Question: What is the meaning of “Zion” in Hebrew Scripture, and how did this come to be associated with Jerusalem?
The name Zion is of Hebrew origin meaning "highest point". Zion has made a steady rise in popularity since 1998. In the Old Testament, the name Zion is used to refer to the city of Jerusalem and is the source of the term Zionism
Wikipedia: Zion (Hebrew: צִיּוֹן Ṣīyyōn, Σιών, also variously transliterated Sion,[1] Tzion, Tsion, Tsiyyon)[2] is a place name in the Hebrew Bible, often used as a synonym for Jerusalem[3][4] as well as for the Land of Israel as a whole.
The name is found in 2 Samuel (2 Sam 5:7), one of the books of the Hebrew Bible dated to approximately the mid-6th century BCE. It originally referred to a specific hill in Jerusalem, Mount Zion, located to the south of Mount Moriah (the Temple Mount). According to the narrative of 2Samuel 5, Mount Zion held the Jebusite fortress of the same name that was conquered by David and was renamed the City of David. That specific hill ("mount") is one of the many squat hills that form Jerusalem.
The term Tzion came to designate the area of Davidic Jerusalem where the Jebusite fortress stood, and was used as well as synecdoche for the entire city of Jerusalem; and later, when Solomon's Temple was built on the adjacent Mount Moriah (which, as a result, came to be known as the Temple Mount), the meanings of the term Tzion were further extended by synecdoche to the additional meanings of the Temple itself, the hill upon which the Temple stood, the entire city of Jerusalem, the entire biblical Land of Israel, and "the World to Come", the Jewish understanding of the afterlife.
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