Mountain

Mountains do double duty in scripture. They map the physical world the patriarchs and Israel actually walked across — Ararat, Moriah, Gilead, Hor, Pisgah, Nebo, Seir, Hermon, Lebanon, Ebal, Gerizim, Tabor, Carmel, Gilboa, Zion — and they also serve as the recurring stage on which Yahweh meets his people, gives the law, accepts sacrifice, judges, and is met for prayer. The same Scriptures that catalogue Israel's hills also describe mountains melting at Yahweh's presence, mountains overturned by his anger, mountains used as signal-points for nations, mountains turned into idolatrous "high places," and mountains addressed by the word of Christ.

The shape of the land

The patriarchal narrative is anchored to mountains. The ark "rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat" (Gen 8:4). When Yahweh tests Abraham, he sends him "into the land of Moriah" to "offer him there for a burnt-offering on one of the mountains which I will tell you of" (Gen 22:2). Jacob fleeing Laban "passed over the River, and set his face toward the mountain of Gilead" (Gen 31:21), and is overtaken there: "Jacob had pitched his tent in the mountain: and Laban with his brothers encamped in the mountain of Gilead" (Gen 31:25). The Horites are placed "in their mountain, Seir" (Gen 14:6).

The wilderness itinerary is a list of mountains. Israel comes to the wilderness of Sin "between Elim and Sinai" (Ex 16:1), encamps at "mount Hor, in the edge of the land of Edom" (Num 33:37) and journeys "from mount Hor by the way to the Red Sea" (Num 21:4). The Pisgah ridge recurs: Bamoth leads "to the top of Pisgah, which looks down on the desert" (Num 21:20); Balaam is taken "to the top of Pisgah" to bless from there (Num 23:14); Moses is told "Get up to the top of Pisgah, and lift up your eyes westward, and northward, and southward, and eastward" (Deut 3:27); the territory east of the Jordan is described as "under the slopes of Pisgah" (Deut 4:49, Josh 12:3). The Abarim range frames Moses' final view of the land — "Get up into this mountain of Abarim, and look at the land which I have given to the sons of Israel" (Num 27:12); they "journeyed from the mountains of Abarim, and encamped in the plains of Moab" (Num 33:48); "Go up into this mountain of Abarim, to mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is across from Jericho" (Deut 32:49). And so Moses goes up "from the plains of Moab to mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is across from Jericho" (Deut 34:1).

Edom and Esau hold mount Seir: "I have given mount Seir to Esau for a possession" (Deut 2:5); and the day's-march reckoning runs "from Horeb by the way of mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea" (Deut 1:2). Hermon stands at the northern edge — "from the valley of the Arnon to mount Hermon" (Deut 3:8), "all mount Hermon, and all Bashan to Salecah" (Josh 13:11), and the conquest sweeps "from mount Halak, that goes up to Seir, even to Baal-gad in the valley of Lebanon under mount Hermon" (Josh 11:17). Lebanon and Bashan recur as poetic doublets: "A mountain of God is the mountain of Bashan; A high mountain is the mountain of Bashan" (Ps 68:15); "Tabor and Hermon rejoice in your name" (Ps 89:12); "Like the dew of Hermon, That comes down on the mountains of Zion" (Ps 133:3); "I remember you from the land of the Jordan, And the Hermons, from the hill Mizar" (Ps 42:6). The lover's praise in the Song uses the same geography: "Your hair is as a flock of goats, That lie along the side of mount Gilead" (Song 4:1).

