Names of Jerusalem explained

Names of Jerusalem refers to the multiple names by which the city of Jerusalem has been known and the etymology of the word in different languages. According to the Jewish Midrash, "Jerusalem has 70 names".[1] Lists have been compiled of 72 different Hebrew names for Jerusalem in Jewish scripture.[2]

Today, Jerusalem is called Yerushalayim (Hebrew: {{Script/Hebrew|יְרוּשָׁלַיִם) and Al-Quds (Arabic: اَلْـقُـدْس). Yerushalayim is a derivation of a much older name, recorded as early as in the Middle Bronze Age, which has however been repeatedly re-interpreted in folk etymology, notably in Biblical Greek, where the first element of the name came to be associated with Greek, Modern (1453-);: ἱερός (hieros, "holy"). The city is also known, especially among Muslims, as Bayt al-Maqdis (Arabic: بَـيْـت الْـمَـقْـدِس|lit=Holy House), referring to the Temple in Jerusalem, called Beit HaMikdash in Hebrew.[3]

Early extra-biblical and biblical names

Jerusalem

A city called Ꜣwšꜣmm in the Execration texts of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt (c. 19th century BCE) and typically reconstructed as (U)Rušalim is usually identified as Jerusalem.[4] [5] [6] Nadav Na'aman proposed that the name should instead be understood as r'š (head) + rmm (exalted), meaning 'the exalted head', and so not referring to Jerusalem, but Na'aman withdrew this objection in 2023.[7] [8]

Jerusalem is called either Akkadian: Urusalim (Akkadian: URU ú-ru-sa-lim)or Akkadian: Urušalim (Akkadian: URU ú-ru-ša<sub>10</sub>-lim) in the Amarna letters of Abdi-Heba (1330s BCE).[9]

The Sumero-Akkadian name for Jerusalem, uru-salim,[10] is variously etymologised to mean "foundation of [or: by] the god Shalim": from West Semitic yrw, ‘to found, to lay a cornerstone’, and Shalim, the Canaanite god of the setting sun and the nether world, as well as of health and perfection.[11]

Jerusalem is the name most commonly used in the Bible, and the name used by most of the Western World. The Biblical Hebrew form is Yerushalaim, adopted in Biblical Greek as Hierousalēm, Ierousalēm (Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: Ιερουσαλήμ), or Hierosolyma, Ierosolyma (Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: Ιεροσόλυμα), and in early Christian Bibles as Syriac Ūrišlem (Classical Syriac: ܐܘܪܫܠܡ) as well as Latin Latin: Hierosolyma or Latin: Ierusalem. In Arabic, this name occurs in the form Ūrsālim (Arabic: أْوْرْسَـالِـم) which is the Arabic name promoted by the Israeli government.[12]

The name "Shalem", whether as a town or a deity, is derived from the same root Š-L-M as the word "shalom", meaning peace,[13] [14] so that the common interpretation of the name is now "The City of Peace"[15] [16] or "Abode of Peace", indicating a sanctuary.[17] [18]

The ending -ayim indicates the dual in Hebrew, thus leading to the suggestion that the name refers to the two hills on which the city sits.[19] [20] However, the pronunciation of the last syllable as -ayim appears to be a late development, which had not yet appeared at the time of the Septuagint. In fact, in the unvocalized Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible the yod that would be required for the -ayim ending (so that it would be written, as in post-biblical Hebrew, rather than) is almost always absent. It is only the much later vocalization, with the vowel marks for a and i squeezed together between the lamed and the mem, that provides the basis for this reading. In extra-biblical inscriptions, the earliest known example of the -ayim ending was discovered on a column about 3 km west of ancient Jerusalem, dated to the first century BCE.[21]

In Genesis Rabbah 56:10, the name is interpreted as a combination of yir'eh, "He will see [to it]," and Shalem, the city of King Melchizedek (based on Genesis 14:18). A similar theory is offered by Philo in his discussion of the term "God's city."[22] Other midrashim say that Jerusalem means "City of Peace".[23]

In Greek, the city is called either Ierousalēm (Ἰερουσαλήμ) or Hierosolyma (Ἱεροσόλυμα). The latter exhibits yet another re-etymologization, by association with the word hieros (Greek, Modern (1453-);: ἱερός, "holy").[24] [25] In early Greek manuscripts, Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: Ἱερουσαλήμ is presented as a "holy name": .

