Moriah

A mountain, the name of which is well known to the readers of the Bible. Here Abraham was directed by the Lord for the offering up of his son. (See Gen. xx2: throughout.) The name itself is a compound of Mor and Jah, bitterness, or myrrh of the Lord. Here, in after - ages, the temple of Jerusalem was built by Solomon. (2 Chron. 3: 1.)

It will not be unpleasant to the reader if I add under this article, that Moriah, in the intended offering of Isaac, being typical of Christ and his Calvary, as well as Isaac himself, may serve at all times to furnish sweet subject of meditation, The myrrh or Moriah of the Lord becomes no unapt resemblance of Jesus, because Christ’s suffering, like myrrh, had a bitter taste, though fragrant smell. "In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen." And the bruises of Jesus, when it pleased JEHOVAH to put him to grief, while they affect incontemplation the heart of the redeemed, yet, like sweet dropping myrrh, they distil all spiritual blessings in a fragrancy most refreshing and delightful, in pardon, mercy, peace, grace, faith and all the blessings of the covenant. Hence the church cries out, All thy garments smell of myrth, aloes, and Cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad." (Ps. xlv. 8.)

MOUNT. A hill on the northeast side of Jerusalem, once separated from that of Acra by a broad valley, which, according to Josephus, was filled up by the Asmoneans, and the two hills converted into one. In the time of David it stood apart from the city, and was under cultivation; for here was the threshing floor of Araunah, the Jebusite, which David bought, on which to erect an altar to God, 2Sa 24:15-25. On the same spot Solomon afterward built the temple, 2Ch 3:1; when it was included within the walls of the city. Here, also, Abraham is supposed to have been directed to offer his son Isaac, Gen 22:1-2. Moriah implies “vision;” and the “land of Moriah,” mentioned in the above passage in the history of Abraham, was probably so called from being seen “afar off.” It included the whole group of hills on which Jerusalem was afterward built.

Mori´ah, one of the hills of Jerusalem, on which the temple was built by Solomon (2Ch 3:1). The name seldom occurs, being usually included in that of Zion, to the north-east of which it lay, and from which it was separated by the valley of Tyropœn (Josephus, Antiq. viii. 4, 1) [JERUSALEM].

The Land of Moriah, whither Abraham went to offer up Isaac (Gen 22:2), is generally supposed to denote the same place, and may at least he conceived to describe the surrounding district. The Jews themselves believe that the altar of burnt-offerings in the temple stood upon the very site of the altar on which the patriarch purposed to sacrifice his son.

The hill on which the temple of Jerusalem was built, 2Ch 3:1 . See JERUSALEM. It seems to have been the same place where Abraham was about to offer up Isaac, Gen 22:1-2 ; and where David interceded for his people at the threshing-floor of Araunah, 2Sa 24:16-25 .\par

Mori’ah. (chosen by Jehovah).

1. The land of Moriah. -- On "one of the mountains," in this district took place the sacrifice of Isaac. Gen 22:2. Its position is doubtful, some thinking it to be Mount Moriah, others that Moreh, near Shechem, is meant. See Mount Moriah.

2. Mount Moriah. -- The elevation on which Solomon built the Temple, where God appeared to David, "in the threshing floor of Araunah, the Jebusite." it is the Eastern eminence of Jerusalem, separated from Mount Zion by the Tyropoeon valley. The top was levelled by Solomon, and immense walls were built around it, from the base, to enlarge the level surface for the Temple area.

A tradition which first appears in a definite shape in Josephus, and is now almost universally accepted, asserts that the "Mount Moriah" of the Chronicles is identical with the "mountain" in "the land of Moriah" of Genesis, and that the spot on which Jehovah appeared to David, and on which the Temple was built, was the very spot of the sacrifice of Isaac. (Smith, Stanley and Grove are, however, inclined to doubt this tradition).

Gen 22:2; 2Ch 3:1. (See JEHOVAH JIREH; GERIZIM.) What Jehovah has made one see (this hophal mowreh occurs four times in the Pentateuch, nowhere in later books) "the vision of Jehovah". In the same neighborhood He vouchsafed a vision to Abram (Genesis 14; Gen 15:1) after Melchizedek had met him in the valley near Salem and Abram paid tithe of the spoils of Chedorlaomer. Afterward on Moriah he offered Isaac (Gen 22:2; Gen 22:14). Abraham saw Moriah at some little distance (Gen 22:4) on the third day; the distance, two days’ journey from Beersheba, would just bring him to Zion, but not so far as Moreh and Gerizim (Gen 12:6) where some fix Moriah.

"The mount of the Lord" (Gen 22:14) means almost always Mount Zion. The proverb "in the Mount of Jehovah it (or He) shall be seen" probably originated in Jerusalem under Melchizedek. Jehovah’s vision to David in the same spot, before the preparation for building the temple there, revived the name Moriah (2Sa 24:16; 2Sa 24:24-25.) The threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite was the spot on which David reared an altar by Gad’s direction from Jehovah. The Angel of Jehovah had stood by Araunah’s threshing floor; there David saw Him, and Araunah (Ornan) also, subsequently on turning back, saw Him and hid himself. Then Ornan saw David, and made over to him the threshing floor (1Ch 21:15-16; 1Ch 21:18-26).

