SION (ebr. Şijjôn). — Indigenous name of the Jebusite fortress, situated in the southern part of the eastern hill (v. OPHEL) Jerusalem (v.), conquered by King David and, in his honor, called the “city of David” (II Sam. 5:7; 11:5).
The Canaanite name was retained; its etymology has not yet been established, but it seems to convey either the meaning of aridity (from şijjah, “dry thing”) or of protection (from şîn, “to defend”). At first extending to the entire hill of Ophel, which became sacred through the installation of the Ark of the Covenant (II Sam. 6:10–12), it later, as the city expanded, came to designate its most strongly defended point and the center of its religious and civil life. When Solomon had the Ark transferred from its temporary dwelling on S. to the Temple he had built on Mount Moria (II Par. 3:1 and 5:2), this hill was called S. in the poetic language of the Psalms and the Prophets (Ps. 73:2; Is. 8:18; 10:12; Ier. 31:13; Ioel 3:17); indeed, the glorious name was used symbolically for the entire city of Jerusalem (Is. 29:9;
37:32) and for its inhabitants, the “sons of S.” (ibid. 10:32; Ps. 68:36; Ier. 3:23). At the time of the Maccabean struggles, moreover, the Jewish sanctuary was actually designated by the name “Mount S.” (τὸ ὄρος Σιών; I Mach. 4:37–60; 6:48, 62; 10:11; 14:26). There the brave Maccabees entrenched themselves to resist the troops stationed by Antiochus Epiphanes in the Acra or “city of David” (ibid. 1:33; 7:32; 14:36); probably the name of the original acropolis had likewise shifted to designate a fortress situated on the slopes of the western hill. Flavius Josephus, describing the Herodian city, divides it into the lower city and the upper city, without mentioning S.; he states, however, that the upper city, on the western hill, because of its strong position had been called by David “fortress” (φειδών).
After Titus destroyed the city, the Christians, returning from Pella, settled in the southern corner of the western hill, around the Cenacle (v.), to which contemporary apologists applied Isaiah’s oracle “that from S. the law shall go forth” (Is. 2:3). The transition from the symbolic meaning to the concrete one was easy; in the fourth century, after the construction of the great basilica of the Cenacle, it was called “Holy S.,” and, through a topographical confusion, the whole history of the Canaanite acropolis was believed to have taken place on the western hill, henceforth called Mount S. Thus arose the pseudo-tombs of David and Solomon, restored to honor today by the State of Israel, within whose territory the Christian “Mount S.” is located.