Judah After Zedekiah in 586 BCE? Or Israel After Hoshea in 721 BCE?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                       

We leave Judah and Israel, Our Israel divided into two. because of 2 distinct ways of continued living, which became their destruction.  Situated in a land bridge between the Babylonians and Egyptians, the two great powers of the day, Kings Jehoiakim (608-598 BCE) of Judah and Zedekiah (597-586 BCE) of Judah kept switching allegiance depending on which seemed the more powerful. Judah first favored Egypt, then Babylon, and then returned to Egypt. The Bible and the Babylonian Chronicles help us reconstruct the events that led to the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E.  

     JUDAH/JUDEA/JUDAEA/JEWS TO 70 CE

After Zedekiah's defeat in 586 BCE, the Kingdom of Judah was dissolved into a Babylonian province. King Nebuchadnezzar II of the Neo-Babylonian Empire appointed Gedaliah as governor over the remaining impoverished peasants. However, Gedaliah was assassinated just a few years later, triggering a flight of refugees back to Egypt.  

1. Gedaliah: Appointed by King Nebuchadnezzar to administer the remnant of the Jewish population left in the land. He ruled from Mizpah until his assassination around 582 BCE by Ishmael, a member of the royal family. 

2. Ishmael ben Nethaniah: Briefly usurped local control after assassinating Gedaliah, plunging the region into further chaos before fleeing to the Ammonites. 

3. Nebuchadnezzar II: The Babylonian King who conquered Jerusalem, burned Solomon's Temple, and initiated the Babylonian exile. He held supreme imperial authority over the territory of Judah. 

4. The Achaemenid Empire: Following the fall of the Babylonian empire, the region passed into Persian (Iran) control in 539 BCE under Cyrus the Great, who eventually allowed exiled Jews to return and govern themselves under Persian oversight. Cyrus was a good ruler, and today is the one ruler that both the youth of Iran and Israel share as a great leader. So, almost half of the Israelites who came to Canaan in the first place were living in the Jerusalem area when the Romans attacked Jerusalem in 70 CE.  

After Cyrus the Great, the Israelites (Jews) were primarily ruled by the Achaemenid Persian Empire. They functioned as an autonomous province (Yehud) under a succession of Persian kings before falling to Greek and Roman conquerors over the following centuries.

       GREEK AND ROMAN CONQUERORS

Judah was always the largest in population, coming into Canaan with 76,500 men.  Evidently the 2 census's taken by Moses were only counting the men, who would have to defend the group as they moved along to Canaan from Egypt.  Simeon only arrived with 22,200.  The sequential progression of empires and rulers over the Israelites includes:

• The Persian Period (539–332 BCE): The returned exiles were governed directly by the Persian royal court, notably Darius the Great (who oversaw the completion of the Second Temple), Xerxes I (the Ahasuerus of the Book of Esther), and Artaxerxes I (who authorized the rebuilding of Jerusalem's walls). Local leadership was often managed by Jewish high priests and appointed governors, such as Zerubbabel. 
• The Hellenistic Period (332–167 BCE): Following the conquests of Alexander the Great, the land of Israel fell under Greek rule. Upon Alexander's death, control of the region was contested by his generals, shifting between the Ptolemaic Kingdom (based in Egypt) and the Seleucid Empire (based in Syria). 
• The Hasmonean Dynasty (142–63 BCE): Led by the Maccabees, the Jewish people successfully revolted against Seleucid religious oppression, securing a period of Jewish self-rule and independence under the Hasmonean kings. 
• The Roman Period (63 BCE onwards): The Hasmonean kingdom was eventually annexed by the Roman Republic under Pompey the Great. The Romans ruled the area directly through governors and client kings, like Herod the Great, leading up to the First Jewish-Roman War and the destruction of the Temple. 
•         FATE of the 10 NORTHERN TRIBES

In the meantime, we have these 10 other northern tribes left in the hands of Jeroboam (933-912 BCE) of a leading tribe of Ephraim, (32,500)  who had had the job of superintendent of forced labor who had been working on building the Temple.  That's why the states split away.  They had enough of the forced free labor.  Solomon, usually a most fair of judges, had been in a panic to get the job done before he died.  He was not a well man, who hid it well.  

The Division: Jeroboam, a former overseer under Solomon, returned from exile in Egypt to lead the revolt of the 10 tribes (Reuben, Simeon, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Ephraim, and Manasseh). 

