In Touch Quarter 3 - 2012

JERUSALEM:
TRAMPLED & RESTORED
In Touch
is the newsletter of
Christian Friends of Israel
UK
CFI-UK seeks to bless Israel by
means of practical and moral
support, and to serve the Church in
teaching about God’s purposes for
Israel and the Hebraic roots
of our faith.
CFI also produces a monthly News
Report, a monthly Prayer Letter and
a Middle East Update CD/MP3.
Please send for full details of the
practical projects and also of the
many teaching resources available.
As an educational charity,
we carry a variety of
resources relevant to our
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necessarily endorse every
view expressed by our
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Published by:
CFI Communications
PO Box 2687
Eastbourne
BN22 7LZ
Tel: 01323 410810
Fax: 01323 410211
Email: info@cfi.org.uk
Websites: www.cfi.org.uk
www.isrelate.com
www.keshercourse.org.uk
Registered Charity
No. 1101899
Front Cover Image:
Copyright © Bibleplaces.com
Jacob Vince writes on the history of God’s holy city
I
am currently
r e a d i n g
S i m o n
Sebag‘s book
‘Jerusalem –
the Biography.’
It makes for
sobering reading
when you see Jerusalem’s plight
over the centuries and millennia;
and more particularly in the last
one hundred and fifty years or
so before its return to Israel’s
sovereignty. There appears a
kind of frenzy of nations literally
trampling over and around
Jerusalem. Nominally under the
control of the weakening Turkish
Ottoman Empire, ‘tramplers’ from
the north, south, east and west
include Emperors, Princes, Dukes,
Politicians, Romantics, Writers,
Archaeologists and Pilgrims -
French, British, Russian, Prussian,
Albanian and American to name
but a few.
All these interact and intermingle
with a whole array of residents
and religious communities,
having built up over the years,
including Muslims, Greeks and
other Orthodox, Catholics and
Franciscans, Armenians and
Evangelicals. Alongside these
and interspersed through the
years is an historically resident
Jewish community expanding and
contracting as other beleaguered
Jewish communities from around
the world swell their numbers,
many times oppressed, other times
aided by Jewish philanthropists
and extended a degree of
protection and support from
certain diplomats and evangelicals.
There are also Arab residents,
specifically a number of powerful
families exercising different levels
of control in the mix, having come
from varying historic migrations.
Records over the period show a
city greatly distressed or ‘trodden
down,’ swelling with visitors at
certain festival times, but otherwise
sparsely populated and with much
squalor. Many of the nations
involved purchase tracts of land,
take possession and build various
‘quarters,’ primarily for the use of
their own national communities.
How is it that over the centuries
so many have found or created a
connection with Jerusalem? It has
little to commend it in terms of
natural resources, it barely features
on the international scene until
the first century, with Jerusalem
“No other city is mentioned in this way, for which
we should pray for its peace”
not even mentioned in Herodotus’
‘Histories’ circa 415 BCE, which
describe the broader region in great
detail.
Jerusalem’s earliest name ‘Salem’,
is mentioned four times in the
Bible, first when Abraham meets
Melchizedek (Genesis 14:18), then
in a Psalm of Asaph, “in Judah God
is known; his name is great in Israel.
His tent is in Salem, his dwelling
place in Zion” (Psalm 76:1-2), and
two times in the letter understood
as written to the Hebrews (Hebrews
7:1-2).
The name ‘Jerusalem’ itself does
not appear even once in the Law
(Torah). It is first mentioned in
the first of the former Prophets,
‘Joshua,’ after Ai had been taken
at the second attempt (Joshua
10:1). Later it is King David that
routs Jerusalem (2 Samuel 5:6-
2 // IN TOUCH