Calling Jerusalem the “holy city” comes so naturally to Christians that it comes as something of a surprise to realize how infrequently the phrase is used in Scripture. Not only is Jerusalem rarely called holy, but in the Old Testament this classification is found only in texts that refer to or were written in the exilic and post-exilic periods.

Joel 3:17 asserts, for example, that “Jerusalem will be holy.” Joel 3 is evidently a promise concerning the restoration period: It begins with a promise that the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem would be restored (3:1), and the entire chapter follows a pattern of restoration, judgment and war against the nations, and the Lord’s return to Jerusalem that is found in other prophecies of the return from exile (e.g., Ezk. 37-48; Zech. 9-14?). Regardless of the dating of Joel’s prophecy, 3:17 is concerned with the return from the Babylonian exile. Three texts in Isaiah are relevant: 48:2, 52:1, and 64:10. Though these were written prior to the exile, they are in a section of Isaiah that concerns the restoration. The other Old Testament references to “holy” Jerusalem are Nehemiah 11:1, 18 and Daniel 9:24.

In her 1988 study, In An Age of Prose: A Literary Approach to Ezra-Nehemiah (Atlanta: Scholars Press), Tamara Cohn Eskenazi argues that Ezra and Nehemiah both assume that, after the return from exile, the holiness of the temple expanded to include the entire city of Jerusalem. Many bits of evidence support this interpretation. Most directly, Nehemiah twice called Jerusalem the “holy city” (Neh. 11:1, 18). Eliashib the high priest, moreover, “consecrated” the wall at the beginning of the building project (Neh. 3:1), and Levites were stationed at the gates of the city (Neh. 7:1; 13:22).

Once it is recognized that the restoration city participated in the holiness of the temple, certain odd events in Nehemiah begin to make more sense. Nehemiah’s attention to the broken walls of the city takes on a religious, not only a military, coloration; his survey of the walls parallels the priest’s inspection of the temple. Genealogies of the people who volunteered to return to the city are provided, just as genealogies were earlier required for Levites who wished to participate in the temple services (Neh 11:4-9; cf. 7:61-65). Jerusalem, being a holy city, required a demonstrably holy seed.

As Eskenazi points out, Ezra and Nehemiah distinguish between the temple proper and the wider notion of the “house of God,” which, in these books at least, includes both temple and city. This usage is evident in Ezra 3:8, which begins, “Now in the second year of their coming to the house of God at Jerusalem in the second month.” Note first that “Jerusalem” may be read as an apposition to “house of God” (the Hebrew can be translated, “to (‘el) the house of God, to (le) Jerusalem”). More importantly, Ezra 3 describes events that occurred several years before the completion of the temple (cf. Ezra 6:15); only the altar had been erected (3:3). It might be argued that the building of the altar established a house of God. But I am persuaded that Eskenazi’s interpretation is more plausible; returning to the city of Jerusalem was equivalent to returning to the house of God.

In several passages outside Ezra-Nehemiah, “temple” refers to a more restricted area than “house.” Daniel 5:3 refers to the “temple of the house of God in Jerusalem.” (The NASB translates “the temple, the house of God,” but the Aramaic particle di, frequently used to mark a genitive, separates the two.) Ezekiel 41:1 uses a word frequently translated as temple (heykal) to refer to the main hall of the temple, not the whole temple. The NASB rightly translates heykal as “nave,” but botches the rest of the chapter by randomly translating bayit now as “house,” now as “temple.” In any case, in Ezekiel 41 the heykal is an area within a larger structure called the “house.”

Recognizing that the term “house” has a broader referent than “temple” helps explain features of Ezra 4:7-24 that have been the subject of considerable debate. The crux of the problem is that the context speaks of “building the house of God” (4:3), but Rehum and Shimshai’s letter to Artaxerxes says nothing about the temple but concentrates exclusively on the building of the city walls. Many commentators have seen verses 7-24 as a dischronologized digression, but the purpose of citing the correspondence is clearly to explain why the “work on the house of God ceased” (4:24). Everything fits perfectly together, however, if “house” equals “city.” In fact, Ezra 4:7-24 provides strong confirmation of this conclusion.

The equivalence of the house and the city explains other details of Ezra-Nehemiah as well. The dedication service for the temple is only briefly described (6:16-18); compared with the dedication service for Solomon’s temple, this feast seems meager indeed. Whatever practical reasons there might have been for limiting the celebration, the theological rationale seems to be that the completion of the temple was not yet the completion of the “house.” When we come to the service for the dedication of the city walls, Nehemiah takes several chapters to describe the activities. Significantly, the covenant renewal ceremony after the completion of the wall occurred in the seventh month (Neh. 8:2), connecting with the completion of the temple of Solomon (1 Ki. 8:2). Both events were associated with the celebration of the feast of booths. After completing the house, moreover, the people commit the sin of Solomon (Neh. 13:26). The restoration analogue to the completion of Solomon’s temple is the completion of the city walls.

