Zion

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Zion ( Hebrew צִיּוֹן Zijjōn ) was originally called a tower castle of the Jebusites after 2 Sam 5.7  EU on the southeastern city limits of the pre-Israelite city-state of Jerusalem . Since their conquest by King David and the construction of the first Jerusalem temple under Solomon , Zion in the Tanakh has become a synonym for the residence of YHWH , the God of the Israelites (e.g. Isa 8:18  EU ). He moved to the center of the hopes of Judaism , which are aimed at worldwide recognition of this God and his legal system . This Zion theology permeates prophecy in the Tanakh since Isaiah and also determined the end-time expectation of early Christianity .

History of Zion as portrayed in the Old Testament

Jebusiter castle

The former Jebusite city of Jerusalem with the Zion Castle was located on a narrow, steep mountain ridge south of the later Temple Mount . The pre-state Israelites did not succeed in conquering this fortified city-state ( Jos 15.63  EU ). For them, as the book of judges says, it remained a “foreign city” (19.10.12 EU ) and, with other city-states of Canaan, formed a kind of barrier between the areas of the Israelite northern tribes and southern tribes.

City of David

Only David conquered Jerusalem with the castle of Zion and, as the city ​​of David , made it his royal seat and the cultic and political center of his empire ( 2 SamEU ). He chose this city because it was roughly on the border between the territories of the northern Israelite tribes - the later northern kingdom of Israel - and the southern tribes - the later southern kingdom of Judah - and gave both areas the territorial unity that had been missing until then.

By David the ark was converted there ( 2 SamEU ), he tied the religious traditions of the former tribal confederation to his royal residence and enabled their connection with elements of the neat in the city state Jerusalem Religion Canaan . After his victories over the neighboring kings and the successful expansion of his empire, the court prophet Natan promised him the eternal existence of his dynasty ( 2 Sam 7,8 ff.  EU ). The later Zion theology followed on from this.

In the Middle Ages, the fortified hill of Zion Castle was mistakenly identified with a hill in the southwest of Jerusalem in front of today's city wall, so that it was given the name Mount Zion (also "Zionberg", "Mount Zion", "Har Zijon"). In the 19th century, however, the southern ridge of the Temple Mount was suspected to be Ophel or the City of David . This assumption was confirmed by archaeological excavations in the 20th century in Tell there with the settlement layer of the Bronze Age and Iron Age Jerusalem.

Temple city

David had already planned to build a temple on Mount Zion, which his son and successor Solomon built around 930 BC. Realized. This made the actual Mount Zion , the City of David, the Temple Mount. After the division of the empire, it remained the cultic center of Judea , which also remained attractive beyond its borders ( 1 Kings 12.27 f.  EU ; Jer 41.5  EU ).

With the cult reform of King Josias , who made a preliminary form of Deuteronomy a state law ( 2 Kings 22 et seq.  EU ), the remaining Canaanite or syncretistic sanctuaries in Judea were removed and the position of Jerusalem as the only residence of the God of Israel was strengthened. As a result, the name Zion ( Isa 10,12  EU ) , which was transferred to the built-up Temple Mount, became the epitome of the king and temple city chosen by God (e.g. Ps 78,68 ff.  EU ).

Temple destruction, exile, reconstruction

After the temple was destroyed in 586 BC BC (see → Babylonian Exile ), Zion became the place of memory and longing for the exiled Jews ( Ps 137  EU ), determined their direction of prayer ( Dan 6.11  EU ) and shaped the future hopes of exile prophecy, making it synonymous with the Return of the Jews gathered around the sanctuary to the " promised land " ( eretz jisrael ). With the rebuilding of the temple (approx. 520-515 BC) Zion again became the cultic center of post-exilic Judaism, which saw it as the center of the world and also included the surrounding peoples in Zion theology.

Zion theology in the Tanakh

In the biblical tradition, since the construction of the First Temple, Zion has been surrounded by an abundance of motifs and themes, which are summarized as Zion tradition or Zion theology.

Statistically there are 159 pieces of evidence for the explicit word Zion (צִיּוֹן) in the Codex Leningradensis. Of these are found

  • 49 in Isaiah
  • 38 in the Psalms
  • 18 in Jeremiah
  • 15 in lamentations
  • 9 in Micah
  • 8 in Zechariah
  • 7 in Joel
  • 3 in 2nd Kings
  • 2 each in Amos and Obadja, Zephania
  • 1 each in 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Song of Songs, Ezekiel

One of the oldest evidence showing the universalization of Jerusalem can be found in the inscription of Chirbet Bet Layy 1: "YHWH is the God of all earth, (the) mountains of Judah are his, the God of Jerusalem.