Jehovah testified His acceptance of David’s sacrifice there by sending down fire to consume it (Lev 9:24; 1Ki 18:24; 1Ki 18:38; 2Ch 7:1). So thenceforth David sacrificed there, and no longer on the altar at Gibeon where the tabernacle was, separate from the ark, which was at Zion; for he could not go to Gibeon on account of the sword of the Angel, i.e. the pestilence. God’s answer to his sacrifice at this altar of the threshing floor, and God’s removal of the plague, determined David’s choice of it as the site of the temple (1Ch 28:2; 1Ch 21:28; 1Ch 22:1; 2Ch 3:1, etc.). It lay, like all threshing floors, outside the city, upon Mount Moriah, N.E. of Zion. Evidently the threshing floor on Moriah was near the real Mount Zion, the city of David (on the eastern not the western half of Jerusalem).

Moriah (mo-rî’ah), chosen of Jehovah? 1. The place where Abraham was directed to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. Gen 22:2. 2. A mount on which Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem. 2Ch 3:1. It was in the eastern part of the city, overlooking the valley of the Kedron, and where was the threshing-floor of Araunah. 2Sa 24:24; 1Ch 21:24. See Jerusalem.

[Mori’ah]

The land in which was situated the mount on which Abraham was told to offer his son Isaac. Gen 22:2. The name of the mountain is not recorded. On the third day after leaving Beer-sheba, Abraham saw the mount afar off, and it was doubtless some lonely spot suitable for such an incident. The Jews say it was the mount bearing this name in Jerusalem. The Samaritans and some modern authorities judge it to have been Gerizim; but it is unknown.

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By: Joseph Jacobs, M. Seligsohn

1. A district in Palestine containing several mountains, on one of which Abraham was commanded by God to sacrifice his son Isaac (Gen. xxii. 2). 2. A mountain at Jerusalem on which Ornan the Jebusite had a thrashing-floor and on which Solomon later built the Temple (II Chron. iii. 1). It is very likely that the Chronicler identified the mountain of the Temple with that of the sacrifice of Isaac, as he points out that Solomon built the Temple on a mountain of a highly sacred character, since Abraham had several centuries previously built there an altar on which the 'Aḳedah took place. Shortly before the erection of Solomon's Temple an altar had been built there by David (comp. II Sam. xxiv. 25). The Rabbis positively identified these two places as the same, naming Jerusalem "land of Moriah" (Gen. l.c.) on account of the Mount Moriah situated therein.

As to the meaning of the name, the Rabbis advanced various interpretations, e.g.: "the teaching-place" (), in allusion to the Temple as the seat of the Sanhedrin; "the place of fear" (), the Temple causing fear to the heathen; "the place of myrrh"(; comp. , Cant. iv. 6), referring to the myrrh and other spices which were burned on the altar (Yer. Ber. iv. 5; Ta'an. 16a; Pesiḳ. R. 40 [ed. Friedmann, p. 167b]; Gen. R. lv. 9; Tan., Wayera, 45). It is apparently after the last named interpretation that the Targums of Onḳelos and pseudo-Jonathan (to Gen. l.c.) render by (= "land of worship"; comp. Rashi ad loc.). The Samaritan text has , which is rendered by the Samaritan Targum (= "vision"), a reading which agrees with Gen. xxii. 8, 14. In the Peshiṭta the Moriah of Genesis is rendered by "the land of the Amorites," while that of II Chron. iii. 1 is cited as "Moriah"; in the Septuagint the former is τὴν γῆν τὴν ὑψηλήν (=); the latter, Άμωρία.

Modern scholars who distinguish between these two places advance different theories as to the meaning of the word "Moriah." Wellhausen reads in Gen. l.c. (= "the land of the Hamorites"), i.e., Shechem (see Gen. xxxiv.; Judges ix. 28); Tuch identifies it with the Moreh of Gen. xii. 6, also near Shechem. Both theories agree with the Samaritan tradition that the sacrifice of Isaac took place on Mount Gerizim near Shechem ("Z. D. P.V." vi. 198, vii. 133; comp. Cheyne and Black, "Encyc. Bibl." s.v., and Ed. King in "Hebraica," ii. 93).

MORIAH

1. The name.—In Gen 22:2 Abraham was commanded to go ‘into the land of the Moriah,’ and to sacrifice Isaac upon ‘one of the mountains’ which God would tell him of. The derivation of the name is obscure. The Peshitta (Syriac) version reads ‘of the Amorites,’ which may possibly be the true reading. The narrator (E [Note: Elohist.] ), however, in Gen 22:14 appears to connect it with the verb ‘to see’ (which is etymologically impossible), and some of the early translators do the same in their rendering of the name in Gen 22:2. The Targumists emphasized the worship of Abraham at the spot, perhaps connecting the name with the verb ‘to fear’—which is equally impossible.

2. The place.—The proverb recorded in Gen 22:14 clearly implies that the writer thought that Isaac was offered on the Temple mount at Jerusalem. And hence the Chronicler (2Ch 3:1) names the Temple hill ‘Mount Moriah.’ From a spiritual point of view, the analogy often drawn between the offering of Isaac and the death of Christ makes the identification very suggestive. But Gen 22:4 certainly contemplates a mountain at a much greater distance from the Philistine country, and much more conspicuous, than the Jerusalem hill. There is some similarity between the names Moriah and Moreh, the latter of which was at Shechem (Gen 12:6, Deu 11:30), close to the hills Gerizim and Ebal. And it may have been owing to this that the Samaritans claimed Gerizim as Abraham’s mountain (cf. Joh 4:20). Geographically, it would suit the description in Gen 22:4; but there is no real evidence for the identification. If the Syriac reading ‘Amorites’ be adopted, the locality of the mountain is entirely unknown, since the name is a general term employed by E [Note: Elohist.] to denote the Canaanite natives of Palestine.

A. H. M’Neile.