Map Philistines capture Israel's Ark of Covenant
Philistines crush Israel’s army at the city of Ebenezer then steal the chest that holds the 10 Commandments, Israel’s most sacred object...the Ark of the Covenant. Philistines pass it around from city to city because people get sick wherever it goes. No one wants it. In the end, they give it back. By the time it reaches Jerusalem, it traveled 100 miles (160 km). The story appears in 1 Samuel 4-5.
Philistines capture Ark of the Covenant
Map Ramah to Shiloh
Map Ramah to Shiloh
Bible map Ramah to Shiloh.
Ramah was a short version of the city’s full name, Ramathaim—a bit like LA is short for Los Angeles and KC is short for Kansas City. Ramah is usually linked to ruins called Al-Ram. It’s about 5 miles (8 km) north of Jerusalem and about 15 miles (24 km) south of Shiloh. That’s almost a day’s walk to Shiloh. Some scholars link Rama to another ruin about five miles southwest, Nabi Samwil. At the time, Jerusalem was still a generation away from when King David would capture it and turn it into his capital, the City of David.
Road from Ramah to Shiloh
Solomon’s Jerusalem
Solomon's Jerusalem
Solomon's Jerusalem
King Solomon's Jerusalem sat on ridge and stretched about one kilometer (3/4 miles) from the Temple Mount on the top of the ridge, down to Lower Jerusalem called the City of David. King David's Jerusalem was about half as big. Solomon added the Temple and surrounding area later. Kings after Solomon began extending Jerusalem to the west. The Jerusalem of Jesus, during the Roman occupation of Israel, was much larger...until Rome crushed a Jewish revolt and destroyed the city in AD 70. That was the last Temple the Jews ever had. Arab invaders conquered the land and 1400 years ago built a Muslim shrine on the Temple Mount. It's now Jerusalem's most famous landmark: the Dome of the Rock. For another angle on Jerusalem, see the map with Nehemiah 7. Here's a sampling of King Solomon's unusual writing, which many scholars say was written centuries later by a writer borrowing Solomon's name.WHATEVER WE DO, IT’S A WASTE OF TIME
1David’s son, the Scholar and King of Jerusalem, offers these observations 2It’s a pitiful waste of time, the Scholar says. It’s all worthless and meaningless. 3What do people get for all their hard work, For spilling their sweat under the sun? 4A generation dies and another is born, But it makes no difference to the everlasting earth. 5The sun rises. The sun sets. Then it races all night to rise again. 6The wind blows north. The wind blows south. The wind blows round and round. It follows its route, comes back home, Then it starts all over again. 7Rivers and streams flow into the sea But the sea always has room for more. So, water returns to the streams where it came from And the streams flow back to the sea. 8Everything is exhausting, Too exhausting for words. What we see isn’t satisfying. What we hear isn’t good enough. Ecclesiastes 1:1-8, Casual English BibleKing Solomon's Jerusalem
Temple Mount in Jerusalem
Temple Mount in Jerusalem
Temple Mount in Jerusalem
The Temple Mount is at the rocky top of the ridge on which Jews built their Jerusalem Temple. King David lived down the hill in the City of David, a walled city below the top of the ridge. His son and successor, Solomon, expanded the city north, to the Temple Mount, where he built the first Jewish Temple. Babylonian invaders destroyed it and the entire city about 400 years later, in 586 BC. They exiled the surviving Jews. Persians conquered the Babylonians 50 years later and freed the Jews to go home. They rebuilt the Temple in 516 BC. So, they had lived without a Jerusalem worship center for 70 years. Then, 70 years after they built the second Temple, Nehemiah, a Jewish winetaster for the Persian king, got permission to go to Jerusalem and repair the walls. He served there as governor for about 13 years.Jews return home from the Exile
Jews return home from the Exile
Jews return home from the Exile
Zerubbabel and Sheshbazzar, prince of Judah, lead 50,000 Jews home, beginning in 538 BC. With a Persian military escort, they took a longer and safer route, following water sources.
Almost a century after the first Jews returned to Israel, Ezra led a group. Ezra took the shorter route, with a long walk through a dangerous part of the Arabian Desert.
Nehemiah came last and furthest, from Persia’s capital of Susa. He repaired Jerusalem’s walls.
Jews return home from the Exile
Jerusalem Temple, walls rebuilt
Jerusalem Temple, walls rebuilt
Jerusalem Temple, walls rebuilt
Prophet Ezra convinces Jerusalem Jews to finish rebuilding the Temple that invading Babylonians destroyed about 70 years earlier. Then in another 70 years or so, Nehemiah, the Jewish wine-taster of the Persian king gets his king's permission to repair some of the walls around Jerusalem.
Map Persian province of Judah
Map Persian province of Judah
Map of the Persian province of Judah
After the Jewish nation of Judah fell to Babylonian invaders in 586, many survivors lived in exile. Some returned 50 years later, when Persians freed them.
