ophel Summary and Overview

hill; mound, the long, narrow, rounded promontory on the southern slope of the temple hill, between the Tyropoeon and the Kedron valley (2 Chr. 27:3; 33:14; Neh. 3:26, 27). It was surrounded by a separate wall, and was occupied by the Nethinim after the Captivity. This wall has been discovered by the engineers of the Israel Exploration Fund at the south-eastern angle of the temple area. It is 4 feet below the present surface. In 2 Kings 5:24 this word is translated "tower" (R.V., "hill"), denoting probably some eminence near Elisha's house.

(hill), a part of ancient Jerusalem. Ophel was the swelling declivity by which the mount of the temple slopes on its southern side into the valley of Hinnom--a long, narrowish rounded spur or promontory, which intervenes between the mouth of the central valley of Jerusalem (the Tyropoeon) and the Kidron, or valley of Jehoshaphat. Halfway down it on its eastern face is the ("Fount of the Virgin," so called; and at its foot the lower outlet of the same spring--the Pool of Siloam. In #2Ch 27:3| Jotham is said to have built much "on the wall of Ophel." Manasseh, among his other defensive works, "compassed about Ophel." Ibid. #2Ch 33:14| It appears to have been near the "water-gate," #Ne 3:26| and the "great tower that lieth out." ver. #Ne 3:27| It was evidently the residence of the Levites. #Ne 11:21|

O'PHEL (hill, swelling), a hill of ancient Jerusalem. More accurately, it was the southern extremity of the hill on which the temple stood, and from whence the hill sunk gradually toward the surrounding valleys. It was enclosed and fortified by a wall, 2 Chr 27:3; 2 Chr 33:14; Neh 3:26-27; Jer 11:21, but it is now outside the walls of the city. The term has usually been understood to apply to the entire hill. Warren, however, suggests that Ophel was originally the designation of the palace which Solomon built, a building which in later reigns would command the Kedron valley by a wall at least 150 feet in height, increased to 200 feet by the building of the royal cloisters. The excavations of Warren exposed a wall 70 feet in height, which he supposes to have been Manasseh's, and in conjunction with it is a great tower built of drafted stones - perhaps that "which lieth without." Upward of 50 shafts were sunk about Ophel in search of the wall, and a line of wall was found to extend as far as 700 feet from the first tower in a south-easterly direction along the ridge of Ophel. There it ends abruptly. About 200 feet southward in the same line some massive walls were uncovered. On the eastern side of Ophel is the Fount of the Virgin, and below is the pool of Siloam. See Jerusalem.

Hebrew "the Ophel," i.e. the "swelling declivity" by which the temple hill slopes off on its southern side as a long round narrow promontory between the mouth of the Tyropeon central valley of the city and the Kedron valley of Jehoshaphat. On its eastern side is the fount of the Virgin; at the bottom is the lower outlet of the same spring, the pool of Siloam. Here was the "great tower" (Eder? Hebrew Micah 4:8) and the Levites' residence. It was near the water gate (Nehemiah 3:26-27; Nehemiah 11:21). Jotham "built much on the wall of Ophel" Manasseh "compassed about Ophel" (2 Chronicles 27:3; 2 Chronicles 33:14); on the Ophla, as Josephus calls it (see B.J. 5:4, section 2; 6, section 1, 3). For "the forts" (Isaiah 32:14). translated Ophel "the mound." James the Less was called Oblias, explained "bulwark of the people" (Hegesippus, in Eusebius H.E. ii. 23), perhaps originally Ophli-am, from Ophel. He was martyred by being thrown from the temple pinnacle near the boundary of Ophel.