Shalem

The name Shalem/Salem (שלם šālêm) is found in the account of Melchizedek in 14:18 : And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God (El Elyon).

That the name Salem refers to Jerusalem is evidenced by Psalm 76:2 which uses "Salem" as a parallel for "Zion", the citadel of Jerusalem. The same identification is made by Josephus and the Aramaic translations of the Bible.

LanguageNameTranslit.
LXXΣαλήμ[26] Salēm
Greek (variant)Σόλυμα[27] Solyma
Biblical LatinSalem
ArabicسَـالِـمSālim
HebrewשָׁלֵםŠālēm

Shalem was the Canaanite god of dusk, sunset, and the end of the day, also spelled Shalim.[28] Many scholars believe that his name is preserved in the name of the city Jerusalem.[29] It is believed by some scholars that the name of Jerusalem comes from Uru + Shalem, meaning the foundation of Shalem or founded by Shalem or city of Shalem, and that Shalem was the city god of the place before El Elyon.[30]

Zion

See main article: Zion. Mount Zion (Hebrew: הר צִיּוֹן Har Tsiyyon) was originally the name of the hill where the Jebusite fortress stood, but the name was later applied to the Temple Mount just to the north of the fortress, also known as Mount Moriah, possibly also referred to as "Daughter of Zion" (i.e., as a protrusion of Mount Zion proper).

From the Second Temple era, the name came to be applied to a hill just to the south-west of the walled city. This latter hill is still known as Mount Zion today. From the point of view of the Babylonian exile (6th century BCE), Zion has come to be used as a synonym of the city of Jerusalem as a whole.

Other biblical names

Middle Persian

According to "Shahnameh", ancient Iranian used "Kangdezh Hûkht" کَـنْـگ دِژ هُـوْخْـت or "Dezhkang Hûkht" دِژ کَـنْـگ هُـوْخْـت to name Jerusalem. "Kang Diz Huxt" means "holy palace" and was the capital of "Zahhak" and also "Fereydun's" kingdom.[32] [33] Another variant of the name is Kang-e Dozhhûkht (Dozhhûkht-Kang), which is attested in Shahnameh. It means "[the] accursed Kang".[34]

Greco-Roman

Aelia Capitolina was the Roman name given to Jerusalem in the 2nd century, after the destruction of the Second Temple. The name refers to Hadrian's family, the gens Aelia, and to the hill temple of Jupiter built on the remains of the Temple.During the later Roman Era, the city was expanded to the area now known as the Old City of Jerusalem. Population increased during this period, peaking at several hundred thousand, numbers only reached again in the modern city, in the 1960s.

From this name derives Tiberian Hebrew ʼÊliyyāh Qappîṭôlînāh. The Roman name was loaned as Arabic: إِيْـلْـيَـاء|ʼĪlyāʼ, early in the Middle Ages, and appears in some Hadith (Bukhari 1:6, 4:191; Muwatta 20:26), like Bayt ul-Maqdis.

Islamic

Jerusalem fell to the Muslim conquest of Palestine in 638.The medieval city corresponded to what is now known as the Old City (rebuilt in the 2nd century as Roman Aelia Capitolina). The population at the time of the Muslim conquest was about 200,000, but from about the 10th century it declined, to less than half that number by the time of the Christian conquest in the 11th century, and with the re-conquest by the Khwarezmi Turks was further decimated to about 2,000 people (moderately recovering to some 8,000 under Ottoman rule by the 19th century).

