OPHEL. - The southeastern hill of Jerusalem.

The name, from the root 'áphal = "to swell," properly "protuberance," "prominence" (Deut. 28:27; I Sam. 54:61), came to mean a rise from the ground or a hill (cf. II Kings 5:24 "hill of Samaria"; Vulg. "vesperi"; Septuagint τὸ σκοτεινὸν = 'áphēl "darkness"; in the inscription of Mesha [line 22] hill of the city of Dibon). All the other times há-'áphēl in the Bible designates the southeastern hill of the city of Jerusalem, whose wall was built by Jotham (II Chron. 27:5), enlarged and repaired by Manasseh (II Chron. 32:14) and after the exile by the Tekoites (Neh. 3:27 [Vulg. murum templi]; 11:21; II Chron. 27:3; 33:14).

The biblical texts determine with great accuracy the site of the hill O. to the south of the Temple area, where the Canaanite city or fortress of Zion was (II Sam. 5:6;

I Chron. 11:4-6), called by its conqueror the "city of
David," and where the excavations undertaken in various periods
have made it possible to reconstruct its history.

The quarter, inhabited by the Nethinim, servants of the Temple,
extended as far as the "gate of the waters" to the east and the
"projecting tower" (Neh. 3:26). The tower is also mentioned
by Is. 32:14 (Vulg. tenebrae) and by Mic. 4:8 (Vulg. nebulosa
filia Sion). Flavius Josephus (Bell. Iud., V, 4, 2) calls
Ὀφλᾶς the lower part of the city near the eastern
portico of the Temple and the Kidron torrent, not far from
the fountain of Siloam and the pool of Solomon (Bell. Iud.,
II, 17, 9; V, 4, 2; VI, 1; VI, 6, 3) and also the Talmud
(Ta'anith, 3, 11) mentions "the corner of the west" in the lower part
of the Kidron area.

Bibliography5 works

BIBL.: for the excavations on the O.: H. Vincent, Jérusalem sous terre, London 1911; id., Les récentes fouilles d'O., in Revue biblique, 20 (1911), pp. 566-91; 21 (1912), pp. 86-111, 424-53, 544- 574; id., Jérusalem antique, Paris 1912, pp. 187-96; R. Weil, La cité de David, I, ibid. 1920 (account of the excavations 1913-14);

II, ibid. 1947 (excavations 1923-24); R. A. Macalister-I. Duncan, Excavations on the hill O. (Pal. expl. fund annual, 4), London 1926
(excavations 1923-25); J. W. Crowfoot-G. M. Fitzgerald, Excavations
in the Tyropeon valley, Jerusalem 1927 (Pal. expl. fund annual, 5),
ibid. 1929; A. Mallon, Cité de David, in DBs, II, coll. 330-41
(summary with bibl.).

Donato Baldi

@incollection{ec9_ophel, author = {Baldi, Donato}, title = {Ophel}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {IX}, pages = {166--167}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1952}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/ophel} }

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