Political & Religious Strategy: Fearing that his subjects would travel to Jerusalem (in the southern Kingdom of Judah) for religious festivals and eventually pledge loyalty to the Davidic dynasty, Jeroboam established rival cultic centers like the people they surrounded themselves with, Aram and Ammon. He set up golden calves in the cities of Bethel and Dan, declaring them also to be the gods of Israel, and appointed non-Levite priests. This was worse than saying oy vey!  Why did he go so far, a 180 degree turn-around???

Reign: His 22-year reign was marked by ongoing warfare with the southern kingdom of Judah. His dynasty ended shortly after his death when his son , King Nadab (913-911 BCE)  was assassinated in one report;  killed while fighting the Philistines in another who said that Baasha, his rival, murdered him; (I Kings 15-25)and Jeroboam's entire family line was wiped out. 

Archaeology: Excavations at Tel Dan have unearthed remains of the cultic shrines and high places that match the biblical accounts of Jeroboam's rule. 

Fate of the 10 Northern Tribes

• Continuous Idolatry & Instability: Following Jeroboam I, the Kingdom of Israel experienced severe political instability, frequent assassinations, and continued worship of foreign gods. 
• The Assyrian Conquest (722 BCE): The northern kingdom was ultimately conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The Assyrians implemented a forced deportation and resettlement policy, removing thousands of Israelites and scattering them across the Assyrian Empire (including modern-day Iraq and Syria).
• "Lost" Status: Because these northern tribes were dispersed and integrated into surrounding cultures over the centuries, the historical records of their independent existence ceased. They are popularly known as the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.
•                    NORTH MEETS SOUTH-UNITE
• Southern Migration: Many refugees from the northern kingdom migrated south to Jerusalem to escape the Assyrian destruction. Therefore, remnants of the northern tribes likely survived and intermingled with the southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin, continuing their identity into the Second Temple period.  
• The Second Temple period (516 BCE to 70 CE) was a transformative era of Israelite history defined by the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple, profound religious development, and successive foreign conquests. It ended catastrophically when the Romans destroyed the Temple during the First Jewish-Roman War in 70 CE. 
• 
  Following the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, Jews faced massacres, enslavement, and displacement. Without a sacred center, Judaism transformed: sacrificial Temple rituals ended, and the surviving Pharisees shifted the faith to Second Temple period Torah study and communal prayer, cementing Rabbinic Judaism.
• After the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the Jewish people adapted to survive the loss of their central holy site. They transitioned from a Temple-based, sacrificial religion to Rabbinic Judaism—focusing on Torah study, communal prayer, and synagogues—while many faced forced displacement from their homeland.
• Following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the Romans did not completely expel the Jewish population, but heavily displaced them through slavery, execution, and regional bans. While many were sold into slavery and sent across the Empire, surviving communities remained in their ancestral lands, while others fled to established diaspora centers.
• 
  

  

What Is Palestine and Who Created It and How Were Jews Involved? Part I

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                    

Since 721 BCE, Israel was attacked and 27,290 Israelites, many of it's best men, were led into captivity by Sargon and taken to Assyria.  Israel had begun with King Saul, then David and Solomon who reigned from 961 to 920 BCE.   Jeroboam's reign ended in 912 BCE, and the 18th king after him was Hoshea who reigned from 730 to 721 BCE, ending with the Assyrian attack. Assyrians had brought their unwanted Syrian and Babylonian slaves and deposited them in place of the stolen Israelis.   

Judah, the southern tribal land, was ravaged in 700 BCE when Sennacherib took Ascalon and Joppa and sacked Lachish, but king Hezekiah of Judah was able to hold out and took moderate terms by paying tribute and had to also cede some territory.  The land was still called Israel.  

After Solomon had died, Israel was involved in its own Civil War with its southern state of Judah.  Judah was separated from the whole of Israel with  the son of Solomon, Rehoboam taking the throne and ruling from 933 to 917 BCE.  

Destruction of 2nd Temple in 586 BCE by Nebuchadnezzar

The 19th king was Zedekiah who ruled from  597 to 586 BCE, when the Babylonians attacked and took away many of its citizens and destroyed the Temple, but quite a few of them were able to return by 538 BCE and start the rebuilding.  The land was still called Judah. Solomon's Temple had stood for 423 years before being destroyed. 

