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| Saturday, November 29, 2008
Jerusalem - City of Promise (part 1) by Ronald WongIt is 1048 B.C. The king stood triumphantly on the soil which he had just conquered. Towering in height, standing beside him were his soldiers, his companions. They had defeated the Jebusites-- the very people who said to him, "you will not get in... even the blind and lame can ward you off." The king rested his right foot on the rock in front of him, and gazed at the fortress which stood on the hill before him. He made up his mind. He shall take up residence in the fortress, and establish his capital here. He was King David; the fortress, Zion. This was Jerusalem-- the Holy City. "And David knew that the Lord had established him as king over Israel and had exalted his kingdom for the sake of his people Israel." (2 Samuel 5:12) Soon after, David gathered thirty thousand of his men and led a procession to bring the sacred Ark of the Covenant from Judah into this new capital. Disaster struck. Uzzah, David's companion and friend, had just been blazed to death by the Lord’s anger. The oxen pulling the cart had stumbled and the ark was slipping off it, almost falling onto the ground. Uzzah, in his instinctive desire to protect the ark, tried to prop up the ark with his hands; and was struck down for that irreverent act. David was upset. Uzzah had paid for David's mistake. He wondered how the ark would ever be brought into the City if God had done such a thing. He wanted to make Jerusalem, his political capital, also a spiritual sanctuary; but now, this. Three months later, the Lord gave a sign to David, and David once again attempted to bring the ark into the City. This time, David took precautions and observed the rituals down to the minute details, making sacrifice offerings every six steps taken, throughout the entire journey. Finally, after three months, after a friend's death, after much grief and worry, the ark arrived at the City. David undressed and, wearing only a linen ephod, danced before the Lord with all his might while the entire house of Israel celebrated along with shouts and sounds of trumpets. Then the Lord promised David, "I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed... When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son... Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever." (2 Samuel 7: 8-16) Years passed, and finally in 1015 B.C., the Lord's promise to David materialised through David's son, Solomon. The Lord had spoken clearly to Solomon, saying, "As for this temple you are building, if you follow my decrees, carry out my regulations and keep all my commands and obey them, I will fulfill through you the promise I gave to David your father. And I will live among the Israelites and will not abandon my people Israel." (1 Kings 6:12-13) It had taken 7 years of construction, tonnes of pure gold, olive, pine, cedar, stone (all specially hand carved and crafted), thirty thousand labourers, seventy thousand carriers, eighty thousand stonecutters, and thirty-three hundred foremen. Finally, it was done. Came the historic moment when the ark was brought into the temple, right in the heart of the Holy City. It was electrifying. People from all 12 tribes, all over the nation had congregated there to witness and worship at this spectacular event. So many sheep and cattle were sacrificed that they could not even be counted! The elders of Israel and the Levite priests had gathered there at the temple front on that very day, expectant and hopeful. At the very moment when the ark was rested in the inner sanctuary, an overwhelming cloud filled the temple that shone so brightly with God's glory that the priests could not even perform their service. Altogether, the massive body of Israelites exclaimed praise so gelled in spirit that the cacophony was melody. "Then Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in front of the whole assembly of Israel, spread out his hands toward heaven and said: 'O Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth below--you who keep your covenant of love with your servants who continue wholeheartedly in your way. You have kept your promise to your servant David my father; with your mouth you have promised and with your hand you have fulfilled it-as it is today.'" (1 Kings 8:22-24) And this was the Lord's answer to Solomon: "I have heard the prayer and plea you have made before me; I have consecrated this temple, which you have built, by putting my Name there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there." (1 Kings 9:3) This was the Lord's promise to Solomon, fulfilled and renewed again, there in the heart of the Holy City, in the heart of the nation of Israel. This was Jerusalem-- the City of Promise. Yet the promise was eventually threatened, and indeed, seemed to have been broken. After Solomon's death, the fight for his throne led to the Great Schism, a dark period of civil strife in the nation of Israel, when the 12 tribes divided into the Northern Kingdom of Israel (Samaria as its capital), and the Southern Kingdom of Judah (with Jerusalem remaining as its capital). Kings after kings, good and wicked, just and tyrannical, came to rule over the two kingdoms for over 300 years. Yet the City remained grafted in the hearts of the people as the spiritual capital of Israel-- every year, people from the Northern Kingdom would still flock to Jerusalem with their offerings to worship in the temple. Finally in 721 B.C., the Northern Kingdom of Israel came to an end-- brought away into Assyria, never to return, lost forever thence. In 700 B.C., the very same people who had destroyed Israel besieged it. The City of Promise stood decrepit on the brinks of destruction; yet it survived. Then a 100 years later, the Babylonians arrived in Judah, sacking the kingdom, abducting the people, and razing the Temple to the ground. This was Jerusalem, the City of Promise, desecrated: "He [the Lord] brought up against them the king of the Babylonians, who killed their young men with the sword in the sanctuary, and spared neither young man nor young woman, old man or aged. God handed all of them over to Nebuchadnezzar. He carried to Babylon all the articles from the temple of God, both large and small, and the treasures of the Lord's temple and the treasures of the king and his officials. They set fire to God's temple and broke down the wall of Jerusalem; they burned all the palaces and destroyed everything of value there. He carried into exile to Babylon the remnant, who escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and his sons until the kingdom of Persia came to power." (2 Chronicles 36: 17-20) True to the Lord's promise made known through Jeremiah, after seventy years of forlorn abandonment, the Lord made His move once again. The Lord stirred the heart of Cyrus, king of Persia, to pass an edict: "This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: 'The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Anyone of his people among you--may the Lord his God be with him, and let him go up.'" (2 Chronicles 36: 23) So in 445 B.C., the Lord led Ezra and Nehemiah to return to Jerusalem, and its walls were refortified. Yet, the children of Israel continued to live under foreign rule. Shortly after, in 400 B.C., the Dark period of Biblical silence began. Jerusalem, and the people of Israel, had over the span of 300 years, became subject to Babylonian, Persian rule, and eventually over the subsequent 400 years, under Egyptian, Syrian, and finally the Roman empires. ... Look out for Part 2 of this article in our next issue!
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