The hill-country of Ephraim functions as a region-name: Joshua sends settlers up "to the forest" because "the hill-country of Ephraim is too narrow for you" (Josh 17:15). Joshua is buried "in the border of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill-country of Ephraim, on the north of the mountain of Gaash" (Judg 2:9). Deborah judges "between Ramah and Beth-el in the hill-country of Ephraim" (Judg 4:5). Gideon sends out the call "throughout all the hill-country of Ephraim" (Judg 7:24); the Danites pass "to the hill-country of Ephraim" (Judg 18:13); Jeroboam "built Shechem in the hill-country of Ephraim" (1 Ki 12:25); Naaman's gift is to be told to "young men of the sons of the prophets" from "the hill-country of Ephraim" (2 Ki 5:22). The Philistine plain is bounded by Israel's mountains: "the Hivites who dwelt in mount Lebanon, from mount Baal-hermon to the entrance of Hamath" (Judg 3:3). Hiram's slave-labor on Lebanon's cedars stocks Solomon's house: "ten thousand a month by courses; a month they were in Lebanon" (1 Ki 5:14). Sennacherib boasts, "When I mount my chariot I will come up to the height of the mountains, to the innermost parts of Lebanon; and I will cut down its tall cedars" (2 Ki 19:23). Ezekiel's eagle "came to Lebanon, and took the top of the cedar" (Ezek 17:3). Isaiah's lament collapses the whole landscape: "Lebanon is confounded and withers away; Sharon is like a desert; and Bashan and Carmel shake off [their leaves]" (Isa 33:9). Jeremiah promises restoration on the same map: "I will bring Israel again to his pasture, and he will feed on Carmel and Bashan, and his soul will be satisfied on the hills of Ephraim and in Gilead" (Jer 50:19).

Sinai and Horeb — the covenant mountain

Moses is shepherding Jethro's flock when "he led the flock to the back of the wilderness, and came to the mountain of God, to Horeb" (Ex 3:1), and there "the angel of Yahweh appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush" (Ex 3:2). The promise given there is itself a promise about the mountain: "this will be the token to you, that I have sent you: when you have brought forth the people out of Egypt, you⁺ will serve God on this mountain" (Ex 3:12). The token is kept. Yahweh tells Moses to prepare the people: "for the third day Yahweh will come down in the sight of all the people on mount Sinai" (Ex 19:11), and "[the Speech of] Yahweh came down on mount Sinai, to the top of the mount: and [the Speech of] Yahweh called Moses to the top of the mount; and Moses went up" (Ex 19:20). "And the glory of Yahweh stayed on mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days: and the seventh day [the Speech of Yahweh] called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud" (Ex 24:16). At the end of the encounter "he gave to Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him on mount Sinai, the two tables of the testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God" (Ex 31:18). The legal codes are tagged to the same mountain: "These are the statutes and ordinances and laws, which Yahweh made between him and the sons of Israel in mount Sinai by Moses" (Lev 26:46); "which Yahweh commanded Moses in mount Sinai, in the day that he commanded the sons of Israel to offer their oblations to Yahweh, in the wilderness of Sinai" (Lev 7:38). The wilderness movements pivot off it — "the sons of Israel set forward according to their journeys out of the wilderness of Sinai" (Num 10:12); the second-generation census is taken "in the wilderness of Sinai" (Num 26:64).

What happened at the mountain is described as fire and darkness. "You⁺ came near and stood under the mountain; and the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness" (Deut 4:11). "When you⁺ heard the voice of [the Speech] out of the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, that you⁺ came near to me, even all the heads of your⁺ tribes, and your⁺ elders" (Deut 5:23). Deuteronomy keeps reaching back to Horeb as the moment-of-record: "the day that you stood before Yahweh your God in Horeb" (Deut 4:10); "Yahweh our God made a covenant with us in Horeb" (Deut 5:2); "Also in Horeb you⁺ provoked Yahweh to wrath" (Deut 9:8). Nehemiah remembers: "You came down also on mount Sinai, and spoke with them from heaven, and gave them right ordinances and true laws, good statutes and commandments" (Neh 9:13). Malachi closes the canon with the same memory — "Remember⁺ the law of Moses my slave, which I commanded to him in Horeb for all Israel" (Mal 4:4) — and Sirach echoes it: prophets "heard rebukes from Sinai, And from Horeb judgements of vengeance" (Sir 48:7). Even the rock-water miracle is tied to the mountain: "[my Speech] will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb" (Ex 17:6). The two stone tables stay attached to it for centuries: "There was nothing in the ark but the two tables of stone which Moses put there at Horeb" (1 Ki 8:9), "There was nothing in the ark but the two tables which Moses put [there] at Horeb" (2 Chr 5:10). Israel's older sin at the same mountain is also remembered — "They made a calf in Horeb, And worshiped a molten image" (Ps 106:19) — and Elijah, fleeing Jezebel, retraces the route: "he arose, and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God" (1 Ki 19:8).