By 70 CE, the Romans had occupied Judah for about 133 years from the time of the 2nd Jewish Revolt in 63 BCE and had then burned down the Jews' 2nd Temple of Solomon in 70 CE that was rebuilt starting in 538 BCE and destroyed the whole city of Jerusalem, taking prisoners to be used as slaves. It has stood almost for 608 years.   By 132, the Jewish general, Bar Kokhba, had amassed an army and returned, attacking the Romans and holding Jerusalem for 3 years, losing it again by 135.  Romans with the reputation as being the strongest in the world, were so angry that they renamed the land as Palestine after the worst enemy the Jews had ever had, the Philistines.  So from 135 onward, the land was called Palestine, just land made of swamps and weeds, untended, wild, and unloved.  

Judaism had existed for about 1,031 years with their first and second Temple as its center. Our history and our belief system are a part of each other.  Our DNA is touched by both.   

The Mosque of Omar, also called the Dome of the Rock, was built in the center of the Temple area in Jerusalem by Caliph Abd al-Malik in 738 to replace the temporary structure set up by Calilph Omar a century earlier.  It is situated on the traditional site of Mt. Moriah on the Temple Mount.  Mt. Moriah was where Abraham prepared to offer Isaac.  (Muslims story has Ishmael being offered).  This is the site of the threshing floor of Araunah, the Jebusite that was purchased by David on which to build an altar.  Later, of course, the 1st Temple of Solomon was built on this site.  The original hill was enlarged in the course of time by embanking.  

During the siege of Jerusalem during the Roman war, the 2nd Temple of Solomon served as a center of military activity and was destroyed by the conquering Romans in the 70 CE destruction.  A Roman Temple was later built on the site, and since the Moslem Period, a mosque has stood  there which is the Mosque of Omar.  

Meanwhile, Mohammad, the prophet of Islam,  died in 632 in Arabia, causing an Arab conquest of Palestine in 634 CE by Umar which went on till 644, taking the land from Byzantine defenders who had been invaders. The Umayyads, a Muslim dynasty, had taken over. The Umayyad dynasty or Umayyads were the ruling family of the Caliphate between 661 and 750 and later of Al-Andalus between 756 and 1031. In the pre-Islamic period, they were a prominent clan of the Meccan tribe of Quraysh, descended from Umayya ibn Abd Shams. Their goal was to spread Islam.  They converted people with  their swords.   Then the Abbasid Empire took over.  The Abbasid Caliphate was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from the prophet's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib, from whom the dynasty takes its name. 

Islam expanded under the orthodox caliphs from 632 to 661 CE,,

Islam expanded under the Umayyads from 661 to 750 CE

Islam expanded under the Abbasids from 750 to 800 CE.  

The Abbasid era lasted from the 10th to 12th centuries of Fatimids and Saljuqs.  They even held land that was contested between the Byzantines and the Seljuks.

The Mamluks who were slaves, ruled Egypt from 1250 to 1517.  They had driven out the Crusaders from Europe. In 1291, Khalil captured Acre, the last major Crusader fortress in Palestine and thus Mamluk rule extended across the entirety of Syria.

The Mongols of Mongolia had overrun the Iranian plateau in 1224.  They came, they looted, they killed, they burned, and they left by 1300. Some even assimilated into the Iranian culture.   Mongol raids into Palestine took place towards the end of the Crusades, following the temporarily successful Mongol invasions of Syria, primarily in 1260 and 1300.  However, the Mongols appeared to have had no intention, on either occasion, of integrating Palestine into the Mongol administrative system, and a few months after the Syrian invasions, Mamluk forces returned from Egypt and reoccupied the region with little resistance.                          

Yet, rumors and innuendos remained for a long time.  The conquest of Jerusalem by the Mongols was "confirmed" because they are documented to have removed the Golden Gate of the Dome of the Rock in 1300, to transfer it to Damascus. That was based on an account from the 14th century priest Niccolo of Poggibonsi, who gave a detailed architectural description of Jerusalem and mentioned the acts of the Mongols on the gate. Another scholar, Denys Pringle, described Poggibonsi's account as saying that the Mongols tried to destroy, undermine, burn or remove the gate but without success, and when the Mamluks returned, they had the gate walled up.  

 The Ottoman Empire captured the region in 1516 and ruled it until Egypt took it in 1832. Their crusade has started in 1299 with their first sultan.   Eight years later, the United Kingdom intervened and returned the region to the Ottomans. They held it for 400 years, losing it by losing in World War I.  They had teamed up with the Axis, the Germans, who lost the war.  

