Biblical Hebrew Blog by ClassicalHebrew.com

A new seal stamp bearing a Hebrew name has been found in the excavations in the Old City of Jerusalem under the authority of Eilat Mazar. If one recalls it will be remembered that many other exciting seals and bullae have already been uncovered in older excavations at the same site, such as the name ‘Gemaryahu, son of Shaphan’, who is recorded in Jeremiah 36:10-12, 25 and was the scribe to King Jehoiakim (608-591) in Jerusalem.

It was then with some excitement that this seal was revealed with another Biblical name, that of Temech- a Priestly family mentioned in the book of Nehemiah. However the reading was quickly changed, after it was realized one needed to read the Hebrew characters in the reverse, since that is how it was inscribed on the stamp. Once the stamp is then impressed into wet clay it would leave the name of the bearer the correct way, from right to left.

The proper reading is shin, lamed, mem, taw and can be pronounced a variety of ways, one being ‘Shlomit’. This name appears to be female because of the characteristic taw ending, although it can be argued was the name of a man. King Solomon (in Hebrew Shlomo) is the largest personality in the Bible who bore the male version of this name. Both names come from the verb meaning ‘to be safe’; and the word for ‘peace’, Shalom is also derived from this verb.

‘Shlomit’ forms the bottom register of the seal while above it, flanking what appears to be a horned altar, are two bearded figures. In the top register is a crescent moon. The dating is still under debate and shall not be concluded until we have information as to the stone material of the seal, and its stratigraphic placement in the excavation. However a date may be proposed based on the glyptic scene which is common for the Iron Age period, and more specifically the late seventh and early sixth centuries. This is a small but very impressive seal, offering us a wealth of information. Let us hope for many more this year!

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The oldest part of Israelite Jerusalem, known as the city of David, is located on a narrow ridge just south of the walls of the current old city of Jerusalem. After conquering Jerusalem from the Jebusites, David established the city as his capital and began to develop it. David’s Jerusalem was extremely small and was populated mainly by the king and his staff. David laid the groundwork for building a royal Acropolis, including a palace, administrative building, and naturally, the Jerusalem temple. It was his son, Solomon, who completed this building project, as well as the wall of the city, which was not completed by David: “Solomon built the Milo and closed the breaches [in the walls] of the city of his father David” (1 Kings 11:27).

The city of David has undergone massive excavations since the 19^th century, revealing public buildings, private houses, water systems and other archaeological findings. These excavations also reveal the slow expansion the city underwent and its extension towards the eastern hills of the area.

Of special importance among the archaeological finds is an ancient water system which enabled the inhabitants of Canaanite Jerusalem to reach a protected accumulation pool outside the city walls using an underground tunnel. This and the 8^th century water system built by king Hezekiah – the impressive Siloam tunnel – show that the need to channel the water from the sources outside the walls to the inhabitants living inside them was crucial to every-day life in Jerusalem.

In recent excavations, the archaeologist Aylat Mazar claims to have found the remnants of the palace of king David, an identification made with the aid of the biblical account.

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The Jerusalem Temple is a general name which conveys two different temples, operating from the 10th century BCE to the 1st century CE on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, with a seven-decade-long gap during the 6th century CE due to the Babylonian exile.

The Temple was the religious center of the Israelite and later Judean religion, and was the place of offerings and festivals, and included many ritual objects: the candlestick which provided light for the temple, the altar upon which the sacrifices were given, the altar of incense, and the Tabernacle, existing only during the First Temple Period, which contained the tablets of stone with the Ten Commandments and the manna. But first and foremost, the Temple was a place of prayer for all those wishing to pray to YHWH, whether Israelites or gentiles. The Temple became the religious center of the people only during the reign of Solomon, and was preceded by the desert Tabernacle and the temples of Shilo and Bethel.

The First Temple was built by Solomon, who completed David’s task of establishing the kingdom and its religious and governmental institutions. The Temple was to be the symbol of God’s presence amongst his people, as God says to Solomon: “This house which you are building, if you walk in my statutes . . . then I will keep my word with you . . . And I will dwell among the people of Israel, and I will not forsake my people, Israel” (1 Kings 6:12-13).
The First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, and approximately 70 years later, the first exiles returned from Babylon and re-established the Temple. This Temple was a small and meager version of the first, but was an important symbol of the return of Israel to their land. In the 1st century CE, King Herod renovated the building and turned it into a beautiful and glorious architectural masterpiece, as the Rabbis said: “He who did not see the Temple of Herod has never seen a truly beautiful building” (Babylonian Talmud Baba Batra 4a).
The Second Temple was the center of Jewish religious and political life for over half a millennium, witnessing revolts, changes of external empires and internal governments, and many religious disputes. Among the reformers active in this Temple was Jesus, who overturned the tables of the money-changers who were working inside the temple court and drove out the animals being sold for sacrifice, in order to protest the state of the Temple and the fact that it had become a place of market rather than the house of God. The Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.

Map of Jerusalem

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