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jeshimon Summary and Overview

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jeshimon in Easton's Bible Dictionary

the waste, probably some high waste land to the south of the Dead Sea (Num. 21:20; 23:28; 1 Sam. 23:19, 24); or rather not a proper name at all, but simply "the waste" or "wilderness," the district on which the plateau of Ziph (q.v.) looks down.

jeshimon in Smith's Bible Dictionary

(a wilderness), a name which occurs in #Nu 21:20| and Numb 23:28 in designating the position of Pisgah and Peor; both described as "facing the Jeshimon." Perhaps the dreary, barren waste of hills lying immediately on the west of the Dead Sea.

jeshimon in Schaff's Bible Dictionary

JESH'IMON (the waste),- a name designating the position of Pisgah and Peor, which are described as "looketh toward Jeshimon." Num 21:20 Num 23:28. The word may not be a proper name, but a general term for any wilderness, and may thus be applied to different places at different times. Grove would place Jeshimon on the west side of the Dead Sea, toward En-gedi; Porter suggests that there may have been two Jeshimons, one east of the Jordan connected with Pisgah, and another west of the Jordan; Conder, with Grove, proposes to identify Jeshimon with the plateau above the Dead Sea, on its west side, and called el Bukein', the most desolate country in Palestine.

jeshimon in Fausset's Bible Dictionary

Pisgah and Peor faced the Jeshimon, i.e. the waste; not merely midbar , "a common" rather than a desert (Numbers 21:20; 23:28). The desolate tract skirting the N. and N.W. coasts of the Dead Sea, between the Jordan yet never become a living stone in it, but always remain in the quarry of nature (Isaiah 51:1)! Spiritually, Jerusalem is the antithesis to Babylon. By apostasy "the faithful city" becomes "the harlot" or Babylon (Isaiah 1:21; Revelation 17:5). In the gospel dispensation the literal Jerusalem by servile adherence to the letter, and by rejecting Christ who is the end and fulfillment of the law, became the bondservant; whereas "Jerusalem which is above is free, and is the mother of us all" (Galatians 4:26). It is the center of the spiritual kingdom, as the old Jerusalem was the center of Judaism. It is the church or Messianic theocracy now. It will finally be the heavenly Jerusalem, "the new Jerusalem which cometh down out of heaven from my God" (Revelation 3:12). The Greek for "new" (kainee , not nea ) implies that it is new and different from and superseding the old worn out Jerusalem and its polity (<580813> Hebrews 8:13; 12:22). The first foundation of the spiritual church was lain in the literal Jerusalem (John 12:15; 1 Peter 2:6.) This spiritual church is the earnest of that everlasting Jerusalem which shall come down from heaven to abide permanently in "the new heavens and new earth." The glorious literal Jerusalem (Jeremiah 3:17,18; Zechariah 14) of the millennium (Revelation 20), the metropolis of the Christianized world kingdoms, will be the earthly representative and forerunner of the heavenly and everlasting Jerusalem which shall follow the destruction of the old earth and its atmosphere (Hebrews 11:10; Revelation 21:2-27). John in the Gospel applies to the oldcity the Greek name HIerosoluma , but in the Apocalypse always the sacred Hebrew name Hierousalem . Paul uses the same distinction only where, he is refuting Judaism (Galatians 4:26; Hebrews 12:22). The citizens of that holy Jerusalem to come constitute the wife of the Lamb. It is a perfect cube, denoting the complete elect church. During the millennium the elect, saints reign with Christ as king-priests over the earth and over Israel and the nations in the flesh. Not until the earth has been regenerated by fire will it be a fit home for the saints or heavenly Jerusalem, about to descend upon and to make their everlasting abode there. God dwells in His spiritual temple (naos , "shrine"), the church, now (<460317> 1 Corinthians 3:17; 6:19); then the church will dwell in Him, as her temple (shrine). Compare Psalm 114:2. There will be "no" literal "temple" then, for the glorious one described by Ezekiel in his closing chapters will be superseded by what is infinitely better, even God Himself (Revelation 21:22). Capt. Warren's explanations favor a position N. or N.E. of the city for the site of Christ's sepulchre. The Jews regarded the rock as Jacob's pillow (but Jacob's resting place was some solitary place, not near a city as Salem of Melchizedek was), as the threshing floor of Araunah the Jehusite, and as the site of the brazen altar; a Moslem of the twelfth century describes the cave as ten cubits long, five wide, and a fathom high. The S.W. city "Jerusalem," being higher, would seem more naturally to be the Jebusite fortress; but "Jerusalem" the city is in many passages distinguished from the castle Zion which David took and the city of David (1 Chronicles 11:4-8; 2 Samuel 5:6-9). Probably the Jebusites held both the S.W. and the N.W. or Acra heights, with their stronghold Zion (on the N. W. bend of the eastern hill), which was originally far higher until Simon Maccabee lowered it. The Jews occupied the lower city until David dislodged the Jebusites from the heights. It is noteworthy, in estimating the arguments above, that the terms "mount Zion" and" city of David" are in a vague sense applied to Ophel, Moriah, Millo or Acra, and the upper city. The same name, "sunny mountain," still is applied to the hills about Jerusalem. Zion is a district name like mount Ephraim. Thus, Hezekiah's bringing the water "from Gihon to the W. side of the city of David" means that he brought it by an aqueduct from the Virgin's fount or Enrogel (Gihon according to the Jews) to Siloam (the lower Gihon), a water channel still to be seen. In 2 Chronicles 33:14; 32:30, Ophel is termed part of "the city of David"; so Millo is in "the city of David" (2 Chronicles 32:5). So also "in" means often "by," as when Uzziah or Azariah is said to have been buried "in the city ofDavid" (2 Kings 15:5-7), but in 2 Chronicles 26:23 "in the field of the burial which belonged to the kings, for they said, he is a leper." He was buried in the same field, but in a rock-cut separate chamber of his own, not in the sepulchre of the kings. Thus, David's tomb may have been cut in the face of the high rock with which Ophel ends just over Siloam. (W. F. Birch, Israel Exploration Quarterly Statement, October, 1877.) Outside the Damascus northern gate is the 20-inch entrance descending into the quarries out of which came the enormous stones of the walls, temple, and other structures. Some of the stones in the quarries still bear the Phoenician paint marks of the masons, who had intended to quarry them, answering to similar marks in the temple stones. How far one may bear marks of spiritual designation for the temple of the Holy Spirit, and mouth (near which was Beth-jeshimoth) and Engedi: consisting of chalky crumbling limestone rocks and a fiat covered with nitrous crust, into which the feet sink as in ashes; without vegetation except the hubeibeh, or alkali plant. The hill of H ACHILAH was "S. of" or "before" Jeshimon (1 Samuel 23:19; 26:1,3.) Eusebius says Jeshimon was ten miles S.of Jericho, near the Dead Sea. "The mid bar (pastoral common) of Judah" stretched S. of Jeshimon from Engedi southward (Joshua 15:61,62).