Naomi Shemer wrote the original prophetic song for the Israeli Song Festival, held on 15 May 1967, the night after Israel's nineteenth Independence Day. She chose the then-unknown Shuli Nathan to sing the song.
At that time, the Old City was still controlled by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and under its occupying rule.
Jews had been banned from the Old City and the rest of East Jerusalem, losing their homes and possessions and becoming refugees. All Jews were barred from either returning or entering the areas under Jordanian control, and many holy sites were desecrated and damaged during that period.
Only three weeks after the song was published, the Six-Day War broke out, and the song became a morale-boosting battle anthem of the Israel Defense Forces.
Shemer herself sang it for the troops before the war and the festival, making them among the first in the world to hear it.
On 7 June 1967, the IDF took eastern Jerusalem and the Old City from the Jordanians. Shemer was about to perform for a troop of paratroopers (who were not engaged in combat at the moment) when she heard that the Western Wall and Temple Mount were “in our hands” (the Israeli army). Instead of simply announcing this to the troop, she quickly penned a new verse which modified the second verse. Instead of
“Alas . . . the [Old City] shuk is empty and we cannot visit the Temple Mount,” she wrote: “We have returned to . . . the shuk; the shofar is sounding at the Temple Mount. . .” — thereby informing the paratroopers through the song, that Israel had captured the Western Wall and Temple Mount.
The line about the shofar sounding from the Temple Mount is a reference to army chaplain Rabbi Shlomo Goren’s sounding the shofar immediately after capture of the Western Wall.