When did David capture Jerusalem?

Question

Accepted Answer

About 1003 BC on the usual chronology: David was made king at Hebron about 1010 BC, reigned there seven years and six months, then took the Jebusite stronghold of Zion and made it his capital. The map uses c. 1003 BC; many writers round it to c. 1000 BC, and some scholars doubt that the Bible's round figures can be dated so closely. Hebron lies about 31 km south of Jerusalem in a straight line. “In Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months: and in Jerusalem he reigned thirty and three years over all Israel and Judah.” Once all the tribes had anointed him, David marched on Jerusalem, a city that had stayed Canaanite between Judah and Benjamin: “the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem unto this day”. The Jebusites mocked that the blind and the lame could hold the walls, but “David took the strong hold of Zion: the same is the city of David”. Chronicles adds that Joab went up first and became chief; the Hebrew word tsinnor in David's order, rendered “gutter” in English Bibles and “spear” in the Russian, has long been read as a water shaft by which the city was entered. David then built “round about from Millo and inward”. The year is counted backward from the division of the kingdom about 931 BC: Solomon's forty years give about 970 for his accession, David's forty years about 1010, and the seven and a half years at Hebron bring the capture to about 1003 or 1002 BC; because the forty-year figures may be round, c. 1000 BC is common. The city David took was the ridge south of the Temple Mount now called the City of David, above the Gihon spring. Warren's Shaft, found in 1867, was long taken for the “gutter”, but Reich and Shukron's excavations concluded that the shaft was not opened until centuries later. In 2005 Eilat Mazar found the Large Stone Structure above the Stepped Stone Structure and called it David's palace; Finkelstein and others date the remains later and see a small town in David's day. The Tel Dan stele, found in 1993, names the “house of David” in the ninth century BC.