Jews lived in Asia Minor when the Ottoman Empire was established there.  A synagogue was authorized in the old capital of Brusa in 1326.  Later, as a result of conquest, many other important Jewish communities were incorporated in Turkey.  The climax came with the capture of Salonica in 1430, and of Constantinople in 1453. After 1492 (Spanish Inquisition), the Sultans opened the gates of the Ottoman Empire generously to the refugees from Spain, then Portugal and other lands, and the Turkish Jewish community, now mainly made of Sephardim Jews, became of great importance, being great traders.  

The Ottomans were in an almost continuous struggle between the Muslim caliphate and the Byzantine Empire, and the Turkish soldiers proved to be an effective advance guard for Islam. The Turkish tribes who came into contact with Islam accepted the Sunni faith and were fanatically loyal to its tenets and institutions .                     

        Ottoman Palestine

These empires only taxed people who managed to live on the land.  There never was a country of Palestine with a ruler and all. It was a commodity, a chunk of land,  owned by some king or ruler who lived far way from it.  They kept it as a Monopoly holding, showing their strength, someplace to collect tribute from.   Throughout all the hands holding the land, Jews were still living on the land whose ancestors had never left.  During the Ottoman days, some even started returning.  Jews in the Ottoman Empire living in Turkey by 1900 numbered 350,000.  They were the 3rd largest Jewish group after Russia and Austro-Hungary.  Palestinians themselves were the Jews and Arabs who happened to live on the land.  Arabs referred to themselves as the Syrian Palestinians.  

Resource

https://www.britannica.com/event/Siege-of-Jerusalem-70

https://www.britannica.com/place/Palestine/Roman-Palestine

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

Textbook: Middle East Past & Present by Yahya Armajani, Thomas M. Ricks

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Umayyad-dynasty-Islamic-history

https://www.worldhistory.org/Abbasid_Dynasty/#:~:text=The%20Abbasids%20were%20an%20Arabic,as%20caliphs%20until%201258%20CE.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Palestine#:~:text=The%20Ottoman%20Empire%20captured%20the,the%20region%20to%20the%20Ottomans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamluk_Sultanate#:~:text=In%201291%2C%20Khalil%20captured%20Acre,across%20the%20entirety%20of%20Syria.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/25212151

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_raids_into_Palestine

 

The Birth of Jerusalem: A Most Ancient of Cities, Over 3 Thousand Years Old

Nadene Goldfoot                                             

At the Kotel, called the Wailing Wall in the 1800s and 1900s
Jerusalem, City of King David

Like a human baby needs to be developed for 9 months in the mother's womb, so was Jerusalem in the making.  It started in the Old Stone Age of mankind, the Paleolithic Period of some 2.58 million years ago when the earliest evidence of man in the area where Jerusalem had appeared; nothing more possibly than a seed of humanity.

The actual foundation of the city started in the Early Bronze Age which was about 3500 BCE to 2000 BCE to the period when the Canaanites first established themselves in the land.  Abraham was born in the 2nd millennium, about 1948 BCE.  He lived in Ur, an ancient city of Iraq.  

Canaan refers to a much broader piece of land, Syria, to be more exact, of the 15th to 13th century BCE and applies to the coastline also of Eretz Yisrael.  Before Joshua entered with the people of the Exodus, the country was divided into small city-states.  Joshua and others named this land Eretz Yisrael-The Land of Israel, for their common father, Jacob who took the name of Israel.  They then called the northern section by another name;  Aram, translated is Syria.  

Jerusalem appeared as the capital of a Canaanite city state in the ensuing Middle Bronze Age from 2000 to 1550 BCE.  It seems to be identical with the Salem that was ruled by Melchi-zedek, the priest of the most high god, who was honored by Abraham in Gen. 14:18-19).  

The inhabitants of the land of Canaan were the Canaanites who were traditionally, according to their own legend,descended from Canaan, son of Ham, son of Noah of the story of the great Flood.  his story has been found in Ur as well on shards of clay tablets.  