The modern Arabic name of Jerusalem is اَلْـقُـدْس al-Quds, and its first recorded use can be traced to the 9th century CE, two hundred years after the Muslim conquest of the city. Prior to the use of this name, the names used for Jerusalem were إِيْـلْـيَـاء Īlyā' (from the Roman era name) and بَـيْـت الْـمَـقْـدِس Bayt al-Maqdis (after the Temple), alternatively vocalized as بَـيْـت الْـمُـقَـدَّس Bayt al-Muqaddas.[35]

Al-Quds is the most common Arabic name for Jerusalem and is used by many cultures influenced by Islam. The name may have been shortened from مَـدِيـنَـة الْـقُـدْس Madīnat al-Quds, a calque of the Hebrew nickname for the city, Ir HaKodesh (עיר הקודש "the Holy City" or "City of the Holy Place"). The variant اَلْـقُـدْس الـشَّـرِيْـف al-Quds aš-Šarīf ("Al-Quds the Noble") has also been used, notably by the Ottomans in the Turkish form Kudüs-i Şerîf.

Bayt al-Maqdis or Bayt al-Muqaddas is a less commonly used Arabic name for Jerusalem though it appeared more commonly in early Islamic sources. It is the base from which nisbas (names based on the origin of the person named) are formed – hence the famous medieval geographer called both al-Maqdisi and al-Muqaddasi (946) This name is of a semantic extension from the Hadiths used in reference to the Temple in Jerusalem, called Beit HaMikdash (בית המקדש "The Holy Temple" or "Temple of the Sanctified Place") in Hebrew.[37]

Arabic: اَلْـبَـلَاط al-Balāṭ is a rare poetic name for Jerusalem in Arabic, loaned from the Latin palatium "palace". Also from Latin is إِيْـلْـيَـاء ʼĪlyāʼ, a rare name for Jerusalem used in early times Middle Ages, as in some Hadith (Bukhari 1:6, 4:191; Muwatta 20:26).

Ṣahyūn (Arabic: صهيون, Ṣahyūn or Ṣihyūn) is the word for Zion in Arabic and Syriac.[38] [39] Drawing on biblical tradition, it is one of the names accorded to Jerusalem in Arabic and Islamic tradition.[39] [40]

Sign languages

Jewish and Arab signers of Israeli Sign Language use different signs: the former mimic kissing the Western Wall, the latter gesture to indicate the shape of the Masjid Al-Aqsa (i.e. the Dome of the Rock).[41]