It was only a partial freedom. The Jews lived for the next 200 years as a tiny province of Persia: Yehud, which is translated "Judah" or "Judea."
It was roughly a 40-mile-wide square plug of ground (60 km), in territory that became known as Palestine. The Jewish province included Jerusalem and beyond, into what are now central parts of Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Jerusalem is where Jews sacrificed animals to God. So when the Jews returned, they built a new temple and later restored some of the walls around the city, but not to the larger size it was before the defeat.
Map of Judah as a Persian province
Map Persian Empire in time of Ezra, Nehemiah
Map Persian Empire in time of Ezra, Nehemiah
Map Persian Empire in time of Ezra, Nehemiah, with Persian Empire Provinces. Persian kings at the time reigned over provinces like Judah, from Libya and Egypt in the west to the border of India in the distant east. The empire stretched 2,800 miles (4,500 km) from the Indus Valley on India’s border in the distant east, to Egypt, Libya, and Ethiopia’s border in the southwest. That’s about Bangor, Maine to Los Angeles.
Persian Empire in time of Ezra, Nehemiah
Nehemiah rebuilds walls of Jerusalem
Nehemiah rebuilds walls of Jerusalem
Nehemiah rebuilt walls, gates of Jerusalem
Nehemiah is one odd story. He’s a Jew serving wine to a Persian king in what is now Iran. Who saw that coming? The king, Artaxerxes, trusts this Jewish man with his life. How did Nehemiah get there? Likely he was the descendant of Jews taken captive to Babylon (Iraq) about 150 years earlier, when Babylon leveled Jerusalem and other cities and took the Jews captive. About 50 years later, Persia (Iran) defeated Babylon and freed the Jews and other captives to go home. But many Jews stayed because they grew up in exile. Iraq and Iran was the only homeland they knew. Yet, many returned to the land of their ancestors to rebuild Jerusalem and the other cities. Nehemiah gets word that Jerusalem’s walls are still broken down and the city gates are gone. It’s a city undefended. He can’t believe it. By this time, Jews have had about 90 years to fix those walls.Winetaster becomes city builder
So, Nehemiah talks the king into giving him a 12-year leave of absence so he can repair the walls. It certainly seems odd that the king would grant his winetaster’s Big Ask. Yet the king also agrees to give him the wood for the job, sends him with a detachment of soldiers as an escort, and then appoints him governor over the Jewish province of Judah. That’s what the southern Jewish nation of Judah had become, a Persian province ruled by a Persian king who even chose the songs Jews could sing at the Temple (Nehemiah 11:23). Earlier, when Babylon exiled Jews from their homeland, settlers moved in. They hated the idea of Jews returning to power because it meant the Jews would try to take back the land and get rid of everyone else. Nehemiah had 12 years to fix the walls. It took him 52 days. Nehemiah rallied Jerusalem-area Jews to join the work. They felt the clock sands slipping away while their neighbors plotted to stop the work. Murdering Nehemiah seems to have been one plan on the table. Attacking the work crew was another. Jewish construction workers carried their weapons on the job in daylight, guarded the walls all night, and didn’t get much sleep during those 52 days and nights. Nehemiah spent the rest of his 12-year leave reminding the people what it meant to be Jewish. They studied the Laws of Moses that we read today as the first five books in the Bible.JERUSALEM’S WALL BUILDERS: ROLL CREDITS
NEHEMIAH’S MOTLEY CONSTRUCTION CREW
Nehemiah 3 1Teams of people worked together repairing different parts of Jerusalem’s damaged wall and destroyed gates. SHEEP GATE. Elisheba the high priest worked alongside other priests to rebuild the Sheep Gate. Then they built the doors, set them in place, and dedicated the entire area to God. They did this all the way from the Tower of the Hundred to the Tower of the Hananel. 2WALL. Jericho men worked on the wall beside the gate. Zaccur son of Imri worked just beyond them. 3FISH GATE. Hassenaah’s sons built the Fish Gate. They set in the door and placed the beams, bolts, and bars. 4WALL. Meremoth worked beside them on wall repairs. He was the son of Uriah and grandson of Hakkoz. 5WALL. People from the village of Tekoa made repairs. But their noble leaders wouldn’t stoop to manual labor—even for the Lord. It was beneath them.More
Jerusalem walls, gates in time of Nehemiah
Map Battle of Thermopylae
Map Battle of Thermopylae
Map Battle of Thermopylae. King Xerxes, about a year before he is said to have married Jewish Queen Esther of the Bible, conquered Greece. Even with over 200,000 soldiers, he took heavy losses when he fought 300 Spartan warriors and a few hundred volunteers defending a narrow pass on a beach perhaps 100 meters wide, the length of a football field. The large army needed to take that route to Athens, further south.
Xerxes at Battle of Thermopylae