Moriah and Zion — the sanctuary mountain

The mountain of Abraham's offering becomes the mountain of the temple. Abraham is told to go "into the land of Moriah. And offer him there for a burnt-offering on one of the mountains which I will tell you of" (Gen 22:2). Centuries later, "Solomon began to build the house of Yahweh at Jerusalem on mount Moriah, where [Yahweh] appeared to David his father, which he made ready in the place that David had appointed, in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite" (2 Chr 3:1). The threshing-floor itself is a mountain-altar: when David's plague breaks out, "Gad came that day to David, and said to him, Go up, rear an altar to Yahweh in the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite" (2 Sam 24:18); the parallel reads, "the angel of Yahweh commanded Gad to say to David, that David should go up, and rear an altar to Yahweh in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite" (1 Chr 21:18); David then says, "This is the house of Yahweh God, and this is the altar of burnt-offering for Israel" (1 Chr 22:1).

That mountain is also called Zion. "David took the stronghold of Zion; the same is the city of David" (2 Sam 5:7). Solomon brings up the ark: he "assembled the elders of Israel, and all the heads of the tribes, the princes of the fathers' [houses] of the sons of Israel, to King Solomon in Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the covenant of Yahweh out of the city of David, which is Zion" (1 Ki 8:1). Yahweh's preference is named: "Yahweh loves the gates of Zion More than all the dwellings of Jacob" (Ps 87:2). Sirach speaks of his own ministry in the same place: "In the holy tabernacle I ministered before him, Moreover, in Zion I was established" (Sir 24:10), and prays, "Fill Zion with your majesty, And your temple with your glory" (Sir 36:14). The Maccabean wars are fought over the same hill. Judas and his army "went up into Mount Zion" (1 Mac 4:37); they "built up also at that time Mount Zion, with high walls, and strong towers round about, otherwise the nations should at any time come, and tread it down as they did before" (1 Mac 4:60); they "went up to Mount Zion with joy and gladness, and offered burnt-offerings, because not one of them was slain, until they had returned in peace" (1 Mac 5:54); the king's army "pitched their tents against Judea and Mount Zion" (1 Mac 6:48); "the king entered into Mount Zion, and saw the strength of the place: and he broke the oath that he had taken, and gave commandment to throw down the wall round about" (1 Mac 6:62); "Nicanor went up into Mount Zion: and some of the priests came out from the holy places, and the elders of the people, to salute him peacefully" (1 Mac 7:33). Sirach also remembers Sennacherib at the same wall: he "stretched forth his hand against Zion, And blasphemed God in his pride" (Sir 48:18), and Isaiah by the same spirit "comforted the mourners of Zion" (Sir 48:24).

The eschatological Zion is on the same axis. Yahweh's roar still goes out "from Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem" (Am 1:2). Paul, citing Isaiah, says, "There will come out of Zion the Deliverer; He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob" (Rom 11:26). Hebrews places the new-covenant assembly there: "you⁺ have come to mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to tens of thousands of angels in a festive gathering" (Heb 12:22). And the Apocalypse: "I looked, and saw the Lamb standing on the mount Zion, and with him a hundred and forty and four thousand, having his name, and the name of his Father, written on their foreheads" (Rev 14:1).