Zion Psalms

These include above all the psalms 46 EU , 48 EU , 76 EU , 84 EU , 87 EU , 122 EU , 132 EU . In them one can find the related, often mythically exaggerated motifs of the city of God, the mountain of God, the throne of God and the fictitious river whose arms flow around the city.

Typical motifs are:

  • Storm of nations / enemy threat (e.g. Ps 76,4)
  • Fortification / protection of the city of Zion by God (e.g. Ps 87,5)
  • Being with God / dwelling with his people (e.g. Ps 46,6.8.12)
  • Piety of the poor (e.g. Ps 76:10)
  • Temple staff (e.g. Ps 84: 5)
  • sociological differentiations (e.g. those who walk in perfection; those who trust God, Ps 85: 12b-13)
  • Zion as the center of the world (e.g. all were born there, Ps 87: 4-7)

Zion promises

Isaiah founded the prophetic Zion theology in the Tanakh. The expectation of universal worship of this God (Isa. 6: 1-3) and the sending of the prophet to the Israelites (Isa. 8:18) are connected with his calling vision before God's throne on Zion. Many individual words refer to Zion or Jerusalem as the residence, place of judgment and salvation of God. Precisely because God chose this place for his presence on earth, the unfaithfulness of the Jerusalemites towards the Torah weighed all the more serious (Isa. 1:21 ff.). Judgment will come from Zion over the renegade leaders of Israel who made treaties with the realm of the dead instead of relying on their God (Isa. 28:14 ff.). This judgment also applies to the peoples who fight against Mount Zion (Isa 29: 1-8).

The motif of the struggle of nations against Mount Zion is in Isa 8,9f. also connected with the promise of Immanuel (Isa 7: 1–17), which possibly meant the coming Messiah. It can also be found without express reference to Zion (Isa. 17:12 ff.). It was taken up by later prophets such as Deutero-Isaiah (e.g. Isa 41: 1-4; 45: 1-3; 45: 14-17) and Trito-Isaiah (Isa 52: 1 f., 7 ff.) (Cf. Ps 2; 46.6; 110; 125.1; Hos 1.7; Joel 3.5; 4.16 f .; Wed 4.12 f .; Sach 14.3.13 f .; Ez 38 f.).

The counter-image to the storm of nations is the motif of the pilgrimage to Zion, followed by world peace . It can be found in Mi 4.1–5; Isa 2: 2–4; Isa 60; 66.20; Hag 2; Zech 8.22; 14,16 f .; Ps 68,32 et al

daughter Zion

The originally independent metaphor בת ציון ("Daughter of Zion") was referred to in biblical prophecy since the Babylonian exile (from 586 BC) on the king and temple city of Jerusalem. The motif can be found in the Nevi'im ( books of prophets), the lamentations of Jeremiah and some psalms in three forms of lament, accusation and promise of salvation: In Isa 22: 4; Jer 4:19-21; 6.22-26; 8.18-23; 10.17-20; Thr 1 and 2 are Jerusalem suffering war victims, widow and abandoned mother. In Jer 2; 3.1-5; 13.20-27; Isa 1: 21-26; Ez 16 and 23 is the city renegade, whore and adulteress. In Jer 30-31; Isa 40: 9-11; 49; 51; 54; 60–62, Zion is the bride of YHWH, queen, and respected mother of many children. In all three genres, Zion is a person in its own right in relation to both God and its people and takes on largely anthropomorphic features.

Ancient oriental forerunners of the motif can be found in the Western Semitic region, which attach female titles to the city as an expression of veneration. The transition from the city imagined as a woman to the city goddess could become so blurred that the city was also assigned divine properties. More closely related, however, are the Mesopotamian traditions of the city lawsuit . This is a genre of complaint that initially had its historical location in the destruction of several large cities ( Ur , Nippur , Uruk , Eridu ) towards the end of the Ur III period (end of the 3rd millennium BC) in the Sumerian Empire . They are in the Sumerian language and were copied and distributed at least until the middle of the 2nd millennium. The distinguishing feature of these texts is the appearance of the city ​​goddess , who laments the destruction of her city and her temple. She mourns her own displacement, the loss of her "children" as death and displacement of her population and the loss of her divine protection and thus of any political and religious order in the city.

These elements are used in the following centuries up to the 1st millennium BC. BC. Taken up again in religious texts, which were probably used in the course of temple demolition and rebuilding celebrations. They are also shaped by the appearance of the “classical” figure of the plaintive goddess (especially Inanna as the Mesopotamian mother and protective goddess in general).

