Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised in the city of our God! His holy mountain, beautiful in elevation is the joy of all the earth, Mount Zion, in the far north, the city of the great King (Psalm 48:1-2 ESV).
My first impression of the city of Jerusalem is that it is indeed built on a mountain. When the Psalmist cried out, “Let us go up to the house of the Lord,” he meant “Let’s walk up the mountain.” Between the city and the Mount of Olives is the Kidron Valley. To walk around Jerusalem is to walk uphill. Also, everything is compact. Various sites that one reads about in the Bible are just several minutes walk apart. On most days, we walked between five and eight miles visiting various sites. This is not a journey for the faint of heart.