They were divided into 11 peoples who lived in the land between the Nile River of Egypt and the Euphrates River in Mesopotamia of the East-as recorded in the Torah in Genesis 10:15-19.  The name "Canaan" appears in inscriptions from the 15th century BCE, and from the 14th century.  The people of Syria used it to describe themselves.  
                                                          

The Hyksos revolution left behind in Jerusalem elements of Hittite and Hurrite habitation.  In the Tel el Amarna Period of the 15th century BCE, the city was ruled by a king who was being threatened by the HABIRU invaders, causing him to appeal to his suzerain, the pharaoh, for help.  The Egyptians seem to have maintained a Cushite garrison in Jerusalem.  This was an Egyptian period where the Hyksos were known to take over ruling in Egypt.  Cushites were a Black people. They were from Cush, son of Ham and brother of the Mizraim or Egyptians, like Libya and Morocco and Canaan, tribes found in Africa and southern Arabia.    It's when Abraham's father, Terah and his people came to the land from the East, presumably from the area between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.  


                                                                           

Moses died at age 120 and never made it inside the wall, but his 2nd, Joshua, did, and Joshua led the conquest of Canaan with his 600,000 12 tribes of Jacob (Israel) in about 1320 BE.  Adoni-zedek, king of Jerusalem at the time, was defeated at Aijalon, but his city remained an independent enclave between the tribal areas allotted to Benjamin and Judah, the bigger tribe.  

By the 12th century, Jebus-Jerusalem maintained its independence with the enemy, the Philistine's help, until David finally captured it in about 1010 BCE when he was the 2nd king of Israel, having fought for Saul, its 1st king.  Jebus was an early name given to the buildings thought to be a city as the early books of the Torah called it originally.  

Jerusalem now became the capital of the United Israel as history tells us in II Samuel 5:6-8:  and in I chronicals, 11:4-6.  This was its birth. 1010 BCE IN DAVID'S HANDS.  That's 3,019 years ago at least.    David dealt leniently with the JEBUSITES that inhabited it at the time, but established himself in the city, making it his capital.  He set about adding the fortress of Zion and also a HOUSE OF HEROES for his guard.  He also constructed a tomb inside the city for himself and his future dynasty.  
"But the children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusite, inhabitant of Jerusalem, so the Jebusite dwelt with the children of Benjamin, in Jerusalem."Judges 1: 21: Although Judah had captured and razed Jerusalem, the Jebusite inhabitants took refuge in the city's citadel, from which Judah was unable to dislodge them.  Part of Jerusalem was in the province of Benjamin, and that part remained in the possession of the Jebusites.  "I shall not chase them out before you, and they will be unto you as thorns in your sides, and their gods will be a trap for you." Judges 2: 3.  
                                                     

The Canaanites seem to have been a mixture of Horites, Hittites and Hebrews from this Hyksos period of the 17th century. Horites were an ancient people from the Caucasian mountains, invaders of Syria and Eretz Yisrael of the 17th century.  They brought their Akkadian mythology to their own traditions and then mixed this Sumero-Akkadian culture and gave it to the Hittites.  Egyptian documents from the 16th century called Eretz Yisrael as HARU.  Before this, it was referred to as RUTENU.    Hittites were from the Asia Minor area, of the 15th century BCE and their power went southward to Syria.  Their main kingdom fell in about 1200 BCE with  continuing small kingdoms  around the Euphrates River of the east.  They were overrun by the Armenians and the Assyrians.  Genesis 10:15 connects the Hittites with the Canaanites and indicates that some lived in Eretz Yisrael at an early period.  They were living there when Esau, Abraham's son by the Egyptian, Hagar, took wives from them.  The Hitties were one of the 7 people that were conquered by by the Israelites.  

And what makes the Israelites so special? It is said that we accepted the 10 Commandments while others had turned it down.  We were the stiff-necked ones, meaning that once we made a promise, we'd not weaken, a stubborn people.    Jacob.  Son of Isaac, son of Abraham, who wrestled with his conscious/angel and took the name after winning as Israel.  Abraham was a Hebrew, the Ivrim, a descendant of Eber, grandson of Shem, notated in the Torah under Genesis 10:24.  They were people who came from the other side of the Euphrates River or ever ha-nahar. Abfraham is called THE HEBREW in the Torah in Genesis 14:13.  The term was later used as THE ISRAELITES. in Exodus 9:1, etc.  We find the names (PROPER NOUNS) OF  HABIRU and HEBREW.  Thoughout our history, Jerusalem has played a central feature, being the capital of Israel since king David.  It held Solomon's 1st Temple and after that destruction, was rebuilt as the 2nd Temple until it's destruction in 70 CE.  
                                                         

   
That's over 1,000 years of being central in our religion of Judaism, given to us by Moses, a direct descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and of the tribe of Levi.  It was Moses who gave us the 5 books of Moses, giving us our history and our destiny as it was given to him by G-d.  He was a man so different from most; raised in the Egyptian royal house as a prince, educated, but humble, so humble that he stuttered, and did not want anyone to worship him, dying in an unknown place, unmarked, to prevent such an abomination to himself.  He was a teacher, our first rabbi, actually.  

