This building is called the "dome of the rock" due to the huge block of limestone rock in the center of its floor. The dome is located at the visual center of a platform known as the
Temple Mount, one of the summits of a range of
hills that went under the general name of Zion. It's shape is that of a
Byzantine martyrium, a structure intended for the housing and veneration of saintly relics.
"Again the anger of the Lord was aroused against Israel, and He moved David against them to say, 'Go, number Israel and Judah.'
"Now when David arose in the morning, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Gad, David’s seer, saying, "Go and tell David, 'Thus says the Lord: I offer you three things; choose one of them for yourself, that I may do it to you . . . Shall seven years of famine come to you in your land? Or shall you flee three months before your enemies, while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days’ plague in your land?' "
"So the Lord sent a plague upon Israel . . . And when the angel stretched out His hand over Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord relented from the destruction . . . And the angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
"Then David spoke to the Lord when he saw the angel who was striking the people, and said, 'Surely I have sinned, and I have done wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Let Your hand, I pray, be against me and against my father’s house.'
"And Gad came that day to David and said to him, 'Go up, erect an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.' So David, according to the word of Gad, went up as the Lord commanded . . . And David built there an altar to the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So the Lord heeded the prayers for the land, and the plague was withdrawn from Israel." (2Samuel 24:1, 11-13, 15-19, 25, NKJV)
In 1993 the dome's golden covering was refurbished using a donation of $8.2 million dollars given by King Hussein of Jordan, who sold one of his houses in London to fund the 80 kilograms of gold required.
Sources: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown Commentary; Wikipedia; Easton's Bible Dictionary
