Editor’s Note: In the next few weeks, we’ll be posting the audio from a 6-part course on biblical imagery that ran earlier this year. If you’d like to catch up, here are the links for the previous sessions:
The Garden of Eden was not only a temple, it was a mountain. Starting in Genesis, humankind has meetings with God at the top of mountains (or tries to manufacture them) all the way to the book of Revelation. We’ll be looking at the moment when the first mountains emerge from the sea, what it means that God is likened to a mountain fortress in the psalms, why the kingdom of God is called a “city on a hill,” and the mountain of the New Creation.
List of Key Passages
Genesis 1—The dry land appears.
Genesis 1:9 “And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.”
Psalm 104—The mountains rise.
Psalm 104:5-8 “He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved.
6You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains.
7At your rebuke they fled; at the sound of your thunder they took to flight.
8The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place that you appointed for them.
Genesis 2—Eden was a mountain.
Genesis 2:8-10 “And the Lord God planted a mgarden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. nThe tree of life was in the midst of the garden, oand the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
Ezekiel 28:14 “You were an anointed guardian cherub. You were on the holy mountain of God; in the midst of the stones of fire you walked.”
Joel 2:1-3 “Blow a trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain!... Like blackness there is spread upon the mountains, a great and powerful people… The land is like the garden of Eden before them, but behind them a desolate wilderness…”
Genesis 11—The story of the Tower of Babel.
Genesis 22—The Binding of Isaac
Genesis 22:1-2 “After these things aGod tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”
Exodus 15—The Song of Moses
13 “You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed;
you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode.
14 The peoples have heard; they tremble;
pangs have seized the inhabitants of Philistia.
15Now are the chiefs of Edom dismayed;
trembling seizes the leaders of Moab;
all the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away.
16Terror and dread fall upon them;
because of the greatness of your arm, they are still as a stone,
till your people, O Lord, pass by,
till the people pass by whom you have purchased.
17 You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain,
the place, O Lord, which you have made for your abode,
the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established.
18 The Lord will reign forever and ever.”
Exodus 19—God gives the law the Moses
Exodus 19:20 “The Lord came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain. And the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.”
2 Samuel 5, 6—David takes Jerusalem
2Samuel 5:7 “Nevertheless, David took the stronghold of Zion, that is, the city of David.”
2 Kings 6,7 Solomon builds temple
Psalm 2—“I have set MY king in Zion, my holy hill.”
Psalm 2:6-7 “As for me, I have set my King
on Zion, my holy hill.
7 I will tell of the decree:
The Lord said to me, “You are my Son;
today I have begotten you.”
Psalms 31, 46, 18—God is a rock
Psalm 15 & 24—“Who shall ascend the mountain of the Lord?”
Isaiah 2. People river to the mountain temple. The highest mountain
“1 The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
2 It shall come to pass in the latter days
that the mountain of the house of the Lord
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be lifted up above the hills;
and call the nations shall flow (nahar, river) to it,
3 and many peoples shall come, and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”
Isaiah 25—A feast for all people on God’s mountain
“6 On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine,
of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.
7And he will swallow up on this mountain
the covering that is cast over all peoples,
the veil that is spread over all nations.
8 He will swallow up death forever;
and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces,
and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth,
for the Lord has spoken.
9 It will be said on that day,
“Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us.
This is the Lord; we have waited for him;
let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”
10 For the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain…”
Ezekiel 34—God will bring his sheep to his mountain.
Ezekiel 34 “My sheep were scattered; they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill… I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness… And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel…”
Luke 23—Jesus sacrificed on a hillside outside Jerusalem.
Matthew 5:14—”A city on a hill cannot be hidden.”
Revelation 21:10—The eschatological mountain, the New Jerusalem
Photo by Vivek Kumar on Unsplash
The Mountain Temple