Moriah

 Moriah

Welcome! Today is our third week of exploring the findings of archaeology that confirm the truths of the Bible. As we did last week, we are going to look at several seemingly unrelated passages, and then as we look at archaeology, we will put these passages together. Our first passage we will look at today should be a very familiar one involving Abraham.

Two weeks ago, we looked at the location of Mamre, a place where Abraham stayed for some time with his extended family and his animals, where Abraham made an altar to God, and where God told Abraham that he and Sarah would have a son, despite the seeming impossibility that that could happen. God did indeed give them a son, named Isaac, and today’s passage takes place a number of years after Isaac is born.

Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” – Genesis 22:1-2

This was a shocking, unimaginable request. Over many years, God had shown special care and concern for Abraham, instructing him to leave his home in Ur and go to a place God would show him. God promised to make of him a great nation, to bless him and make his name great. He was told that all nations, all peoples would be blessed through him. God repeated and added to promise after promise, revealing that it would be through his son Isaac that the promises would be kept; through Isaac the great nation would come, and through Isaac, all nations, all peoples, would be blessed.

So how could God now ask Abraham to sacrifice his son? What about the promises? If it was through Isaac that that all this would happen, then the death of Isaac meant the death of a nation, and the blessing that was to be for all peoples would be for none.

Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.” – Genesis 22:3-5

Why did Abraham dismiss the servants? Probably because he did not want them to see what Abraham was about to do. Also they might have been able to stop him. The reason the servants came on the journey at all is probably because Abraham was an old man at this time, and needed help with a multi-day journey.

Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?” “Yes, my son?” Abraham replied. “The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Abraham answered, “God Himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together. – Genesis 22:6-8

Now we don’t know exactly how old Isaac is at this time, but we have two convincing clues that Isaac is a young adult, not a small child. First, the word used to describe him in the previous chapter is the same word used to describe Abraham’s servants in this chapter. Second, Isaac is old enough to carry what had to be a large and heavy quantity of wood over some distance, a distance large enough so that the servants would not be able to hear anything that happened. Note that the wood was cut before their journey even began and loaded up on a donkey, so it had to be a lot of wood.   

When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. – Genesis 22:9-10

It is remarkable to me that Isaac does not resist at any time. He could have certainly overpowered his father. I am sure he understood what was happening, although he did not understand why. And his father likewise continued to do what he had been told to do, though I do not doubt it was with many tears. Despite what was happening, Isaac remained completely obedient to the will of his father. But as you know, this story does not end as it appears to at this point.

But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” He said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from Me your son, your only son.” Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.” – Genesis 22:11-14

I want to point out that this is an odd thing that is said “to this day.” It would be one thing to simply say that Lord provides, or more precisely, the Lord provided. It is interesting that the tense is future, the Lord Will Provide, Jehovah Jireh. But the final verse is even more specific. It says that on the mountain of the Lord it will be provided. This mountain? And what will be provided? We will come back to that question, but let’s now move on. Let us look, in our second passage, at an event in the life of David.

Now David is described by God as a man after God’s own heart. David certainly was a sinner, as we all are, and a number of his personal failings – most famously the situation with Bathsheba – revealed his sinful nature publicly and spectacularly. But despite his failings, David kept returning to the Lord. His Psalms reveal a heart that truly burns for God, for his own life to be one used by God, and for God’s glory to be revealed. The contrast between David and Saul, who eventually abandoned all pretense of serving the Lord, could not be greater. But we are going to look at one of David’s failings. This account is given in 2 Samuel 24.

Again the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He incited David against them, saying, “Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.” So the king said to Joab and the army commanders with him, “Go throughout the tribes of Israel from Dan to Beersheba and enroll the fighting men, so that I may know how many there are.” But Joab replied to the king, “May the Lord your God multiply the troops a hundred times over, and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why does my lord the king want to do such a thing?” The king’s word, however, overruled Joab and the army commanders; so they left the presence of the king to enroll the fighting men of Israel. – 2 Samuel 24:1-4

Now, we need to discuss that first sentence, which can be confusing to understand. I think we can understand it better by looking at the opening of the parallel account in I Chronicles 21.

Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel. So David said to Joab and the commanders of the troops, “Go and count the Israelites from Beersheba to Dan. Then report back to me so that I may know how many there are.” But Joab replied, “May the Lord multiply his troops a hundred times over. My lord the king, are they not all my lord’s subjects? Why does my lord want to do this? Why should he bring guilt on Israel?” The king’s word, however, overruled Joab; so Joab left and went throughout Israel and then came back to Jerusalem. – 1 Chronicles 21:1-4

In the 2 Samuel passage, the opening statement “Again the anger of the Lord burned against Israel” should be taken to be a summary statement of the rest of the chapter. This is a common speech pattern in 1 and 2 Samuel, as well as in earlier books of the Bible. And when it says “He incited David” in contrast to what we have here which is that Satan incited David, I believe the way to understand this is that God allowed Satan to tempt David, knowing that David would fail, and that the result would be judgment against Israel that was due against them because of their continued sin.

Now, David gave in to the temptation. He wants to see how large his army is. How mighty is his kingdom? How many men able to fight does he have in the whole land? Note that this kind of thinking usually is accompanied with an unhealthy, or shall we say, sinful, view of yourself as the reason for your success, rather than God. The truth is that we are stewards, not owners, of our possessions, and whether we have just enough, or far more than that, it is the Lord who is giver of these things.

But beyond this, it is harder to trust the Lord when you don’t know just what you have. Counting your stuff makes it easy for you to say you trust the Lord, but that is something else entirely. We in America have been blessed with abundance, but this abundance is also a temptation for us to rely on ourselves rather than the Lord. We have insurance. We have retirement accounts. I’m not saying any of these things are sin. But to put your trust in these things and forget the Lord is sin.

Quite ironically, it is David himself who wrote in Psalm 20:7, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.” If you really trust in the name of the Lord your God, you do not need to count your chariots and horses, do you? I believe this is why taking a census in the Law of Moses included an interesting requirement. From Exodus 30:

Then the Lord said to Moses, “When you take a census of the Israelites to count them, each one must pay the Lord a ransom for his life at the time he is counted. Then no plague will come on them when you number them. Each one who crosses over to those already counted is to give a half shekel, according to the sanctuary shekel, which weighs twenty gerahs. This half shekel is an offering to the Lord. All who cross over, those twenty years old or more, are to give an offering to the Lord. The rich are not to give more than a half shekel and the poor are not to give less when you make the offering to the Lord to atone for your lives. Receive the atonement money from the Israelites and use it for the service of the tent of meeting. It will be a memorial for the Israelites before the Lord, making atonement for your lives.” – Exodus 30:11-16

I believe this half-shekel requirement, which was a small amount, small enough for even the poor to afford, was included in the Law because it forced everyone to remember the Lord. I also think it foreshadowed Christ, but more on that later. In any case, it appears from both our 2 Samuel and 2 Chronicles passages that Joab remembered this law and the warning of plague that went with it, or at least he remembered that the Israelites had always been told to be wary of taking censuses without God giving a command through His prophets to do so.

Both passages explain that indeed, a plague came on the people, an angel of death, an angel of the Lord, struck down thousands of people. David, was in anguish over this, and he then was visited by the prophet Gad. From 2 Samuel 24:

On that day Gad went to David and said to him, “Go up and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” So David went up, as the Lord had commanded through Gad. When Araunah looked and saw the king and his officials coming toward him, he went out and bowed down before the king with his face to the ground. Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?” “To buy your threshing floor,” David answered, “so I can build an altar to the Lord, that the plague on the people may be stopped.” – 2 Samuel 24:18-21

Notice that Gad told David to “go up” to build this altar. We will come back to that later.

Araunah said to David, “Let my lord the king take whatever he wishes and offer it up. Here are oxen for the burnt offering, and here are threshing sledges and ox yokes for the wood. Your Majesty, Araunah gives all this to the king.” Araunah also said to him, “May the Lord your God accept you.” But the king replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen and paid fifty shekels of silver for them. David built an altar to the Lord there and sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. Then the Lord answered his prayer in behalf of the land, and the plague on Israel was stopped. – 2 Samuel 24:22-25

The threshing floor is highly symbolic. A threshing floor was a place to separate the grain from the chaff, the outer, inedible part of the plant (usually wheat or barley). Threshing involved pulling a heavy sled (usually pulled by an animal) over the gathered plants to crack the husks, breaking it off of the edible grain. Now that the husks were broken off, the next step was to physically separate the grain from the chaff, and this was done by using winnowing forks to toss the combination of grain and chaff into the air. The wind would carry away the lighter chaff, and the grain would fall back to the floor. An ideal location for a threshing floor was on the top of a high hill, where the wind would be strong enough to separate the grain from the chaff.