Even if there is no evidence of an independent genre of “urban lawsuits” in Israel, the corresponding lawsuits are likely to have been known in Israel as well. Studies of literary and traditional history show that the lamenting forms of a personification of Jerusalem in the Bible are the oldest, that is, they probably emerged from the Mesopotamian city complaint . However, it is no longer possible to reliably reconstruct whether Israel knew of an independent genre of urban lawsuits, even if there are some indications for it.

Elements of lamentation personifying Jerusalem can be found in their earliest form in prophetic announcements of doom such as Isa 22: 4; Jer 4: 19-21 or 8: 18-23. From there they find their way into the so-called Lamentations of Jeremiah ( Threni ), in which the "daughter of Zion" becomes a grieving and abandoned mother, a raped woman and a dishonored lover. Historically, the origin of these lawsuits belongs to the time of the threat and eventual conquest of Jerusalem in the 7th and 6th centuries BC. Through the Assyrian and then Babylonian empire and the processing of these traumatic experiences for Israel ( Babylonian exile ).

The Threni are already putting confessions of guilt in the mouth of the city, owing to the reflex on the already mentioned accusations of the "daughter of Zion". A process seems to have begun early on in which the plaintive texts were reshaped by accusations: the city is declared an adulteress and a whore because it has abandoned its god YHWH and served other gods. This turning away from her Lord is unfolded in downright drastic, sexual and degrading images ( Ezekiel 16 and 23). The city that was the victim in the lawsuits thus becomes the perpetrator in the reflection.

Your acceptance of this accusation, in turn, enables YHWH to return to you. This is noticeable in the post-exilic texts, which promise the “daughter of Zion” new salvation, a new wedding time with her Lord YHWH, the return of her children and her exaltation to the end-time queen (Isa 49; 54; 60; 62). The calls of joy to the “daughter of Zion” thus become a recurring theme in late Israelite prophecy (Zech 9: 9-12).

Zion Theology in the New Testament

Zion as the place of the coming revelation of the God of Israel, to which one day all peoples would flow, helped to determine the presentation of the story of Jesus Christ in early Christianity : For this Messiah was for them the one who through his teaching, healing, substituting death and resurrection the kingdom of God is embodied and initially realized, so that through him all peoples would get to know the covenant God of Israel and would one day recognize it (Mt 28:10; Phil 2:12 etc.).

Mt 2,1-12  EU tells of oriental astrologers ( magoi ) who learn of the birth of a new king of the Jews through a bright star and travel to Jerusalem, but from there are led to his place of birth in Bethlehem in order to prostrate before him and to honor him with royal gifts. This story depicts the birth of Jesus as the initial fulfillment of the biblically promised pilgrimage to Zion. With the star of Bethlehem , the evangelist recalled the prophecy Num 24:17, according to which a future Jewish king would conquer Israel's enemies. In Judaism at that time, this was interpreted as the coming Messiah, for example in one of the Dead Sea Scrolls (4Q175), in the Targum Onkelos and in letters from Simon Bar Kochba . The joy of the magicians at finding the place of birth of Jesus foreshadows the eschatological joy of all peoples in the kingdom of God (Isa. 60.5; 65.17 ff .; 66.14; cf. Mt 5.12; Lk 2.10). In addition, biblical prophecy expected from the Messiah according to Mi 5.1ff; Is 49,6 among other things that he wouldrestorethe twelve-tribe people of the Israelites and glorify them before their former enemies, the foreign peoples, in order to bless them as well.

Jesus of Nazareth probably contributed to these expectations through his own words and deeds: for example, through the appointment of twelve apostles pars pro toto (Mt 4: 13-16; 19:28), who confirmed the permanent election of all Israel to the people of God. The word of Jesus Mt 8,11 / Lk 13,29 announced the coming of the "distant", i.e. the Gentiles, to the eschatological meal with the patriarchs of Israel: This meal had Isa 25,6 ff. Together with the destruction of death as a result of the Promise of God's accession to the throne on Zion (cf. Isa 49:12). According to this, through the resurrection of the dead in the kingdom of God , the non-Jewish peoples should receive a share in the promises of salvation for the ancestors of Israel.

The story of the entry of Jesus on a donkey into Jerusalem ( Mk 10.1–9 EU par) takes up the messianic promise of the King  of Peace (Zech 9.9), who will command the peoples without their own power to have comprehensive disarmament as God's will. The following prophetic act of signs of Jesus in the temple forecourt for proselytes and non-Jews (Mk 11:17 ff.) Should enable the unhindered participation of non-Jews in prayer in the temple and thus anticipate and enable the common worship of the only God on Zion, as promised in Isa 56: 7 , in which, according to Isa 60:11, the renewal of Israel will come to its goal.

