Type "Jerusalem" into Google Maps and you arrive instantly. 31.7683°N, 35.2137°E. The very hill David captured 3,000 years ago. The city named 660 times in Scripture has kept its name and its coordinates. Few cities on earth can say that.
The Day It Became David's Capital
Around 1000 BC, David captured a hilltop city from the Jebusites and made it Israel's capital (2 Samuel 5). That same hill is now an archaeological park — the City of David — just south of the Old City. You can walk through Hezekiah's Tunnel, a Bronze Age waterway matching the biblical record in 2 Kings 20:20 to the letter, still carrying spring water today.
"Pray for the peace of Jerusalem; may those who love you be secure."
The Center of Three Religions
Jerusalem is the only city where all three Abrahamic religions hold sacred ground. The Western Wall (last remnant of Solomon's Temple), the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (site of the crucifixion and tomb), and the Dome of the Rock (where Muhammad is said to have ascended) — ten minutes apart on foot.
Where Jesus Walked His Last Road
The Via Dolorosa — "Way of Sorrows" — through the Old City marks 14 stations from Pilate's judgment to Golgotha. Scholars debate whether today's route matches the first-century path exactly, but what's certain is that for 2,000 years, people have walked the same stones meditating on the same verses.
Jerusalem Today
Jerusalem today is home to about 950,000 people — roughly 60% Jewish, 40% Arab — and rarely a week passes without the city making global headlines. The peace Scripture prophesied and the tension of the present hour exist in the same streets. Psalm 122:6 is perhaps the one prayer that has remained literally current for 3,000 years.
That you can find a 2,000-year-old place name on today's map — that alone connects Scripture to the present.