See also

References

Bibliography

External links

Notes and References

  1. [Numbers Rabbah]
  2. Ilana Caznelvugen lists the 72 names in her two articles "Many names for Jerusalem" and "70 Names for Jerusalem", Sinai 116, Mosad Harav Kook, 1995. The Jerusalem municipality website lists 105 Hebrew names.
  3. Marom . Roy . Zadok . Ran . 2023 . Early-Ottoman Palestinian Toponymy: A Linguistic Analysis of the (Micro-)Toponyms in Haseki Sultan's Endowment Deed (1552) . Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins . en . 139 . 2 . 11 . Bayt al-maqdis /Bēt il-maqdis/ (Pr: O) [51]. No. 3 and 4 are Islamic designations of Jerusalem. The former which has become the regular name of the city among Muslims, is directly inspired by the Jewish epithet of Jerusalem as (ʽyr) hqdš while the latter, which seems to be merely literary, is a rendering of Heb. byt hmqdš (i.e. pars pro toto).
  4. Book: David Noel Freedman. Allen C. Myers. Astrid B. Beck. Eerdmans dictionary of the Bible. 19 August 2010. 2000. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. 978-0-8028-2400-4. 694–695.
  5. G. Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren (eds.) Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (tr. David E. Green), William B. Eerdmann, Grand Rapids Michigan, Cambridge/UK 1990, vol. VI, p. 348.
  6. Book: Development of the Cannanite dialects: an investigation in linguistic history. Zellig Harris. 1939. American Oriental Society. 34. Ꜣwšꜣmm 'Jerusalem' (Ächtungstexte f 18).
  7. Nadav Naʼaman, Canaan in the 2nd Millennium B.C.E., Eisenbrauns, 2005 p. 177ff.
  8. Nadav Na'aman . Locating Jerusalem's Royal Palace in the Second Millennium BCE in Light of the Glyptic and Cuneiform Material Unearthed in the Ophel . Tel Aviv . 2023 . 50 . 1 . 111–125 . 10.1080/03344355.2023.2190284. 259120316 . free .
  9. Urusalim e.g. in EA 289:014, Urušalim e.g. in EA 287:025. Transcription online at Web site: The El Amarna Letters from Canaan . Tau.ac.il . 11 September 2010. ; translation by Knudtzon 1915 (English in Percy Stuart Peache Handcock, Selections from the Tell El-Amarna letters (1920).
  10. See Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1-17, p. 410 (1990). Hamilton also asserts that Sumerian uru is yerû, meaning "city."
  11. Anchor Bible Dictionary Web site: SHALEM (DEITY) – the Anchor Bible Dictionary . 2014-02-11 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20140221223704/http://www.biblicalwritings.com/shalem-deity-the-anchor-bible-dictionary/ . 2014-02-21 . ;Holman Bible Dictionary, http://www.studylight.org/dic/hbd/print.cgi?n=3384 ; National Geographic, http://education.nationalgeographic.com/media/file/Jerusalem_ED_Sheets.FasFacts.pdf ("As for the meaning of the name, it can be assumed to be a compound of the West Semitic elements "yrw" and "s[h]lm," probably to be interpreted as "Foundation of (the god) Shalem." Shalem is known from an Ugaritic mythological text as the god of twilight.").
  12. News: Why Is Jerusalem Called Jerusalem?. 2015-05-17. Haaretz. 2019-11-21. en.
  13. Book: Elon, Amos . Jerusalem . 1996 . 0-00-637531-6 . 26 April 2007 . HarperCollins Publishers Ltd . The epithet may have originated in the ancient name of Jerusalem—Salem (after the pagan deity of the city), which is etymologically connected in the Semitic languages with the words for peace (shalom in Hebrew, salam in Arabic). . 19 March 2016 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160319003627/http://www.usna.edu/Users/history/tucker/hh362/telavivandjerusalem.htm . dead .
  14. Ringgren, H., Die Religionen des Alten Orients (Göttingen, 1979), 212.
  15. Book: Binz, Stephen J.. Jerusalem, the Holy City. 2005. Twenty-Third Publications. Connecticut, USA.. 9781585953653. 2. 17 December 2011.
  16. Book: Hastings, James . A Dictionary of the Bible: Volume II: (Part II: I -- Kinsman), Volume 2 . James Hastings . 2004 . Reprinted from 1898 edition by University Press of the Pacific . Honolulu, Hawaii . 1-4102-1725-6 . 584 . 17 December 2011.
  17. Book: Bosworth, Clifford Edmund . Historic cities of the Islamic world . Clifford Edmund Bosworth . 2007 . Koninklijke Brill NV . The Netherlands . 978-90-04-15388-2 . 225–226 . 17 December 2011.