Mountains of blessing, mountains of curse

The covenant has its own pair of mountains, set in advance: "you will set the blessing on mount Gerizim, and the curse on mount Ebal" (Deut 11:29). At entry the rite is performed: stones are erected "in mount Ebal" (Deut 27:4), Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin "stand on mount Gerizim to bless the people" (Deut 27:12), and Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali "stand on mount Ebal for the curse" (Deut 27:13). Joshua executes it: "Joshua built an altar to Yahweh, the God of Israel, in mount Ebal" (Josh 8:30); all Israel stood "half of them in front of mount Gerizim, and half of them in front of mount Ebal; as Moses the slave of Yahweh had commanded at the first, that they should bless the people of Israel" (Josh 8:33). Later, Jotham reuses Gerizim as a pulpit for prophetic indictment: he "stood on the top of mount Gerizim, and lifted up his voice, and cried, and said to them, Listen to me, you⁺ men of Shechem, that God may listen to you⁺" (Judg 9:7).

Battles and burials on the mountains

Mountains carry Israel's military memory. Saul stations troops "in Michmash and in the mount of Beth-el" (1 Sam 13:2); the Philistines "encamped in Shunem: and Saul gathered all Israel together, and they encamped in Gilboa" (1 Sam 28:4); on that ridge "the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain in mount Gilboa" (1 Sam 31:1). The Amalekite messenger says, "As I happened by chance on mount Gilboa, I saw that Saul was leaning on his spear" (2 Sam 1:6); David's elegy curses the place: "You⁺ mountains of Gilboa, Let there be no dew nor rain on you⁺, neither fields of offerings: For there the shield of the mighty was vilely cast away, The shield of Saul, not anointed with oil" (2 Sam 1:21). Earlier, Deborah summons Barak "to mount Tabor" (Judg 4:6); when the day comes, "Barak went down from mount Tabor, and ten thousand men after him" (Judg 4:14). Gideon screens his troops at "Mount Gilead" (Judg 7:3); the slaughter Zebah and Zalmunna remember took place "at Tabor" (Judg 8:18). The Maccabees use mountains as cover and stronghold: Mattathias "and his sons fled into the mountains" (1 Mac 2:28); Gorgias "sought them in the mountains: for he said: These men flee from us" (1 Mac 4:5); reflected sun on the shields "shone like lamps of fire" so that "the mountains glittered" (1 Mac 6:39); the army was deployed by elevation, "part of the king's army was distinguished by the high mountains, and the other part by the low places" (1 Mac 6:40); a defiant message reads, "you alone stand against us, and I am laughed at, and reproached, because you show your power against us in the mountains" (1 Mac 10:70).

Tabor and Carmel become poetic shorthand for prominence. "Surely like Tabor among the mountains, and like Carmel by the sea, so he will come" (Jer 46:18). Hosea pairs them as snare-points: Israel has "been a snare at Mizpah, and a net spread on Tabor" (Hos 5:1). Carmel is also where Yahweh is publicly vindicated against Baal — Elijah summons "all Israel to mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the Asherah four hundred" (1 Ki 18:19) — and where Elisha pauses on his itinerary, "he went from there to mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria" (2 Ki 2:25). Ararat carries an analogous reach: it is the mountain of the ark's rest (Gen 8:4), and a kingdom-name in Jeremiah's summons against Babylon — "call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz" (Jer 51:27). Mount Seir has its own oracle: "Son of Man, set your face against mount Seir, and prophesy against it" (Ezek 35:2). And the city's own backdrop is named at the end of Jesus' ministry: "every day he was teaching in the temple; and every night he went out, and lodged in the mount that is called of Olives" (Lu 21:37).

