The Temple as Mountain in the Torah

Over the past few months, I’ve combed through the first five books of the Bible, looking for references to mountains and hills. This was an exercise in close reading, an attempt to uncover and catalog the relationship between Judeo-Christian ideas and mountains. The product of that exercise was six different posts on my blog On Mountains, one for each book of the Torah with the exception of Exodus, which I split into two posts. In this post, I’d like to synthesize those six posts into one and reflect on what I learned.

In the Torah, mountains evolve from places of refuge into sites of worship, then into divine dwellings, and finally into a theological problem that required restriction and centralization. The theological problem centers on the main narrative of the Torah: if god lives on Mt. Sinai, and he is promising the faraway land of Canaan to the Israelites, where will the Jews be able to worship him?

The key to understanding this evolution lies in a name. In Genesis, when god reveals himself as “God Almighty” to Abrahm and establishes the convanant with the people of Israel, the English translation obscures what the Hebrew text reveals: El Shaddai (אֵל שַׁדַּי). El means god. But Shaddai (שַׁדַּי) is derived from the Akkadian word for mountain or mountain area: šadû. God introduces himself as, literally, God of the Mountain.

Isn’t “of the mountain” just a metaphor for stability, power, permanence, and prosperity? It can be. We certainly see these themes in the Bible. But what makes me believe “of the mountain” isn’t just a metaphor and instead a literal description is the larger context of semitic religion in the area. One doesn’t need to study ancient semitic religion to see this context — the Bible itself gives us a glimpse into this regional context, referencing the widespread practice of worshiping gods on mountains.

The Pentateuch — the Torah, the first five books of the Bible — tells the story of a mountain god and his people. It chronicles how mountains function in the religious imagination of ancient Israel, and how that function changes over time. What follows is the biography of that idea, from its birth in Genesis where mountains are sites for ritual and worship, through its maturation in Deuteronomy, where god abandons his original mountain home in favor of a temple.¹

Mountains as Places of Divine Encounter

In Genesis, mountains are established sites of divine encounter. The first explicit mention of mountains appears in the flood narrative, where Noah’s ark “came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.”² Here mountains are places of refuge, elevated above catastrophe. But god doesn’t live on Ararat — he speaks to Noah from above, commanding him to “be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”³

The Biblical association between mountains and worship begins with Noah. After the ark comes to rest on Ararat, Noah emerges from the vessel and builds an altar to burn an offering.⁴ If I’m not mistaken, this is the Bible’s first of many references to altars on mountains or high places.

Mountain worship continues in the story of Abraham. After entering Canaan, Abraham travels to the “hill country” between Bethel and Ai, where he “built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord.”⁵ He does the same near the Oaks of Mamre, which is in the “hill country.” This pattern deepens with the testing of Abraham. God commands him to take Isaac “to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.”⁶ When an angel intervenes and provides a ram instead, Abraham says: “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”⁷ Some translations render Abraham’s statement as “On the mount of the Lord he shall be seen.” Either way — whether god provides or god is seen — mountains are sites of worship and encounter.

We can’t ignore the fact that god appears to humans in many places outside of mountains or high places in the Torah. For example, he speaks to Moses by the Red Sea in Exodus. Yet, the mountain connection is fundamental to Judaism and crystallizes as the narrative in the Torah advances.

Mount Sinai As God’s Abode

Everything changes when Moses encounters the burning bush on Mount Horeb, which is also conflated with Mount Sinai. For the first time in the Bible, a mountain is explicitly referenced as a sacred space. Previously, when looking to build an altar for worship, it seemed that any mountain or high place would do. But now, one specific mountain has been deemed holy. As if he were warning a friend before entering a temple, God commands Moses while on Horeb/Sinai: “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”⁶ Exodus identifies Mount Horeb/Sinai as “the mountain of God.”

It is such an important place that god asks Moses to bring the Israelites from Egypt to the mountain. God speaks to Moses from the bush: “When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.”⁷ Mount Horeb/Sinai is where god expects worship, where he intends to receive his people. Where else would one need to worship El Shaddai?

Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt and sings a song of praise:

In your steadfast love you led the people whom you redeemed; you guided them by your strength to your holy abode… You brought them in and planted them on the mountain of your own possession, the place, O Lord, that you made your abode, the sanctuary, O Lord, that your hands have established.⁸

Some scholars suggest the reference to “mountain” in these lyrics refer to the future temple in Canaan. But Psalm 78, which recounts the same journey, restates the destination with little room for metaphorical interpretation: “He brought them to his holy hill, to the mountain that his right hand had won.”⁹ God’s abode, his sanctuary, his mountain of possession — these terms describe Mount Sinai itself, not some metaphorical prophetic vision of a future temple in the Promised Land. I wonder if this latter interpretation is offered to create some distance between the Judeo-Christian god and his mountain context.

When the Israelites arrive at Sinai, god’s ownership over it becomes unmistakable. God descends upon the mountain in cloud and fire. The mountain quakes. God establishes three zones of holiness on his mountain home: the foot for the common Israelite, the middle slopes for Aaron and the priests, and the summit for himself and Moses. Violating these house rules means death.

From a fire-cloud on the summit, god delivers the Ten Commandments. Moses ascends into the god-cloud and remains there for forty days and forty nights. The Israelite camp is at the base of Sinai. God is present, available to Moses and the Israelites only because they’ve come to his mountain.

Thus emerges the central puzzle of the Torah’s narrative: god has promised the Israelites the land of Canaan, hundreds of miles to the north. How can they maintain their covenant and communication with a god whose home is a mountain they’re about to leave behind?

The Tabernacle: A Mobile Mountain

The solution god proposes is simple: a portable dwelling that can travel with the Israelites from Sinai to the “Promised Land.” God tells Moses, “Have them make me a sanctuary, so that I may dwell among them.”¹⁰ He then dictates precise specifications for building this sanctuary — the Tabernacle.

The Hebrew word for Tabernacle is miškān (מִשְׁכָּן), meaning “dwelling place” or “home.” Even before the Tabernacle exists, Sinai is referred to as god’s abode. The Tabernacle, then, is explicitly a surrogate mountain home. It’s a manufactured mountain, a symbolic mountain, and because it will be transported to Canaan, it’s god’s mobile-home-mountain.

The parallels between Sinai and the Tabernacle are striking. The Tabernacle is a rectilinear, tent-like structure rising from the center of the Israelite camp. In the mind’s eye, a large tent’s form evokes a mountain, an artificial peak visible from every corner of the Israelite encampment. When we consider the imagery of a tent-like structure rising from flat ground, the visual parallel to a mountain becomes clear.

More importantly, god’s presence manifests in the Tabernacle identically to that of the mountain. Just as cloud cover indicates the presence of god on Mount Sinai, cloud covers the Tabernacle when he’s there. Just as god communicated with Moses on the mountain, he communicates with Moses in the tent. Just as only select people could access Sinai’s slopes, only select priests can enter the Tabernacle’s inner sanctum — the holiest of holies where the Ark of the Covenant rests. A veil separates the inner sanctum from the rest of the Tabernacle, just as smoke and cloud obscured Sinai’s summit from the people below. Sacrifices occur on the Tabernacle’s altar as they did on mountain altars. Anointments and offerings proceed in the same manner. So on and so forth.

When the Israelites complete the Tabernacle, god takes up residence in his manufactured mountain. Exodus describes the moment: “Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle.”¹¹ From this moment, the Tabernacle dictates the Israelites’ movements. When god inhabits the Tabernacle — indicated by the cloud — they remain in camp. When the cloud lifts, they march toward Canaan.

The Tabernacle is Judaism’s first constructed temple, created in the image of Judaism’s first non-constructed temple: a mountain. It represents a theological innovation — the idea that god’s mountain home can be built and reproduced, that god’s abode can be constructed by man. God no longer needs to remain fixed at Sinai. He can travel with his people in a portable sanctuary that functions exactly like his mountain. He can be worshipped anywhere. He is no longer some provincial mountain deity.

Conflating Mountain and Temple

The book of Leviticus is ambiguous about where god actually speaks to Moses. At times, it is on Sinai. Others, it is in the tent. I believe this confusion is actually a conflation. It reveals a lot about how early Jews understood the relationship between Sinai and the Tabernacle. Namely, temple is mountain and mountain is temple.

Leviticus opens with: “The Lord summoned Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting.”¹² Yet the book’s final verse states: “These are the commandments that the Lord gave to Moses for the people of Israel on Mount Sinai.”¹³ Throughout Leviticus, the location of the revelation seems to alternate. At the beginning, it seems as if god speaks “from the tent of meeting.” Later, the laws are said to have been given “on Mount Sinai.”

