In the first four chapters, I have a good feeling about Jerusalem. It is about peoples' ideal and courage, and how it become a holy city for Jews.
Then, in the chapter 5, it talked about that Jerusalem was no longer a holy city for Jews. It had been destroyed. However, people haven't forget their holy city. I am really interesting about their tradition that people will come back to their city to sing when the city has been destroyed. It provides me a sacred feeling about things in Near East. I feel they have a great courage about everything happening in their life. No matter how bad it is, they still can find a way to make it holy. I don't know how to describe it. It just makes things more powerful, such as Jerusalem. They know it is god's anger, but people keeps love what the faith is. This is to say that it become a obvious story that they have come back from the outside world. They rebuild the Temple, and it seems like the world have been recovered.
But it is not what the reality is. Things get changed. The world is no longer the same world of "the king of David". First is Greek, and then it is Roman. Jerusalem is going to through much more changes as it should have.
From my perspective, it is a prediction. From the time of losing Jerusalem, Jerusalem is going to become a city with lots of sufferings.
Would you say that Jerusalem is "meant" to have these conflicts? I can remember my mom trying to explain to me the violence going on in Israel when I was little. She said that Abraham had a son out of wedlock, and a son born out of a promise from God. Because of his initial distrust, however,the descendents of Ishmael were always condemned to be in conflict with the descendents of Isaac. I can't say that this is my view of things now, but that perspective does exist.
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