Further, the dedication service described in Nehemiah 12 is difficult if one assumes that “house” means “temple.” First, could all these people fit into the temple court at one time? Second, 12:31-39 describes a double procession around the top of the city wall, the second stopping at the “Gate of the Guard,” but in verse 40 the two choirs are suddenly and inexplicably taking their stand in the “house of God.” This is a jarring transition. Either Nehemiah, who has been so careful to describe the procession almost step by step up through verse 39, makes an awkward leap, or something has been dropped from the text, or taking a stand in the “house of God” means standing on the city walls.

The expansion of the holiness of the house parallels the more intense holiness of the whole nation in the restoration period. In the background are prophetic promises of a “new covenant” and the outpouring of the Spirit on all flesh (Jer. 31:31-34; Ezk. 36:22-32; Joel 2:28-32), which were initially fulfilled in post-exilic Israel. In Ezra and Nehemiah, this point is confirmed more by what is absent than by what is present. The first temple was built by a king, but there is no king in the restoration community. Far from being highlighted, Zerubbabel’s Davidic ancestry is not even mentioned in Ezra or Nehemiah. Instead, the main builders are the people; every Israelite has a hand in building the temple, an activity normally reserved to kings in the Ancient Near East and in Israel.

Moses was aided in the construction of the tabernacle by the Spirit-anointed Bezalel and Oholiab (Ex. 31:1-6), and Solomon by Hiram of Tyre (1 Ki. 7:13-14), but there is no master architect in Ezra or Nehemiah. Instead the Lord stirred up the spirits of the whole people to build (Ez. 1:5); we have here a nation of Bezalels, all equipped by the Spirit to build the house of God. When the house of the Lord is finished, the people pray, not the king (compare Neh. 9; 2 Chron. 6); what we have, again, is a nation of Solomons. The people bow to the ground when Ezra blesses the Lord and read the Torah, but no cloud appears (Neh. 8:6). The people are the glory-canopy, and their shouts of praise resound through the land (Neh. 12:43).

Thus, the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which were originally a single book, are from beginning to end about the building of the house of the Lord. The books may be organized according to the four stages in the completion of the house. First the altar; then the temple; then the reformation of the people-house; finally, the city walls are finished and dedicated. Cyrus’s decree permitting the Jews to rebuild the Lord’s house, quoted at the beginning of Ezra, was not fulfilled until the end of Nehemiah.

This interpretation of the house-building of Ezra and Nehemiah throws fresh light on several contemporary prophetic passages. Zechariah 2:1-5, the third of Zechariah’s night visions, presents a man measuring the boundaries of Jerusalem. Elsewhere in the Old Testament, only holy places are measured (Ex. 27:9-19; Nu. 35:4-8; 1 Ki. 6:14-7:8; Ezk. 40-43). To “set a measuring line over Jerusalem” (Zech. 1:16) is to consecrate it as holy space. Zechariah ends with a prediction that the holiness of the temple would expand to the entire city (Zech. 14:20-21), a prophecy whose fulfillment is implied in Ezra and Nehemiah.

The holy city theme of Ezra-Nehemiah may also suggest a refinement of traditional interpretations of the promises of Haggai 2:1-9 and the vision of Ezekiel 40-48. Both prophetic passages promise that the restoration “house” would be more glorious than Solomon’s temple. The notion that these prophecies refer to the spiritual reality of the restoration, not to the physical temple, suffers from the fact that glory nearly always refers to an empirical and visible reality. If these prophecies are taken as promises about the “house” of Jerusalem, then they might be taken in more literal fashion: They promise that the glory of the holy city would exceed the glory of the temple of Solomon.

Several further implications may be drawn out. First, the expansion of the concept of the “house” of God to include the entire city of Jerusalem is paralleled by the expansion of the concept of the “throne of the Lord.” The original throne of God is, of course, the heavenly one (cf. Ps. 11:4; 103:19; Is. 66:1; etc.). Throughout the Old Testament, however, the Lord also established a number of earthly thrones as focal points of His presence and reign among His people. Being places where God is present in glory, these were particularly holy places (cf. Ps. 47:8).

The first of the Lord’s earthly thrones was the ark of the covenant. Though the ark is never explicitly called the throne of the Lord, the Lord is several times said to be enthroned “above the cherubim” (Ps. 80:1; 99:1). Some of these references might, in isolation, be taken to refer to the Lord’s enthronement above the living cherubim in the heavenly glory, but 1 Samuel 4:4 indicates that the cherubim in question are those above the ark: the people of Shiloh “carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord of hosts who sits above the cherubim.” The ark and its cherubim throne, where the glory of the Lord sat, was clearly the central and most holy object in the tabernacle complex. When the Philistines invaded the land and conquered Israel for a time, they took the ark into exile with them; after the Lord devastated the Philistines with Egyptian plagues, they wisely returned it (1 Sam. 4-6).

