Biblical Hebrew: Words RevealedSýnishorn

Biblical Hebrew: Words Revealed

The Meaning Behind “Zion”

Marking the Holiest Place on Earth

Zion started as a nickname for Jerusalem: “Look upon Zion…Your eyes will see Jerusalem” (Isaiah 33:20). Later it became a nickname for Israel, for example in Jeremiah 3:14 God says: “I will choose you - one from a town and two from a clan - and bring you to Zion.” Zion is also the Hebrew name of a mount in Jerusalem that was conquered from the Jebusites by King David, where The City of David was located.

The word Zion - ציון (Tziyon) comes from the root צ-י-ן (tz-y-n) in Hebrew. In Modern Hebrew we have a lot of verbs coming from this root. One of them is: “letzayen” which means “to mark” or “to emphasize”. This meaning makes Zion an appropriate name to mark one of the holiest places on earth. Some Jewish traditions even refer to Zion as the spiritual point from which the entire world was created, located in the Holy of Holies of the Temple.

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Your Hebrew Journey starts in Zion

“For out of Zion shall go forth instruction and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem” (Isaiah 2:3). Our goal here at The Israel Institute of Biblical Studies is to make the Bible accessible to people around the world through a deep understanding of its original language - Hebrew.