Close to Jaffa Street, at the entrance to the Russian Compound, lies an ancient giant pillar, still partially embedded in the stone quarry from which it was carved. A flaw, visible to the naked eye, presumably accounts for abandoning the job.
Known both as the Finger of Og and as Herod’s Pillar, the 12.15-meter-long and approximately 1.75-m -wide column is thought to have been quarried in order to decorate the Second Temple as part of King Herod the Great’s 37-20 BCE restoration and renovation works, during which he also enlarged the Temple Mount.
French Orientalist and archaeologist Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau (1846-1923) posited in his book Archaeological Researches in Palestine 1873-1874 that the size of Herod’s Pillar matched the columns of the royal portico of what became known as “Herod’s Temple.”
Work on the construction of the original version of the Second Temple was completed around 516 BCE, in the wake of the destruction of Jerusalem’s First Temple, aka “Solomon’s Temple,” during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem (circa 586 BCE). According to Ezra I and II Chronicles 36:22, Persian king Cyrus the Great, ruler of the Achaemenid Empire, issued the Edict of Cyrus in 539 BCE, granting the Jews permission to rebuild their temple and return to it the vessels looted by the Babylonians.
Work on the edifice was completed in the days of Persian king Darius I, ushering in a period of Jewish revival and returning the Israelites to the area of the kingdom of Judah. The Persians set up a Jewish province called Yehud Medinata there, headed by the Persian-appointed Jewish governor Zerubbabel, grandson of king Jeconiah, the penultimate king of Judah.
The Second Temple began functioning circa 515 BCE and was known as “Zerubbabel’s Temple.” At a time when all cultures were bowing to pantheons of gods, the Israelite Temple was dedicated to an invisible, all-encompassing cosmic force.
However, in 167 BCE, the army of the Seleucid empire of King Antiochus IV Epiphanes conquered the kingdom of Judah and took over the Temple, turning it into a place of worship for the Greek god Zeus and offering a sacrificial pig on its altar.
Nevertheless, after the Hasmoneans defeated Antiochus’s forces on the 25th of Kislev of that same year, the building was rededicated to the one God with the miraculous oil, an event we commemorate on Hanukkah.
In the second half of the first century, the Second Temple was reconstructed under the auspices of King Herod. Talmudic sages praised it extravagant beauty, saying, “Whoever has not seen Herod’s Temple has not seen a beautiful building in his lifetime” (Talmud, Bava Batra 4a).
However, the Temple became a corrupt place in which high priests were eventually elected based on financial and political considerations. Finally, it was destroyed circa 70 CE, during the First Jewish-Roman War. Thereafter, the lack of a centralized place for religious life required the preservation of tradition, leading to the development of rabbinic Judaism, the basis of Jewish observance today.
Adding layers to history
After the destruction of the Second Temple, other cultures lived and ruled in Jerusalem and created their own versions of history.
Another theory concerning the mysterious stone pillar maintains that the attempt to quarry it only dates as far back as the sixth century. It was ostensibly meant for the Nea Church (aka the New Church of the Theotokos), situated in what we know as the Old City’s Jewish Quarter – built on the orders of Byzantine emperor Justinian I.
Today, the enormous pillar is popularly known as the Finger of Og, alluding to the giant known as Og, an Amorite king of Bashan – the Iron Age name for the area of modern-day Jordan, Syria, and the Golan Heights. According to the Book of Exodus, Og and his forces were decimated by Moses’ army in the battle of Edrei, a border city of Bashan identified with Der’ah, east of the Sea of Galilee
In Islamic tradition, Og is referred to as Uj ibn Anaq – with the name Anaq (the word for “giant” in Hebrew is anak) purported to belong to a daughter of Adam.
Where to find it
Herod’s Pillar is located within the 17 acres between Jaffa Road, Shivtei Israel Street, and the Street of the Prophets in the area known as the Russian Compound since 1860. The zone, containing Jerusalem’s Magistrate’s Court and Central Police Station, is also known as called the Assyrian Camp, in recognition of the late 7th century BCE presence there of “a great army” sent by king Sennacherib “from Lachish to Jerusalem,” (II Kings 18:17).