David also needed to be separated from his sin. The sacrifice of the oxen (who were innocent of David’s sin) paid the penalty for David. But even though David paid for the oxen, it was really God who provided the way out of the situation through the words of the prophet Gad. Note that, just as with Abraham, it was God who told David where to go, where to erect his altar. And just as with Abraham, the sacrificial animal was provided at this location.

The 2 Samuel passage says that the Lord answered his prayer. The 1 Chronicles account gives a little more detail:

David built an altar to the Lord there and sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. He called on the Lord, and the Lord answered him with fire from heaven on the altar of burnt offering. – 1 Chronicles 21:26

So David saw personally the fire from heaven come down on this place.

We now come to our third passage, our third person interacting with the Lord. This person is Solomon. David had wanted to build a Temple for the Lord, but God said it would be his son Solomon who would do it. 2 Chronicles 3:1 tells us where Solomon would build the Temple, and this passage ties together everything we have discussed so far:

Then Solomon began to build the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David. It was on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, the place provided by David. – 2 Chronicles 3:1

Why did God have Abraham take a journey before having His test of sacrificing Isaac? Because it foreshadowed what would happen on this very same spot. Solomon’s Temple became the location where all the people of Israel would go to bring sacrifices, substitutionary sacrifices for their sin. It was here that the sacrifice of an innocent animal would be accepted as substitutionary payment for their sin. And we know that after the Temple was dedicated by Solomon, the glory of the Lord filled the Temple.

But despite this, we know that the history of Israel, and the history of the kings of Israel, was mostly generation after generation forgetting the Lord, choosing to do things their own way, worshiping false gods, and doing many other things that were detestable to the Lord. Finally, God’s judgment culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple:

On the seventh day of the fifth month, in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard, an official of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. He set fire to the temple of the Lord, the royal palace and all the houses of Jerusalem. Every important building he burned down. The whole Babylonian army under the commander of the imperial guard broke down the walls around Jerusalem. Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard carried into exile the people who remained in the city, along with the rest of the populace and those who had deserted to the king of Babylon. But the commander left behind some of the poorest people of the land to work the vineyards and fields. – 2 Kings 25:8-12

The Babylonians broke up the bronze pillars, the movable stands and the bronze sea that were at the temple of the Lord and they carried the bronze to Babylon. They also took away the pots, shovels, wick trimmers, dishes and all the bronze articles used in the temple service. The commander of the imperial guard took away the censers and sprinkling bowls—all that were made of pure gold or silver. – 2 Kings 25:13-15

Seventy years later, the Temple was rebuilt by Zerubbabel in the age of the Persians. King Darius discovered a scroll of King Cyrus, and he heeded what it said, which includes the following:

Let the Temple be rebuilt as a place to present sacrifices, and let its foundations be laid. It is to be sixty cubits high and sixty cubits wide, with three courses of large stones and one of timbers. The costs are to be paid by the royal treasury. Also, the gold and silver articles of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took from the temple in Jerusalem and brought to Babylon, are to be returned to their places in the Temple in Jerusalem; they are to be deposited in the house of God. Now then, Tattenai, governor of Trans-Euphrates, and Shethar-Bozenai and you other officials of that province, stay away from there. Do not interfere with the work on this Temple of God. Let the governor of the Jews and the Jewish elders rebuild this house of God on its site. – Ezra 6:3b-7

And so remarkably, miraculously, the Temple was rebuilt, at the same site as the previous Temple, on Moriah. As you can see, layer upon layer of activity is accumulating at this location.

Shortly before the time of Jesus, Herod the Great was king of Judea under Augustus Caesar. Herod was someone who was Jewish, and wished to be loved by the Jews, but the Jews were wary of him because of his ties to the Romans. Herod is most famous for his building projects (one of which we spoke about previously in this series), but undoubtedly his greatest work was to enhance the Temple location. Here is what the contemporary historian Josephus writes:

In the eighteenth year of his reign, Herod started to enlarge and reconstruct the temple at his own expense, which he knew would be his greatest enterprise… The temple itself was built by the priests in a year-and-a-half and was dedicated in a great celebration.

Herod was immensely proud of his achievement, but Jesus prophesied its destruction in Matthew 24:

Jesus left the temple and was walking away when His disciples came up to Him to call His attention to its buildings. “Do you see all these things?” He asked. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” – Matthew 24:1-2

It is important to read this prophecy carefully. Jesus is speaking of the buildings on top of the Temple Mount, not the Temple Mount itself. And the prophecy came true in AD 70. The Roman emperor Vespasian ordered that it be destroyed, and his son Titus oversaw the terrible work. Josephus writes:

Around the altar were heaps of corpses, while streams of blood flowed down the steps of the sanctuary… The Romans pitched their standards (images of their false gods) inside the temple court and offered sacrifice… Caesar ordered the entire city and temple smashed to the ground.

