Zion

Zion (Hebrew: צִיּוֹן, romanized: Ṣiyyôn; Biblical Greek: Σιών) is a placename in the Tanakh, often used as a synonym for Jerusalem as well as for the Land of Israel as a whole. The name is found in 2 Samuel (2 Sam 5:7), one of the books of the Tanakh dated to approximately the mid-6th century BCE. It originally referred to a specific hill in Jerusalem, Mount Zion, located to the south of Mount Moriah (the Temple Mount). According to the narrative of 2 Samuel 5, Mount Zion held the Jebusite fortress of the same name that was conquered by David and was renamed the City of David. That specific hill ("mount") is one of the many squat hills that form Jerusalem. The name came to denote the area of Davidic Jerusalem where the Jebusite fortress had stood and, by synecdoche, the whole city. "Zion" was later extended in biblical poetry and prophecy to the Temple Mount, the city and its inhabitants, and Judea and its people. Over many centuries, until as recently as the 16th century (Ottoman period), the city walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt many times in new locations, so that the particular hill known in biblical times as Mount Zion is no longer within the city walls, but its location is now just outside the Old City and southeast of it. Most of the original City of David itself is thus also outside the current "Old City" wall. Adding to the confusion, the name ‘Mount Zion’ was eventually transferred from the southeastern hill associated with the City of David and the Temple Mount on the Eastern Hill to Jerusalem's Western Hill, where the modern Mount Zion is located.