Text and the City: The Urban Geography of Jerusalem as Depicted in Chronicles

The book of Chronicles is a post-exilic book, which looks back at the pre-exilic Davidic monarchy from a post-exilic perspective. Jerusalem was the capital and chief city of the Davidic kingdom, as well as the capital and chief city of the late Persian-Period province of Yehud in which Chronicles was written, and is mentioned over 150 times throughout the book. This contribution examines the ways in which pre-exilic Jerusalem is described in Chronicles, focusing on the city’s urban geography, in an attempt to understand the extent to which the writer actually understood the geography of the city during the pre-exilic period, and the ways in which his writing was affected by the situation of his own time. It shows that while the Chronicler in general followed his sources, especially Samuel and Kings, he also had some unique insights into the city’s gradual growth. Chronicles mentions some features that were only known in the post-exilic period, such as the Ophel. Altogether, Chronicles combines the information that was in its sources with the reality known to the author in his own time.