Names of Jerusalem


Names of Jerusalem refers to the multiple names by which the city of Jerusalem has been known and the etymology of the word in different languages. According to the Jewish Midrash, "Jerusalem has 70 names". Lists have been compiled of 72 different Hebrew names for Jerusalem in Jewish scripture.
Today, Jerusalem is called Yerushalayim and Al-Quds. Yerushalayim is a derivation of a much older name, recorded as early as in the Middle Bronze Age, which has however been repeatedly re-interpreted in folk etymology, notably in Biblical Greek, where the first element of the name came to be associated with ἱερός. The city is also known especially among religious-minded Muslims as Bayt al-Maqdis, which means House of Holiness.

Early extra-biblical and biblical names

Jerusalem

A city called Rušalim in the Execration texts of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt is sometimes identified as Jerusalem although this has been challenged.
Jerusalem is called either Urusalim
or Urušalim in the Amarna letters of Abdi-Heba.
The Sumero-Akkadian name for Jerusalem, uru-salim, is variously etymologised to mean "foundation of the god Shalim": from West Semitic yrw, ‘to found, to lay a cornerstone’, and Shalim, the Canaanite god of the setting sun and the nether world, as well as of health and perfection.
Jerusalem is the name most commonly used in the Bible, and the name used by most of the Western World. The Biblical Hebrew form is Yerushalaim, adopted in Biblical Greek as Hierousalēm, Ierousalēm, or Hierosolyma, Ierosolyma, and in early Christian Bibles as Syriac Ūrišlem as well as Latin Hierosolyma or Ierusalem. In Arabic this name occurs in the form Ūrsālim which is the Arabic name promoted by the Israeli government.
The name "Shalem", whether as a town or a deity, is derived from the same root Š-L-M as the word "shalom", meaning peace, so that the common interpretation of the name is now "The City of Peace" or "Abode of Peace".
The ending -ayim indicates the dual in Hebrew, thus leading to the suggestion that the name refers to the two hills on which the city sits. However, the pronunciation of the last syllable as -ayim appears to be a late development, which had not yet appeared at the time of the Septuagint. In fact, in the unvocalized Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible the yod that would be required for the -ayim ending is almost always absent. It is only the much later vocalization, with the vowel marks for a and i squeezed together between the lamed and the mem, that provides the basis for this reading. In extra-biblical inscriptions, the earliest known example of the -ayim ending was discovered on a column about 3km west of ancient Jerusalem, dated to the first century BCE.
In Genesis Rabbah 56:10, the name is interpreted as a combination of yir'eh, "He will see ," and Shalem, the city of King Melchizedek. A similar theory is offered by Philo in his discussion of the term "God's city." Other midrashim say that Jerusalem means "City of Peace".
In Greek, the city is called either Ierousalēm or Hierosolyma. The latter exhibits yet another re-etymologization, by association with the word hieros.
Similarly the Old Norse form Jorsalir exhibits a re-interpretation of the second element as -salir, denoting a hall or temple, common in Old Norse toponyms.
In early Greek manuscripts, Ἱερουσαλήμ is presented as a "holy name": .

Shalem

The name Shalem/Salem is found in the account of Melchizedek in Genesis 14:18: And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God.
That the name Salem refers to Jerusalem is evidenced by Psalm 76:2 which uses "Salem" as a parallel for "Zion", the citadel of Jerusalem. The same identification is made by Josephus and the Aramaic translations of the Bible.
LanguageNameTranslit.
LXXΣαλήμSalēm
Greek ΣόλυμαSolyma
Biblical LatinSalem
ArabicسَـالِـمSālim
HebrewשָׁלֵםŠālēm

Shalem was the Canaanite god of dusk, sunset, and the end of the day, also spelled Shalim. Many scholars believe that his name is preserved in the name of the city Jerusalem. It is believed by some scholars that the name of Jerusalem comes from Uru + Shalem, meaning the foundation of Shalem or founded by Shalem or city of Shalem, and that Shalem was the city god of the place before El Elyon.

Zion

was originally the name of the hill where the Jebusite fortress stood, but the name was later applied to the Temple Mount just to the north of the fortress, also known as Mount Moriah, possibly also referred to as "Daughter of Zion".
From the Second Temple era, the name came to be applied to a hill just to the south-west of the walled city. This latter hill is still known as Mount Zion today. From the point of view of the Babylonian exile, Zion has come to be used as a synonym of the city of Jerusalem as a whole.

Other biblical names

According to "Shahnameh", ancient Iranian used "Kang Diz Huxt" کَـنْـگ دِژ هُـوْخْـت or "Diz Kang Huxt" دِژ کَـنْـگ هُـوْخْـت to name Jerusalem. "Kang Diz Huxt" means "holy palace" and was the capital of "Zahhak" and also "Fereydun's" kingdom.
Another variant of the name is Kang-e Dožhuxt, which is attested in Shahnameh. It means " accursed Kang".

Greco-Roman

was the Roman name given to Jerusalem in the 2nd century, after the destruction of the Second Temple. The name refers to Hadrian's family, the gens Aelia, and to the hill temple of Jupiter built on the remains of the Temple.
During the later Roman Era, the city was expanded to the area now known as the Old City of Jerusalem. Population increased during this period, peaking at several hundred thousand, numbers only reached again in the modern city, in the 1960s.
From this name derive Arabic إِيْـلْـيَـاء ʼĪlyāʼ, Tiberian Hebrew ʼÊliyyāh Qappîṭôlînāh, Standard Hebrew Eliyya Qappitolina.
The Roman name was loaned into Arabic as ʼĪlyāʼ, early in the Middle Ages, and appears in some Hadith, like Bayt ul-Maqdis.

Islamic

Jerusalem fell to the Muslim conquest of Palestine in 638.
The medieval city corresponded to what is now known as the Old City. Population at the time of the Muslim conquest was about 200,000, but from about the 10th century it declined, to less than half that number by the time of the Christian conquest in the 11th century, and with the re-conquest by the Khwarezmi Turks was further decimated to about 2,000 people.
The modern Arabic name of Jerusalem is اَلْـقُـدْس al-Quds, and its first recorded use can be traced to the 9th century CE, two hundred years after the Muslim conquest of the city. Prior to the use of this name, the names used for Jerusalem were إِيْـلْـيَـاء Iliya and بَـيْـت الْـمَـقْـدِس or بَـيْـت الْـمُـقَـدَّس.
Al-Quds is the most common Arabic name for Jerusalem and is used by many cultures influenced by Islam. The name may have been a direct translation of the Hebrew nickname for the city, "Ir HaKodesh". The variant اَلْـقُـدْس الـشَّـرِيْـف al-Quds aš-Šarīf has also been used, notably by the Ottomans, who also used the Persian influenced Kuds-i Şerîf.*
Bayt al-Maqdis or Bayt al-Muqaddas is a less commonly used Arabic name for Jerusalem though it appeared more commonly in early Islamic sources. It is the base from which nisbas are formed - hence the famous medieval geographer called both al-Maqdisi and al-Muqaddasi This name is of a semantic extension from the Hadiths used in reference to the Temple in Jerusalem, called Beit HaMikdash in Hebrew.
اَلْـبَـلَاط al-Balāṭ is a rare poetic name for Jerusalem in Arabic, loaned from the Latin palatium "palace". Also from Latin is إِيْـلْـيَـاء ʼĪlyāʼ, a rare name for Jerusalem used in early times Middle Ages, as in some Hadith.