Moriah - Mount Moriah

The name appears only twice in the OT, and though often conflated in Jewish and Christian traditions as a single location, that they refer to two different places is the more likely explanation.

It first appears in Yahweh's command to Abraham to journey to eretz hammoriyyah, 'the land of Moriah,' where on one of its mountains he was to sacrifice his son Isaac as a burnt offering (Gen 22:2). The name appears again the Chronicler's account of Solomon's reign, that "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 Chron 3:1). Here Moriah is a specific site in the locality of Jerusalem, not a general region as it is in Gen 22. More tellingly, the Chronicler qualifies it as "where the Lord had appeared to his father David," as well as "the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite." If the Chronicler knew of any real connection between his 'Mount Moriah' and the site of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac, it was highly unlikely he would have passed over it in silence, so theologically significant would have been the the connection.

Today, Mount Moriah on which Solomon built the temple is identified as the rocky-outcrop atop which is located the Dome of the Rock on the Haram al-Sarif. Though often celebrated also as the place where Abraham sacrifice his son by Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions, such an identification is—as pointed out above—not substantiated by the biblical evidence.

The Dome of the Rock, the original site where Solomon built the temple.

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