Later, David took Hittites into his warrior units.  Solomon, to keep the peace, had the practice of marrying women of enemy clans, so also took Hittite wives.  
                                                        

A bedouin lad of the Negev Desert of Israel

 They were almost all wiped out or assimilated by the Israelites of the 13th century Exodus arrival.  They were not the only people the Canaanites had fought against and lost, though.  The Philistines along the coast were their enemies of the 12th century, and the Arameans from the North fought them in the 11th century.  Those that remained became subjects of David, King of Israel and his son, Solomon, so were absorbed into the Hebrew people. David also fought against these same enemies of Canaan who were trying to dominate the land.  There was a period of 400 years of blending of people who lived on this land.   Later, the name was preserved for history only among the Sidonians and Phoenicians other than what we can read from the Torah.  
                                                     

Canaanites believed in idols such as this of baal.
Abraham's father, Terah, was a idol maker in Ur. 

This mixture of people making up the Canaanites practiced such things as human sacrifice as seen in Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son, Isaac at G-d's command.  This had ended with Abraham's people and his belief that ensued of one G-d, a belief from a culture of polytheism; a whole family of gods.  

 David had other plans also for the city's importance.  He transferred the Ark of the Covenant there, and by doing so made it also have a double purpose.  It became the religious center of Israel.  

He was a successful conqueror.  He made it the capital of an empire that reached from the Red Sea to the Euphrates River, from where Abraham's people had come from.  
                                                        

David's son, Solomon ruled as king from 970 to 930 BCE and enriched the city from his commercial ventures, and heavy taxation of his people, unfortunately, as told about in I King 10:27-9.  He also enlarged the city by adding the Palace and the Temple, his main building achievement that was his life-long goal.  

"He filled the gap between these 2 structures and David's city with the MILO or filling.  The erection of the Temple transformed Jerusalem definitely into the permanent center of the Jewish religion, notwithstanding all later separatist efforts.   

Solomon died in 920 BCE .  His son continued to tax harshly, causing the secession of the 10 northern tribes.  Jerusalem remained as the capital of Judah being  their land was part of the holy city's land, and the Davidic dynasty continued to rule from there till Babylon invaded in 586 BCE.  So for the longest time there were 2 states;  Israel of the north and Judah of the south.  
                                                     

During this period, the 10 northern tribes tried to take over the land since one of the their kings of Israel, JEHOASH (800-785 BCE), made a breach in its wall in 785 BCE.  The kings of ARAM  had also tried.  Jerusalem was plundered by SHISHAK OF EGYPT in 905 BCE.  SENNACHERIB OF ASSYRIA surrounded it in 701 BCE.  It was in preparation for this siege that HEZEKIAH King of Judah(720-692 BCE) cut a tunnel, which was then named after him, by which the waters of the Gihon river were permanently diverted from SILOAM into the LOWER POOL inside the city.  
                                                         

The city had walls around it for protection.  It's walls were strengthened during this time by AZARIAH-UZZIAH, king of Judah (780- 740 BCE)  who added towers and engines.  JOTHAM, his son and king (740-735 BCE)  and Hezekiah made "the other wall" to encompass his pool.  
                                                         Finally, Jerusalem fell to the Babylonian ruler, NEBUCHADNEZZAR in 586 BCE.  This was followed by the deportation of most of the population and the destruction of the Temple and Royal Palace.  The Jews were taken to Babylon, but some were allowed to return within 50 years and renewed the Temple worship by 519 BCE.  Jerusalem thus became the capital of a Persian province that was autonomous in internal matters, and was under the rule of the high priest of the HOUSE OF ZADOK. 
                                                       

 In the 5th century BCE, its walls were repaired by NEHEMIAH, while Ezra was the religious guide, getting them back into the Torah.  All nobles and 1/10 of the people were brought to the city to populate it once again.  A theocratic rule continued into hellenistic times, when the city prospered materially.  This was because of the growth of a Jewish Diaspora which looked upon Jerusalem as its spiritual center.  
                                                  

Antiochus III

What was now happening was a growing HELLENIZATION because they were under Ptolemaic rule from 312 to 198 BCE.  Then they were under the SELEUCIDS, which led to an attempt to establish a Greek city on the western ridge.  Their ruler, ANTIOCHUS IV was of course in favor of the Hellenizers which led to the desecration of the Temple and a religious persecution which cause the HASMONEAN REVOLT.  JUDAH THE MACCABEE fought for 2 years and then could occupy the Temple Hill (TEMPLE MOUNT) and restored the Temple service by 164 BCE.  Acra- the hellenistic fortress, stayed in these alien's hands until 141 BCE, but Jewish rule in Jerusalem itself was restored under Jonathan in 152 BCE.  

