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Zev Radovan/www.biblelandpictures.com
ON THE WESTERN WALL. “You shall see, and your heart shall rejoice, and their bones like grass (shall flourish).” This partial quotation from Isaiah 66:14 was incised in Hebrew on a stone in the Western Wall of the Temple Mount. The two-line inscription found slightly above the Byzantine street level expresses hope that the Temple will be rebuilt and Jerusalem restored.1 While often interpreted as a joyful response to the decree passed by Julian allowing the Jews to rebuild the Temple in the fourth century, it could also have been written to commemorate numerous other celebratory events—or not attached to any specific event. Thus, while typically dated to the fourth century, the inscription could have been written anywhere between the fourth and eleventh centuries.