of_Jerusalem.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/jer21-ancient_city_of_Jerusalem.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/o-inhabitants-of-the-valley\/jer21-ancient_city_of_jerusalem\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"jer21-ancient_city_of_jerusalem","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":70532,"date":"2020-02-22 13:48:42","modified":"2020-11-18 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