And indeed, this is what happened. Jesus’ prophecy came true. The Jewish Temple was completely destroyed. The stones were thrown down off the Temple Mount platform.

In AD 130, the Roman emperor Hadrian made plans to build an entire city where Jerusalem had stood, including a temple to Jupiter at the site of the Temple Mount. This led to a major Jewish revolt called the Bar Kokhba revolution, but the Jews were unsuccessful, and most were forcefully depopulated from the region afterwards. Due to the delays of the revolt, however, Hadrian’s city was not built, and instead a small shrine was built on the Temple Mount including a statue of Hadrian and an idol of Jupiter. This shrine was still there in the fourth century AD, when one of the church fathers, Jerome, visited the site and wrote about what he saw.

Some time when Christianity spread from the third to the seventh century, the period known as the Byzantine era, Hadrian’s shrine was completely removed, so as to restore the “sanctity” of the site. We know this from written accounts of the time describing the Temple Mount as completely barren.

In AD 638, the Muslim Caliph Omar captured Jerusalem. He was shown the Temple Mount, and we have this account of the defeated Byzantine bishop of Jerusalem speaking to Omar, who wanted a place to build a sanctuary. The patriarch said to him:

It is the rock… It is in the center of the world and was a Temple for the Israelites, who held it in great veneration and wherever they were, they turned their faces toward it during prayer.” [We], however,… did not build a church over it because Christ our Lord said in His Holy Gospel, ‘Not a stone will be left upon a stone which will not be ruined and devastated.’ For this reason, [we] left it as a ruin and did not build a church over it.

And so we learn why no church was built over the site in the Byzantine era. Omar had the rubble cleared, but a later Caliph named Abd al-Malkik was the one built the Dome of the Rock, which was finished in AD 692.

So let’s talk about the archaeological evidence we have and look at some pictures. First note that it is not possible to directly excavate Mount Moriah, because to do so would be to literally start World War III. As we go into this, I think it is easy to be somewhat jaded about what we have, because this location is one of the most well-known locations in the world. This is not a surprise like Joshua’s altar from last week. But don’t let this location’s familiarity take away from the fact that it provides powerful evidence of the truth of the Bible. We will start with the most recent constructions and work our way back in time.

The first images show both a topographical map of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, and the second image is a drawing from the 1930s of what was (and is) on the Temple Mount. Our next image shows the entire Temple Mount complex.

The next picture illustrates the Dome of the Rock. The Dome of the Rock has been remodeled over and over, but it still marks the spot, marks Moriah, with certainty. Along with the Al-Aqsa Mosque, these are the major Islamic-era constructions on the site.

Although we have no remaining physical evidence of Hadrian’s shrine, we do have evidence of an arch (not shown) built by Hadrian to support a road which led up to Hadrian’s shrine on the Temple Mount.

As for the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, the next image shows that as evidence we have many huge boulders from the top of the Temple Mount pushed over the outer walls of the Mount that have landed and broken up below.

The next image shows that Western Wall, a section of Herod’s outer wall structure that has been fully exposed to reveal the actual wall that Herod made. (A lot of the other walls are covered up in whole or in part by later constructions, even medieval residences.) Jews consider the Western Wall Judaism’s holiest site, as it is the wall closest to where the Holy of Holies in the Temple was located.

 

Is there remaining physical evidence of Zerubbabel’s temple? Yes. The next image shows a seam on the east-facing wall of the Temple Mount. One of the excavators of this site says this:

The surviving masonry, to the right of the straight joint, is likely to be in origin that of Zerubbabel, though an analysis of the courses visible suggests that there may be about three styles possibly representing rebuilds during the stormy life of Zerubbabel’s Temple.

You can see several styles of stone in the image, all clearly different from the Herodian style.

Now, to find evidence of the Babylonian burn and destruction, we would have to dig in the Temple Mount. But the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem, not just the Mount, and there is plenty of archaeological evidence for this. Consider this quote from an excavator:

The massive destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians is apparent not only in the thick layers of charred remains unearthed in structures such as the Burnt Room and the Bullae House, but also in the deep stone rubble from collapsed buildings found covering the eastern slope.