In this HASMONEAN PERIOD, Jerusalem again became the capital of the WHOLE LAND OF ISRAEL.  

By 63 BCE, along came a Roman General, Pompey, who profited from internecine warfare between the  Hasmoneans, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, to occupy Jerusalem.  It seems that every surrounding power wanted this beautiful city. A troubled period followed during which the city was captured by the PARTHIANS in 40 BCE.  
                                                              

It fell-and a long siege followed, and the city went to Herod of the Romans in 37 BCE.  He ruled it as a Roman vassal until his death in 4 BCE.  Herod had built a palace in the NW quarter of the city and  protected it with 3 great towers. 
                                                           

 The base of one of these was the tower Phasael, called THE TOWER OF DAVID, and is still a tower one can see.  He also rebuilt THE TEMPLE on a huge scale by erecting a huge surrounding esplanade.  Parts of his outer wall are known as THE WESTERN WALL-OR WAILING WALL one goes to today as the special Jewish place to pray.  At the NW corner of the esplanade he erected the fortress ANTONIA.  
                                                           

Crucifictions were common used by the Romans
against Jews 

After Herod had died, and the deposition of his son and successor, Archaelaus in 6 CE, the city was ruled by ROMAN PROCURATORS, except during the reign of Agrippa I from 41 to 44 who began to build a 3rd wall to the north.  
During Pontius Pilate's rule, as he is the famous procurators, the Jew, Jesus, was crucified in Jerusalem in 29 CE, one of thousands of Jews that had suffered such a fate by the hands of the Romans.  Roman rule was always bad, and the people revolted in 66.  The people enjoyed 3 years of  independence and then were besieged by the Romans again, this time under TITUS but had displayed a heroic resistance.    
                                                                       

In 70 CE the worst happened.  The Temple and most of the building were destroyed and a Roman garrison was built on its ruins. The city was burned down after starving the inhabitants.  The scene was written about by Josephus, a Jewish general who went over to the Roman side and wrote his people's history of that period for them.  The horror they went through is unforgivable.  

Another revolt by the Jews took place by 132 with General Bar Kokhba leading it.  He and his men took Jerusalem and held out for another 3 year period, something needed by the Romans to recapitulate.  Kokhba was shot dead in 135.                                                   

The Roman emperor HADRIAN rebuilt Jerusalem as a Roman colony and called it Aelia Capitolona.  He forbid Jews to even come near it under pain of death.  The whole Roman Empire was now undergoing a period of Christianization under Constantine.  Jerusalem became its holy city for this new religion, probably because many of Jesus's followers had been Jews.   The emperor's mother, Helena in 325 made a visit to the city and after that the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was built in 335.  By then Jerusalem had become a city of churches and monastaries.  Pilgrims were visiting and religious arguments were going on.  

In 363 Emperor Julian made a try at restoring the Temple.  in 614 it was occupied for some years by the Persians, helped by a Jewish force, but by 628, Byzantine rule had restored it by the emperor Heraclius.  
                                                     

  In 638, the city fell to the caliph Omar who set up a place of prayer in the Temple esplanade.  This was rebuilt beautifully in 691 as the DOME OF THE ROCK by the Umayyad caliph, Abd-el Malik.  Under Arab rule, the Jews were allowed to return, but the city began to decay after the transfer of the center of Abbasid rule in Baghdad in 750.  All cities everywhere need upkeep.  
                                                             

The Fatimids in the 11th century built the 2nd principal mosque, El-Aksa on the Temple site.  
                                                      

In 1099, Jerusalem was stormed by the Crusaders under Godfrey of Bouillon, establishing Jerusalem now as the capital of the Latin Kingdom.  They destroyed the Jewish community here, was almost non-existent by the 13th century, and was then reinforced by pious immigrants from many lands fleeing Christianity, such as by 1492 when the Spanish Inquisition was in full force, creeping up through the years previously.  Crusaders had entered a learned Jew's home, killed his wife and daughters before his eyes, and left him in shock, just one of the onslaughts that happened to Jews during this period.  This is not to forget that the Crusaders slaughtered Jews all the way through Europe on their way to the "Holy land,' holy to them for their newer Christian beliefs.  

