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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comFausset Bible Dictionary: Ophel
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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 ) and the Levites' residence. It was near the water gate (-27; ). Jotham "built much on the wall of Ophel" Manasseh "compassed about Ophel" (; ); on the Ophla, as Josephus calls it (see B.J. 5:4, section 2; 6, section 1, 3). For "the forts" (). 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.