f Mount Sion, as alone properly called
the city of David, 2 Samuel 5:6-9, and of this its siege and conquest
now by David, Josephus applies to the whole city Jerusalem, though
including the citadel also; by what authority we do not now know
perhaps, after David had united them together, or joined the citadel to
the lower city, as sect. 2, Josephus esteemed them as one city. However,
this notion seems to be confirmed by what the same Josephus says
concerning David's and many other kings of Judah's sepulchers, which as
the authors of the books of Kings and Chronicles say were in the city of
David, so does Josephus still say they were in Jerusalem. The sepulcher
of David seems to have been also a known place in the several days of
Hyrcanus, of Herod, and of St. Peter, Antiq. B. XIII. ch. 8. sect. 4 B.
XVI. ch. 8. sect. 1; Acts 2:29. Now no such royal sepulchers have
been found about Mount Sion, but are found close by the north wall of
Jerusalem, which I suspect, therefore, to be these very sepulchers. See
the note on ch. 15. sect. 3. In the meantime, Josephus's explication
of the lame, and the blind, and the maimed, as set to keep this city or
citadel, seems to be the truth, and gives the best light to that history
in our Bible. Mr. Ottius truly observes, [up. Hayercamp, p. 305,] that
Josephus never mentions Mount Sion by that name, as taking it for an
appellative, as I suppose, and not for a proper name; he still either
styles it The Citadel, or The Upper City; nor do I see any reason for
Mr. Ottius's evil suspicions about this procedure of Josephus.

[5] Some copies of Josephus have here Solyma, or Salem; and others
Hierosolyma, or Jerusalem. The latter best agree to what Josephus says
elsewhere, [Of the War, B. VI. ch. 10.,] that this city was called
Solyma, or Salem, before the days of Melchisedec, but was by him called
Hierosolyma, or Jerusalem. I rather suppose it to have been so called
after Abraham had received that oracle Jehovah Jireh, "The Lord will
see, or provide," Genesis 22;14. The latter word, Jireh, with a little
alteration, prefixed to the old name Salem, Peace, will be Jerusalem;
and since that expression, "God will see," or rather, "God will provide
himself a lamb for a burnt-offering," ver. 8, 14, is there said to
have been proverbial till the days of Moses, this seems to me the most
probable derivation of that name, which will then denote that God would
provide peace by that "Lamb of God which was to t