The Burnt Room excavation site is shown in the next picture. Regarding this site, I found the following quote:

The fire that consumed Jerusalem in 586 BCE did not spare the Royal Quarter. Among the ruins was the burnt room of a house that had collapsed in the fire; its floor was covered with a thick layer of ash. Under the piles of debris in the burnt room, the excavators found numerous arrowheads and the remains of a charred wooden piece of furniture carved with a stylized date-palm motif. The furniture, made of wood imported from Syria, is another sign of the elevated status of the inhabitants.

We also have a section of wall just uncovered in 2021 of a section that did not burn. The next image shows this site. From the Jerusalem Post:

The massive structure – some 5 m. wide – was built on the steep eastern slope leading to the city, just a few dozen meters away from the Temple Mount. Probably the steepness of the area preserved the structure from destruction during the Babylonian conquest – a vivid account of which is offered in the Bible – since the invading army likely accessed the city from an easier path.

What about Solomon’s constructions? Again, we cannot dig around at the site of Solomon’s Temple, but from I Kings 9:15, we know he built a palace, terraces, and a “wall of Jerusalem,” among other places. We have found a portion of what are almost certainly Solomon’s walls just south of the Temple Mount. Here is what one of the archaeologists working on the site says:

In the process of excavating through the later layers… we not only discovered well-preserved First Temple period walls, but also intact floor layers with in-situ pottery vessels… Dating the construction of the fortification line to sometime in the second half of the 10^th century [BC] makes King Solomon out to be the best candidate for its architect.

Although we don’t have evidence for David’s altar on the threshing floor or Abraham’s much earlier altar where he was ready to sacrifice Isaac, we do have abundant evidence about David’s life including archaeological sites, which we will discuss later. And we have already discussed Mamre, which validates Abraham.

I want to finish today by talking about the significance of the fact that God choose Moriah as a location for Abraham and Isaac, for David’s altar on the threshing floor, for Solomon’s Temple, and for the rebuilt Temple. And for this I want to go to an inscription on the Dome of the Rock, dating all the way back to the original construction in AD 692. The inscription is a dedication, and it quotes a verse from the Koran:

So believe in God and all the messengers and stop talking about a Trinity…. Say only the truth about Jesus over whom you dispute: he is the son of Mary! It is not fitting that God should beget a father or son.

Think about the fact that this quote sits at the site of the Temple. This quote is saying to Jesus, “You are not the son of God!” We have heard this before. Satan himself tempted Jesus in the desert, three times saying “If you are the son of God.” Satan knew exactly who Jesus was, but he was foolish to think that he could actually defeat Jesus through temptation. But today, he is not so foolish. He wants everyone to think that Jesus was not the son of God, and he even has an inscription over the very site where he once tempted Jesus.

It has struck me that, other than Abraham and David, each builder on Moriah has not done well when it comes to faith. (Zerubbabel, the rebuilder, is an exception.) Solomon pretty completely fell away from faith later in life. Herod showed no signs of faith, and built his giant construction projects so that the Jews would like him. (He is the same Herod that killed the baby boys in Bethlehem as an attempt to kill the real king of the Jews.) And Hadrian, likewise, wanted to use the site to glorify himself (and build an idol to his pagan god). And finally, the inscription on the Dome of the Rock makes it clear what the real purpose of the Dome was – to deny the identity of Jesus, to whom, one day, every knee will bow.

But most importantly, Jesus was the fulfillment of the events on Moriah involving Abraham and David. Remember what Abraham named this place: “On this mountain the Lord will provide.” And He did provide. He provided Jesus, His only Son, whom He loves. By providing a substitution for Isaac, God enabled the promised blessing on all peoples and nations to happen, and that blessing was Jesus, because by believing in Him, we have eternal life. As for David, he learned that the sacrifice on that mountain was necessary to save the people from receiving the just punishment for their sins. David sacrificed an innocent animal on that winnowing floor, and that animal took the place of all the people. This was a foreshadowing of Jesus, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. And a winnowing is coming, and those who have trusted in Christ for their salvation will be like the wheat, but those who have rejected Him will be like the chaff. Do you remember what the centurion exclaimed when he saw how Jesus died?

And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how He died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!” – Mark 15:39

The verse right before this verse tells us that when Jesus died, the curtain of the Temple, the curtain that kept everyone out of the Holy of Holies, right there on Moriah, the super-tall, thick, untearable curtain, tore cleanly in two from the top to the bottom, as if God Himself reached down and tore it (which is what I think happened). And at that moment, that centurion, and everyone else who has believed, was no longer separated from God by their sin.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, His body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful. – Hebrews. 10:19-23