While this distinction could be easily explained away by suggesting that god speaks to Moses in both places. Sure, the narrative does suggest this. But what I am arguing is that this is an important conflation, an important theological equivalence between mountain and temple. The Tabernacle is an analog of Mount Sinai. They’re functionally identical — both are god’s dwelling place, both are where he issues commandments, both are where he maintains his covenant with Israel. The manufactured mountain has become spiritually indistinguishable from the natural one.

Or, perhaps the references to Sinai simply indicate geographic location — the Israelites are still camped beside the mountain when these laws are given, after all. But even this interpretation reinforces the point: god can now speak either from his original mountain home or from his manufactured one, and the Israelites understand both as equally valid sites of divine dwelling.

This theological development means god is no longer bound to a specific geographic mountain. The concept of divine dwelling has been abstracted, made portable. If god can live in the Tabernacle as he lived on Sinai, then he could live anywhere. There’s no reason his dwelling must remain at Sinai at all.

From One Mountain to Another

Throughout the book of Numbers, the promised land is described as “the hill country” — an elevated place, a mountainous region. God leads his people from one mountain (Sinai) through the wilderness to another mountainous region (Canaan). But there’s a crucial difference: Canaan isn’t a single mountain that belongs to god. It’s a land full of mountains, many of which have altars and “high places” dedicated to other gods.

The story of Balak and Balaam in Numbers reveals just how widespread mountain worship was in the region. The Moabite king takes the diviner Balaam to three different mountain peaks — Bamoth-baal (literally “high place of Baal”), Mount Pisgah, and Mount Peor — to curse the Israelites. At each peak, altars are built and sacrifices performed. The assumption that gods are worshiped on mountains pervades the entire region’s religious culture. As we will see below, Deuteronomy reinforces this assumption.

As the Israelites camp on the Plains of Moab, across from the Promised Land, they’re poised to enter a region filled with mountains and high places. God travels with them in his Tabernacle-mountain. But what happens when they settle in Canaan? Will the Tabernacle continue to move? Will there be one central location for worship, or will the Israelites build altars on Canaan’s many mountains?

One Place, One Temple

Deuteronomy answers these questions. Scholars believe Deuteronomy was composed much later than the other books of the Torah, possibly during King Josiah’s religious reforms in the 7th century BCE. If this dating is accurate, Deuteronomy reflects a developed theology that seeks to centralize worship and eliminate competition from other gods.

In Deuteronomy, god issues a clear command: destroy all the mountain altars of the peoples being dispossessed.

You must demolish completely all the places where the nations whom you are about to dispossess served their gods, on the mountain heights, on the hills, and under every leafy tree. Break down their altars, smash their pillars, burn their sacred poles with fire, and hew down the idols of their gods.¹⁴

But then comes the revolutionary part: “You shall not worship the Lord your God in such ways.”¹⁵ No more worship on any mountain. No more building altars on high places as Abraham did, as the Israelites have done. Instead: “You shall seek the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes as his habitation to put his name there.”¹⁶

God designates one location — “the place that the Lord will choose” — where worship must occur. Deuteronomy or any other book in the Torah doesn’t name this place explicitly, but it’s identified in First Kings 14:21 as Jerusalem — “the city that the Lord had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there.”¹⁷ This echoes god’s earlier command to Abraham, that he will show him what mountain upon which to sacrifice Issac.

The abolition of mountain alters represents a complete reversal. Mountains had been the preferred sites for worship precisely because of their elevation and their association with divine presence. Mount Sinai became god’s explicit home. The Tabernacle preserved the mountain form in portable fashion. But now, in Deuteronomy, that freedom is restricted. No longer can Israelites worship on any high place. There’s one authorized location where god will dwell, where sacrifices can be offered, where worship can occur.

The location where god preferred to be worshipped evolved from mountain to Tabernacle to temple in Jerusalem. El Shaddai — the God of the Mountain — began on a mountain, created a portable mountain to travel with his people, and finally settled in a temple-mountain in Jerusalem (now the term “Temple Mount” takes on new meaning). The mountain god followed the arc of his people’s journey; in doing so, he and his people became increasingly distant from the mountains themselves so much so that the context of mountain worship now seems foreign to the very traditions it helped create.