Idolatrous high places

Mountains are also the standing problem. Israel is told before entry to "surely destroy all the places where the nations that you⁺ will dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains, and on the hills, and under every green tree" (Deut 12:2). The pattern recurs nonetheless. Saul on his way home meets prophets coming "down from the high place" at "the hill of God" (1 Sam 10:5). Under Rehoboam the people "built themselves high places, and pillars, and Asherim, on every high hill, and under every green tree" (1 Ki 14:23). Jeremiah names the practice as religious infidelity: "She's gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree and whored there" (Jer 3:6). Hosea is sharper: "They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains, and burn incense on the hills, under oaks and poplars and terebinths, because their shadow is good" (Hos 4:13).

Mountains in theophany

When Yahweh comes down, mountains move. "The mountains melted like wax at the presence of Yahweh, At the presence of the Lord of the whole earth" (Ps 97:5). "The mountains quaked at the presence of Yahweh, this Sinai at the presence of Yahweh, the God of Israel" (Judg 5:5). Isaiah prays for it explicitly: "Oh that you would rend the heavens, that you would come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence" (Isa 64:1), and remembers it: "you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence" (Isa 64:3). Micah's vision is the same: "the mountains will be melted under him, and the valleys will be split, as wax before the fire, as waters that are poured down a steep place" (Mic 1:4). So is Nahum's: "The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt; and the earth arose at his presence" (Nah 1:5). Ezekiel sees a future shaking: at Yahweh's presence "the mountains will be thrown down, and the steep places will fall, and every wall will fall to the ground" (Ezek 38:20). Sirach says of Yahweh's storm-voice, "By his strength he shakes the mountains. And the fear of him stirs up the south wind" (Sir 43:16), and "The produce of the mountains he dries up with scorching heat" (Sir 43:21).

Job pushes the figure further. The God who sits over the world is "[Him] who removes the mountains, and they do not know it, When he overturns them in his anger" (Job 9:5). Even apart from anger, mountains are not finally permanent: "the mountain falling comes to nothing; And the rock is removed out of its place" (Job 14:18). And in the wisdom-poem: "He puts forth his hand on the flinty rock; He overturns the mountains by the roots" (Job 28:9). Mountains, in this register, are the largest visible thing — and they are visibly subject to Yahweh.

Signals from the mountains

Their visibility makes mountains good signal-points. Isaiah commands, "Set⁺ up an ensign on the bare mountain, lift up the voice to them, wave the hand, that they may go into the gates of the nobles" (Isa 13:2). The image is universal: "All you⁺ inhabitants of the world, and you⁺ who stay on the earth, when an ensign is lifted up on the mountains, see⁺; and when the trumpet is blown, hear⁺" (Isa 18:3). And in judgment, the same signal-points are deserted: "until you⁺ are left as a beacon on the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on a hill" (Isa 30:17).

Jesus and the mountain

Jesus' Lukan ministry uses the mountain for prayer. "He went out into the mountain to pray; and he continued all night in prayer to God" (Lu 6:12). Eight days after the saying about cross-bearing, "he took with him Peter and John and James, and went up into the mountain to pray" (Lu 9:28). The Markan transfiguration places the same ascent on "a high mountain apart": "after six days Jesus takes with him Peter, and James, and John, and brings them up into a high mountain apart by themselves: and he was transfigured before them; and his garments became glistering, exceedingly white, so as no fuller on earth can whiten them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses: and they were talking with Jesus" (Mr 9:2-4). Peter's reaction — "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles" — meets the cloud: "there came a voice out of the cloud, This is my beloved Son: hear⁺ him" (Mr 9:7). The descent is itself charged: "as they were coming down from the mountain, he charged them that they should tell no man what things they had seen, except when the Son of Man should have risen again from the dead" (Mr 9:9). The disciples are left "questioning among themselves what the rising again from the dead should mean" (Mr 9:10).

The same Jesus tells the disciples what their faith can do to a mountain: "Whoever will say to this mountain, Be taken up and cast into the sea; and will not doubt in his heart, but will believe that what he says comes to pass; he will have it" (Mr 11:23). The same mountains that quake at Yahweh's presence in Psalms and Isaiah, that overturn under Job's God's hand, are the mountains a believing word can move.