Biblical Geography

Mount Moriah

Mountain · Old Testament

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Genesis 22:2 · WEBU

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Take your son, your only son Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there on one of the .

On Moriah Abraham raised the knife and heard the voice that stopped it. On the same hill, at Araunah's threshing floor, David's plague was stayed, and Solomon built there. Provision, purchase and belong to one ridge.

The mountain of Abraham's offering and, by the chronicler's record, the hill of Solomon's temple.

Biblical names
Moriah, the land of Moriah, the threshing floor of Araunah
Later names
the Temple Mount, Haram al-Sharif

Identification note. The identification of Moriah with the temple mount rests on 2 Chronicles 3:1 and is the traditional and most natural reading.

A threshing floor needs an open hilltop where the wind blows; is exactly that. The site's use in is agricultural before it is architectural.

  • Take your son, your only son Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there on one of the mountains.
  • Abraham calls the place The Lord will provide
  • Solomon builds the house of the Lord on Mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared to David
  • David buys the threshing floor of Araunah and the plague is stayed

What we know

Certain

  • 2 Chronicles 3:1 identifies the temple site with Moriah.

Probable

  • The Temple Mount in Jerusalem preserves the ancient summit.