Zion

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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 term Tzion came to designate the area of Davidic Jerusalem where the Jebusite fortress stood, and was used as well as synecdoche for the entire city of Jerusalem; and later, when Solomon's Temple was built on the adjacent Mount Moriah (which, as a result, came to be known as the Temple Mount), the meanings of the term Tzion were...

Read on Wikipedia · Image illustrations by E. M. Lilien (1874-1925), Public domain