What is the significance of the city of Jerusalem?

It is the pre-eminence of Zion, the royal seat of the true David, that is here asserted by the Spirit of prophecy. The dwellings of Jacob are noticed as again inhabited (verse 2); but Jehovah's eye and heart are on Jerusalem (2 Chron. 7:16). He loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. It is the city of God (verse 3). The city also of the great King (Matt. 5:35). Glorious things are spoken of her. God, who had spoken them, will be the sure fulfiller of His word. She shall be the light and joy of the whole earth (Ps. 48; Isa. 62).

Zion is only named once in the Apocalypse. “Out of about 110 times that Zion is mentioned, ninety are in‎ terms of the Lord’s great love and affection for her, so that the place has great, very great significance, and Heaven knows it too.” The first mention of Zion when captured‎ from the Jebusites by David (2 Sam. 5:7) is pregnant with interest, for, adds the sacred historian, “the same is the city of David.” Saul, the predecessor of David on the‎ throne, was the man of the people’s choice, and typified ‎“the king” who reigns in Jerusalem before the Lord comes.‎ David, the true king of Israel, was Jehovah’s chosen, and Zion the seat of his government. He is thus the prototype of our Lord, Who will reign in Zion, “and before His ancients gloriously” (Isa. 24:23). Zion is rich in sacred‎ memories to the Jew. It is his goal of hope. It is, too,‎ God’s chosen city. “For the Lord hath chosen Zion: He hath desired it for His habitation. This is my rest for ever; here will I dwell; for I have desired it” (Ps. 132:13-14). “Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King” (Ps. 48:2). It is the seat of universal‎ government for earth, and the centre of interest to the millennial world (Isa. 2). It is where Jehovah has in purpose set His King (Ps. 2:6). There are three distinct thoughts connected with mount Zion: (1) It is the seat of royal power; (2) of God’s intervention in grace; (3) of‎ Jehovah’s sovereignty, but all in respect to Israel.‎

Zion is in this passage, as elsewhere universally in Jewish Scripture, regarded as the centre of God's earthly purposes. His controversy with man — with Satan, will have its eventual issue there. Now Messiah is God's King. It is His purpose to set up a kingdom under the whole heaven (Dan. 7). Things in earth, as well as things in heaven, are to be gathered under the headship and dominion of the reigning Christ (Eph. 1:10). With respect to the former of these, the centre of the irremovable earthly dominion of God's Anointed is the city of His choice, the earthly Jerusalem. She is the place where Jehovah's name has been irrevocably set. As the city of acceptable solemnities, she will be known and delighted in by the nations in that day as the joy of the whole earth, when the presence of the Great King shall have again sanctified the place of His feet with the brightness of a glory which shall not again depart (Psalm 48). This subject will further unfold itself as we proceed. Let us now confine our attention to the Psalm before us.

Not only will Israel then have but one King; they will have but one centre also. The ancient rivalry between Jerusalem and Samaria will be heard no more; Zion will be exalted to its rightful place as the chosen resting place of the Lord, the city of the great King. It will be an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations (Ps. 132:13-14; Ps. 48:2; Isa. 60:15). "Jehovah loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God" (Ps. 87:2-3). From thence will the whole earth be administered, and from it will go forth the law and the word of the Lord. Jerusalem has long been trodden under foot by the Gentiles for the sins of her children, but God will yet favour her dust and take pleasure in her palaces. When the arrogant Gentile has been humbled to the dust, Jehovah's long-loved Zion will be restored to its divinely-appointed place in the earth.

(6.) Jerusalem becomes the centre of earthly worship — all nations flow to it. Israel will have their temple rebuilt, and its services re-instituted, we have seen, but not only will Jehovah have their worship, but the whole earth will turn to Jerusalem, as its centre of worship. In proof of this, I shall quote here but two scriptures — "The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow to it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem" (Isa. 2:1-3). Nothing could be plainer. Then in Zech. 14, which, in its early verses, states, "I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle," and then, that the Lord has come to the Mount of Olives, fought against them, and delivered her, we read, "And every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem, shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles; and it shall be that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain. And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, that have no rain, there shall be the plague wherewith the Lord will smite the heathen that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles. This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles" (Zech. 14:16- 19).

