MORIAH. In 2 Chron. iii. 1 we read that Solomon built the Temple at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah (">∏ ∏JΙ ’ lSrt). This name for the Temple hill, the ancient Zion, is not found elsewhere in the Old Testament, and can hardly have been a current one. But a mountain in the “land of Moriah” was the place where Abraham was commanded to sacrifice Isaac; Josephus (Ant., i. 13, 2) assumes that this Mωpιov 6pos was the Temple hill, and the same view is expressed in the Targums, where it is exegetically based on the obscure verse, Gen. xxii. 14 (comp. Jerome, Quaest. Heb. in Gen. xxii. 2). Probably this tradition already existed in the time of the Chronicler, who appears to connect the name etymologically with Jehovah’s manifestation of himself, as is done in Gen. xxii. 14.

Jerome repeatedly calls the Temple hill Mount Moriah, but the currency which the name has with modern writers is mainly due to the erroneous identification of Zion with the western hill beyond the Tyropoeon. In Christian tradition the place of Isaac’s sacrifice λvas identified with Calvary (see Theodosius, De Situ Terrae Sanctae), and it is now shown in a chapel adjoining the church of the Holy Sepulchre.

MOUNT. A hill on the north-east 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, 2 Sam. xxiv, 15–25. On the same spot Solomon afterward built the temple, 2 Chron. iii, 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. xxii, 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.