Biblical Geography

Mount Zion

Mountain · Old and New Testament

Scripture first

Psalm 2:6 · WEBU

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I have set my on Zion, my holy hill: the royal promise anchored to the .

Zion was first the Jebusite stronghold David captured, then the name spread: to hill, to Jerusalem itself, to the people of God, and in the New Testament to the heavenly city.

The hill of David's fortress and of the temple's God; the name that grows to mean Jerusalem, the people, and finally the city above.

Biblical names
Zion, the stronghold of Zion, the City of David

Identification note. The name later attached to the south-western hill; the original Zion is the City of David ridge. The two usages are sometimes confused on modern maps.

The original Zion is the south-eastern ridge of Jerusalem between the Kidron and Tyropoeon valleys: small, steep, defensible, with the Gihon spring at its foot.

  • I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill: the royal promise anchored to the mountain.
  • David takes the stronghold of Zion
  • Beautiful in elevation, the joy of all the earth
  • Out of Zion shall go the law
  • You have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God
  • The Lamb standing on Mount Zion

What we know

Certain

  • Scripture's Zion as David's stronghold and God's dwelling is the foundation of the Psalms and the prophets.

Disputed

  • The shifting attachment of the name between Jerusalem's hills is a known cartographic tangle.