During the restoration period, the ark was replaced as the Lord’s throne. Jeremiah, prophesying of the restoration, said, “`And it shall be in those days when you are multiplied and increased in the land,’ declares the Lord, `they shall say no more, “The ark of the covenant of the Lord.” And it shall not come to mind, nor shall they remember it, nor shall they miss it, nor shall it be made again. At that time they shall call Jerusalem “The Throne of the Lord,” and all the nations will be gathered to it, to Jerusalem, for the name of the Lord’” (Jer. 3:16-17). In the restoration period, the entire city became the holy throne of the Lord, the gathering place for the nations.

In 1 Samuel, the Lord judged Israel’s sin by allowing the ark-throne of the Lord to be removed by the Philistines. After the restoration, when the throne encompassed the city, we would expect judgment to come upon the entire city-throne. This is exactly what happened in ad 70, in what we, more precisely than we might realize, call the “destruction of Jerusalem.” The accent in prophecies of ad 70 is on the attack on and fall of the city (Dan. 9:26; Lk. 21:20-22; Rev. 17-18). The fall of the city was not, however, primarily a political event; it involved the transferral of the throne of the Lord to a new people (cf. Mt. 21:33-46).

Between these two endpoints, the ark-throne gradually became less and less central in Israel’s worship and life. Solomon built the temple to provide a permanent place for the ark to rest (1 Ki. 8:21), and the procession of the ark was clearly the climax of the temple-building project (cf. 2 Chron. 5:2-14). In Kings, however, there is no mention of the ark after it was placed in Solomon’s temple (1 Ki. 8:21). In Chronicles, we are informed that one of Josiah’s reforms was to relieve the Levites of the burden of carrying the ark (2 Chron. 35:3), who, according to J. Barton Payne’s interpretation, removed it from the temple for protection during the reigns of Manasseh and Amon (“1–2 Chronicles,” The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Frank E. Gaebelein, gen. ed. [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988], vol. 4, p. 552). Otherwise, the ark is never mentioned after the time of Solomon.

What was the Lord’s throne during the time of the kings? The best clue we have comes at the end of the period. Nebuchadnezzar did not, like the Philistines, carry the ark into captivity; in fact, the ark is not even mentioned among the items that he removed from the temple. Instead, Nebuchadnezzar took all the temple furnishings into exile (2 Ki. 25:13-17); like the ark, these too were the cause of plagues among the Babylonians (Dan. 5). This suggests that the throne had expanded to include everything in the temple. Taking Jeremiah 3 into consideration, we seem justified in conclusion that after the building of Solomon’s temple, the temple itself functioned as the Lord’s throne.

We thus have these three stages in the development of the Lord’s throne: ark, temple, city. The New Covenant fulfillment is the church. All the Old Testament thrones symbolized the reality that has now come in fullness: the Lord is enthroned on the praises of His people.

Second, the fact that the holiness of the temple expanded to encompass the whole city may help explain the “abomination of desolation . . . standing in the holy place” (Mt. 24:15). The phrase “holy place” itself (Gr. hagios topos) is used in the LXX to describe the first room of the tabernacle (e.g., Ex. 29:31; Lev. 6:26). If the entire city has become in some sense a “holy place,” however, the abomination of desolation need not be understood as being in the temple proper; whatever the desolating abomination was, it could have been anywhere in the holy city. This insight eases the problem of harmonizing Matthew 24:15 (“abomination of desolation . . . standing in the holy place”) with the Lukan parallel (21:20: “Jerusalem surrounded by armies”).

Finally, Ezekiel’s visionary temple seems to be clearer if it is understood as a vision of the entire “house” of the Lord; that is, Ezekiel described a visionary Jerusalem. It is true that Ezekiel distinguishes between the city and the temple area (Ezk. 48:8-20). But for all that, it is also clear that the city is holy, albeit not as holy as the temple itself. This is indicated both by the fact that the city is included in the “oblation” set apart as the Lord’s own portion of the land (48:9, 15-18), and by the fact that the city is laid out as a holy square (48:16). The final verses of Ezekiel describe the gates of the city, and give Jerusalem a new name, Yahweh-shammah, “the Lord is there” (48:35). Fairbairn dismisses the obvious import of this name when he states that “it was in the temple, rather than in the city, that the Lord was represented as having his dwelling-place” (Commentary on Ezekiel [Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1989], p. 508). It is far preferable to take the name at face value, as confirmation that the city has become a holy city, indwelt by the Lord. The Lord’s presence is no longer confined to the temple proper; He inhabits the entire city. Altogether, it seems most accurate to say that the city in Ezekiel’s vision is the forecourt of the temple.

If the above is accurate, Ezekiel’s attention to the elaborate gates of the Lord’s house begins to make sense (Ezk. 40:20-37). The gates of the visionary “house” are symbolically equivalent to the gates of the city. Nehemiah thus directly, perhaps even self-consciously, fulfilled Ezekiel’s vision in his rebuilding of Jerusalem’s gates and walls.


Peter Leithart is President of Trinity House. This essay was first published in Biblical Horizons.

Related Media

To download Theopolis Lectures, please enter your email.

CLOSE