The answer to this question takes us to the meaning of Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the place God had chosen, out of all places. Deuteronomy 12 makes the point again and again, Jerusalem was 'the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there'. It was only in this place that the temple could be built, the people had to assemble, the national feasts had to be celebrated, the sacrifices had to be given, the offerings had to be brought. And it was in this place that the people would rejoice before the Lord.

It was His court — the place of His presence both as the God and the King of Israel. His palace and His sanctuary were there. The administrations of His laws and the ordinances of His worship were there. The thrones of judgment, the testimony of Israel, and the eucharistic service of His name, were all known there. Psalm 122. It was the place where Jehovah had recorded His name, and where the glory dwelt, the symbol of His presence.

Thenceforward Jerusalem was the one holy place on earth, the one spot, therefore, to which the heart of every true Israelite turned with thoughts of worship and praise. "How amiable are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth, for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God. … Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house: they will be still praising Thee." (Ps. 84) And there on the recurrence of the feasts the people assembled. "Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together: whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord." (Ps. 122:3-4.) There all the first-born children were carried and presented to the Lord (Luke 2:22-24), and there too the families of His people assembled three times a year. (See Deut. 16.) Jerusalem, therefore — because of Jehovah's house — was the one place of blessing in the whole world, and it was no mean privilege to be permitted to form part of the assembly that gathered there from time to time in obedience to the Word. "And thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite that is within thy gates, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are among you, in the place which the Lord thy God hath chosen to place His name there." (Deut. 16:11)

The temple of Solomon lasted until its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar (2 Chr. 36); and Ezekiel describes the departing of the glory of the Lord from it, on account of the abominations of His people, ere it was consumed with fire by the Chaldees. (See Ezek. 8 - 10) During seventy years Jerusalem was desolate (2 Chr. 36:21; Dan. 9:2); and then, "that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and He hath charged me to build Him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah." (Ezra 1:1-2, etc.) The government, because of the sin of Judah and Israel, had been now transferred to the Gentiles, and God therefore wrought, in the first instance, through the instrumentality of Cyrus. The reader will find all the details of the return of a remnant of the two tribes. Judah and Benjamin, with priests and Levites, in response to the proclamation of the king, recorded in the book of Ezra. Not until the second year of their return did they "set forward the work of the house of the Lord." "And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, they set the priests in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise the Lord, after the ordinance of David king of Israel. And they sang together by course, in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord; because He is good, for His mercy endureth for ever toward Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. But many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud for joy: so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people; for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard afar off." (Ezra 3:10-13.)

This very beautiful Psalm opens with a remarkable expression: "Praise waiteth" (or, as the margin more exactly renders, "is silent") "for thee in Zion." Zion is the chosen place of earthly worship, when God recognizes an earthly people. The Church of God is not an earthly people, but a heavenly. Their place of worship is, by faith, in the tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man. Jerusalem is to an intelligent Christian of no more present religious value than Mecca or Medina. The Lord is not there. His name is no longer the ornament and strength of the city of solemnities. It is not the habitation of justice, for the just Lord has left it desolate. He has bared it of its beauty, and given it to be a treading of the Gentiles. Zion has been ploughed as a field, because of the wickedness of those who, while they leaned upon the Lord and said, "Is He not among us? none evil can come upon us" (Micah 3:9-12), were filling up their sin to its fulness by the utter rejection of His truth and love in the Person of His Son. They sought to build up Zion with the blood of God's Anointed, and to establish Jerusalem by the iniquity of their own apostasy.*

But this suggests some blessed truth. Jerusalem has destroyed herself; but in God is her help. She is stained with blood; but the blood will be cleansed. (Joel 3) She is now desolate and rejected, because she rejected Jesus; but she shall be saluted by and by, as "the habitation of justice, and mountain of holiness," and be called "the Lord is there." (Jer. 31:23; Ezek. 48:35) Jesus has hitherto known her as the place of His tears and weeping (Luke 19); but here it has become the place of His fresh springs and of His singers. This change in the bearing and conditions of Zion is very blessed. "This is Zion whom no man careth after," has been her reproach; "the joy of the whole earth," shall be her praise. And in all this Zion is a sample of the earth. For as yet it has been the occasion of divine grief and repentance (Gen. 6:6-12), it shall be the scene of divine delight and glory. (Ps. 8, Ps. 24, Ps. 104:31)