The holy city — entered by name in this translation's published chapters at John 2:13, though its story here is far older, and it wore other names first. Its heart, the Temple Mount, is the MORIAH of Genesis 22 (see that entry): the hill of the Aqedah, drawn into the city only when David and Solomon expanded it northward to build the Temple. The nearby town of the patriarchs' day is SALEM, Melchizedek's city (Genesis 14:18), traditionally identified with Jerusalem (Psalm 76:2 makes the equation); the Jebusites called it JEBUS (Judges 19:10); and the name Jerusalem itself (Urusalim) appears in the Amarna letters of about 1400 BC — so the city was named centuries before Israel held it. David took the Jebusite stronghold and made it his capital (2 Samuel 5); Solomon built the first Temple on Moriah, c. 966 BC (2 Chronicles 3:1). In John, Jesus goes up for the festivals — three Passovers structure the Gospel — and clears the temple's courts at the first of them (2:13-22). Nebuchadnezzar besieges it in 605 BC and carries off its temple vessels and its brightest youths (Daniel 1:1-6). ⚠ Its southern and western flank is the valley of Ben-Hinnom — TOPHETH, later Greek GEHENNA (see that entry) — where the Potsherd Gate opened onto the potters' dumps and the high places where children were burned (Jeremiah 19). The city of the temple, the exile, the passion — and, in Revelation's last vision, the descending New Jerusalem with no temple in it at all (Rev 21:22).