In 1187, the Ayyubid sultan, Saladin, retook the city for Islam and it remained in Moslem hands, except for a few years in the middle of the 13th century, though the Christians kept trying to retake it in the many following crusades, and thereby managed to kill more Jews in the attempts.  

The Mameluke Period of the 14th and 15th centuries came next when many new building were built and the water supply was improved.  

The Ottoman Empire held it until World War I's ending in 1917, a total of 400 years.  Under Ottoman rule Jerusalem decayed until the 18th and 19th century when the city reached its nadir;  its population sank below 10,000 and part of its area lay in ruins.
                                                     

The early Jewish pioneers clearing out the swamps,
suffering from malaria from the mosquitoes living there

  It turned into swamps full of mosquitoes and sandy deserts, a place where Bedouins rode through on camels, and that was it.  The Ottomans restricted the many Jews wanting to enter their ancient land.  

It was in 1625 that Jews were brutally injured and killed by the local pasha Muhammad ibn Farukh.  However, the European influence in the 19th century and the influx of Jewish immigration brought about a revival of Jewish population from 11,000 people of which 3,000 were Jews in 1838 to 68,000 people, of which 50,000 were Jews in 1910. That's due to the Russian pogroms against Jews, causing many to come in the 1880s and on in groups of 5 alliyote or moves to the Ottoman empire's holdings of Palestine, run by the Turks.  
                                                    
New quarters were built outside the Old City wall and were pioneered by Sir Moses Montefiore from 1855 on.  In the 1880s, Jerusalem was connected with the city of Jaffa by a railway line.  In 1898, the German emperor, William II, visited the city through a  breach made in its wall near the Jaffa Gate in his honor.  He was greeted on this occasion by Theodore Herzl on behalf of the Zionist organization.  Jerusalem's continued building projects were interrupted by World War I, during which the population fell to 50,000.  
                                                     

December 1917 after the War, and now the city was occupied by the English General Allenby at the head of a British army.  They were part of the Allied countries who fought against Germany and their Axis countries.  Jerusalem and all of what they called PALESTINE WAS  UNDER THE MANDATE, A PERIOD OF 30 YEARS OF THEIR RULE. 
                                                           

The land was to see rapid growth with Jewish immigration increasing in 1946 after World War II.  The population of Jerusalem  had reached 165,000 of whom 100,000 were Jews.  The city expanded and the Hebrew University was erected on Mt. Scopus.  This is where Dr. Shalva Weil works, an anthropologist, who studied the Pashtuns and came to the realization that they were indeed carrying the history of their northern Israelite ancestors.  "Weil has published extensively on the Ten Lost Tribes historically  and in contemporary times. In particular, she has written on the Beta Israel, the Bene Israel, and the Pathans, as well as on Judaising groups all over Africa, China and elsewhere. In 1991, she curated an exhibition at Beth Hatefutsoth: the Museum of the Jewish Diaspora on the Ten Lost Tribes entitled "Beyond the Sambatyon: the Myth of the Ten Lost Tribes". She is on the international board of ISSAJ [International Society for the Study of African Jewry]."

History has continued, but this much has covered a time Jerusalem was in King David's hands as his capital in 1010 BCE to 1946, almost 3 thousand years.  Jerusalem is younger than our religion, given to us through Moses who lived from 1391 to 1271 BCE.  The last 40 years of his life was his time of teaching while on the Exodus.  Our ancestors were fully Jews knowing what they were to know by 1271 BCE, making our religion 3,290 years old this year.  This is why Jerusalem means so much to us.  We were told never ever to forget her, lest our hands lose their cunning, a good way of putting it over 3,000 years ago.  And we never have forgotten her.  We were given a value system to live by, and that has been maintained through changing cultures around us and their changing value systems they chose to live by.  Every enemy that has come along has not deterred our main body of people caring for our system of life.  Our religion has had to fit in with a world in constant growth, and it has maintained, right along with the most ancient of soils.  
                                                 

Resource:  The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia, 1992
https://www.britannica.com/event/Paleolithic-Period
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shalva_Weil
The Source by James Mitchener
Tanakh, (Old Testament) 
https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/uncategorized/2019/04/paying-taxes-in-biblical-israel/