  18. Web site: Abode of Peace? . Denise DeGarmo . 9 September 2011 . Wandering Thoughts . Center for Conflict Studies . 17 December 2011 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120426042313/http://centre4conflictstudies.org/wanderingthoughts/category/denise-degarmo/ . 26 April 2012 . dead .
  19. Book: Wallace, Edwin Sherman. 0-405-10298-4. Jerusalem the Holy. August 1977. 16. A similar view was held by those who give the Hebrew dual to the word. Arno Press. New York.
  20. Book: Smith, George Adam. Jerusalem: The Topography, Economics and History from the Earliest Times to A.D. 70. 1907. Hodder and Stoughton. 251. The termination -aim or -ayim used to be taken as the ordinary termination of the dual of nouns, and was explained as signifying the upper and lower cities.. 0-7905-2935-1. (see here)
  21. The Name Jerusalem in a Late Second Temple Period Jewish Inscription . Yuval Baruch, Danit Levi & Ronny Reich . Tel Aviv . 47 . 1 . 108–118 . 2020 . 10.1080/03344355.2020.1707452. 219879544 .
  22. https://books.google.com/books?id=JD-0SEV3Sd8C&dq=jerusalem+yeru+shalem+abode+of+peace&pg=PA133 With Letters of Light: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Early Jewish Apocalypticism, Magic and Mysticism, eds. Daphna Arbel and Andrei Orlov
  23. http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/bechuko/klein.htm Bar Ilan University, Prof. Yaakov Klein
  24. Alexander Hopkins McDannald (editor), The Encyclopedia Americana, Volume 16, Americana Corporation, 1947, entry Jerusalem
  25. Gerhard Kittel (editor), Gerhard Friedrich (editor), Geoffrey W. Bromiley (editor),Theological Dictionary of the New Testament: Abridged in One Volume, Eerdmans, 1985, entry Sion [Zion], Ierousalem [Jerusalem], Hierosolyma [Jerusalem], Hierosolymites [inhabitants of Jerusalem]
  26. E.g. found in the Septuagint and the writings of Philo; cf. Melchizedek as "king of peace" (Σαλήμ) in Heb. 7.1–2, based on Gn. 14.18; cf. also Philo, leg. all. 3.79.
  27. Cf. e.g. Flavius Josephus, Ant. J. 1.180.
  28. [Shalim|Shalem]
  29. E.g., L. Grabbe, "Ethnic groups in Jerusalem", in Jerusalem in Ancient History and Tradition (Clark International, 2003) pp. 145-163; John Day, Yahweh and the gods and goddesses of Canaan, Sheffield Academic Press 2002, p. 180; see also Shalim.
  30. http://www.biu.ac.il/JS/rennert/history_2.html Yisrael Shalem
  31. See Encyclopedia Judaica: Ariel.
  32. کنگ دز هوخت و کلنگ دس حت (تحقیقی دربارة نام ایوان ضحّاک در شاهنامه و سنی ملوک الارض و الانبیاء). 10.22067/jls.v47i3.44857. 2014. 47. 3. مولایی. چنگیز. جستارهای نوین ادبی.
  33. C.Mowlā'i /Kang Diz Huxt and Kuling Dus-Hut (An Investigation into the Name of Żahhāk's Palace in the Shāh-nāma and in Sanī Mulūk al-Arż v-al-Anbiyā’) / Journal of Research Literary Studies, 2014, 47(3):145-156
  34. Web site: Lurje. Pavel. KANGDEZ. Encyclopaedia Iranica. 15 April 2017. en.
  35. El-Awaisi, Khalid. "From Aelia To Al-Quds: The Names Of Islamic Jerusalem In The Early Muslim Period", 2011. Retrieved on 16 June 2019.
  36. See 'JERUSALEM', Engraved by Lodge in George Henry Millar, The New & Universal System Of Geography (London: Alexander Hogg, 1782)
  37. Carrol, James. "Jerusalem, Jerusalem: How The Ancient City Ignited Our Modern World", 2011. Retrieved on 24 May 2014.
  38. Book: Palestine Exploration Fund. Palestine Exploration Fund. Palestine Exploration Quarterly. Palestine Exploration Quarterly, Volumes 109–110. 1977. Published at the Fund's Office. 21.
  39. Book: Gil, Moshe. Moshe Gil. A History of Palestine, 634–1099. 1997. Cambridge University Press. 978-0-521-59984-9. 114.
  40. Book: Freund, Richard A.. Digging Through the Bible: Modern Archaeology and the Ancient Bible. 2009. Rowman & Littlefield. 978-0-7425-4645-5. 141.
  41. Web site: Siroa . Sammy . כיצד נותנים כינויים ושמות בשפת סימנים? סמי סירואה אצל אורלי וגיא- תוכנית רביעית . https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211222/T-zG0p3asBY . 2021-12-22 . live. YouTube . 15 February 2021.

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