Zionism

Nathan Birnbaum called the Jewish national movement that emerged in Europe around 1880 Zionism in order to win over the Eastern European Jewish settler associations called Chibbat Zion (" Zion's love") for the goal of a Jewish community in the Palestine area, which was striven for by a political organization. In 1892 he explained the meaning of the term as follows:

Zion has been a poetic name for Jerusalem “since the most ancient times”, as well as the land of Israel and the Jewish nation that has grown together with it. Since the loss of this land in Roman times, the name has become an expression of a longing hope for a “Jewish rebirth”. This ideal has accompanied the scattered Jewish people for 2000 years and founded Zionism. The latter turned this "emotion" into a conscious effort of thinking and acting and thus a "saving idea".

Theodor Herzl became the founder of political Zionism, which was realized after the Holocaust with the establishment of the State of Israel .

anti-Semitism

The anti-Semitism uses the term as a symbolic summary of an alleged world Jewry : as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion .

See also

literature

General

Pre-Israelite history of religion

  • Fritz Stolz : Structures and Figures in the Cult of Jerusalem. Studies on the ancient oriental, pre- and early Israelite religion. de Gruyter, Berlin 1970.
  • Gunther Wanke: The Zion theology of the Korachites in its traditional-historical context. Supplement 97 to the Journal for Old Testament Science, No. VIII, Töpelmann, Berlin 1966.

Zion theology in the Tanakh

  • Josef Schreiner : Sion - Jerusalem, Yahweh's royal seat, theology of the Holy City in the Old Testament. In: Vinzenz Hamp: Studies on the Old and New Testament. Volume VII, Kösel-Verlag, Munich 1963.
  • Helmut Schmidt: Israel, Zion and the peoples. Investigation of the history of motifs to understand universalism in the Old Testament. Zurich 1966
  • Jörg Jeremias : Ark and Zion. On the origin of the Zion tradition. In: Problems of Biblical Theology. Festschrift for Gerhard von Rad on his 70th birthday. Munich 1971, pp. 183-198
  • Frederick Dobbs-Allsopp: Weep, O Daughter of Zion. A Study of the City-Lament Genre in the Hebrew Bible. BibOr 44, 1997
  • Odil Hannes Steck : Zion as terrain and form. Reflections on the perception of Jerusalem as a city and a woman in the Old Testament. In: Odil Hannes Steck: Gottesknecht and Zion. Collected essays on Deutero-Isaiah. FAT 4, 1992, pp. 126-145
  • Marc Wischnowsky: Daughter of Zion. Acceptance and overcoming of the city complaint in the prophetic writings of the Old Testament. WMANT 89, Neukirchner, Neukirchen-Vluyn 2001, ISBN 3-788-71831-5 .
  • Bernard Frank Batto, Kathryn L. Roberts (Eds.): David and Zion: Biblical Studies in Honor of JJM Roberts. Eisenbrauns, 2004, ISBN 1575060922 .
  • Corinna Körting: Zion in the Psalms. Mohr / Siebeck, Tübingen 2006, ISBN 3161488806 .
  • Jaap Dekker: Zion's Rock-Solid Foundations: An Exegetical Study of the Zion Text in Isaiah 28:16. Brill Academic Publishers, Leiden 2007, ISBN 9004156658 .
  • Wolfgang Lau: Scripture prophecy in Isa 56–66: An investigation into the literary references in the last eleven chapters of the book of Isaiah. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1994, ISBN 3110142392 .

Zion Theology in the New Testament

  • Joachim Jeremias : Jesus' promise to the nations. Kohlhammer, 2nd edition 1959.
  • Kim Huat Tan: The Zion Traditions and the Aims of Jesus. Cambridge University Press, 1997, ISBN 0521580064

Catholic theology

Web links

Single receipts

  1. Martin Noth: Geschichte Israels , 8th ed. 1976, p. 176
  2. ^ Israel Finkelstein, Neil A. Silbermann: David and Solomon. CH Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-54676-5 , p. 235
  3. Bibleworks 10 .
  4. Othmar Keel, Max Küchler, Christoph Uehlinger: Places and landscapes of the Bible. A Handbook and Study Guide to the Holy Land, Volume 4/1. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 3525501773 , p. 630
  5. Peter Fiedler: The Gospel of Matthew. Theological Commentary on the New Testament, Volume 1 , Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3170187929 , pp. 57-62
  6. Joachim Jeremias: Jesus' promise for the people , 2nd edition 1959, p. 56
  7. Alex Bein: The Jewish question. Biography of a world problem. Volume I, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-421-01963-0 , p. 273
  8. ^ Briana Simon: Yearning for Zion. ( Memento of October 4, 2007 in the Internet Archive )