Moriah is a mysterious biblical place name, which has great significance in theology. This is the story …
Moriah in English
The word Moriah first got here into modern English with William Tyndale. In his translation of the Pentateuch published in 1530/1 he refers back to the “lande of Moria” in Genesis 22:2. The modern spelling of Moriah comes from the King James Version.
Moriah Chapels
In the Victorian era, Moriah was the name given to many non-conformist chapels in Wales. The most famous one is Moriah Calvinist Methodist Chapel in Loughor, near Swansea. It was there that the 1904 Welsh Revival began, which led to the modern-day Pentecostal movement. Chapels, schools and settlements named Moriah could be present in Wales, Australia, Canada and the United States.
Moriah as a Girl’s Name
Since the Eighties, Moriah has began to be used as a lady’s name, especially within the United States. For those born since 1990, the name could also be a variant of Mariah, because of the recognition of the singer Mariah Carey, whose name when pronounced often appears like Moriah. Her name is alleged to have come from the song “They Call the Wind Maria” from the 1951 musical “Paint Your Wagon”, so Mariah is in turn a variant of Maria, a type of the name Mary. Moriah is a big place within the Bible and so has been utilized by some Christian families. For example Moriah Smallbone, nee Peters, is an American Christian singer and actress who has acted in The Chosen.
Land of Moriah
The story of Moriah goes back to the time when Abraham entered Canaan. Genesis 14 describes Abram’s encounter with Melchizedek, king of Salem, later called Jerusalem. Later he moved further south to Beersheba. The ‘land of Moriah’ is the mysterious location where Abraham went to sacrifice his son Isaac, although he sacrificed a ram as a substitute (Genesis 22:13).
The story relates how Abraham had been in Beersheba and from there he got up early and travelled for 2 days by donkey. He took with him two servants and his son Isaac, taking with him wood for the fireplace. On the third day, they saw a mountain far off in the gap and leaving his donkey, Abraham went up with Isaac. The mountain itself shouldn’t be named and Abraham calls the place ‘The LORD will provide’ (Gen 22:14 GNB). Abraham created an altar after which as a substitute of sacrificing Isaac, the story says that God led him to search out a ram caught within the thicket which he sacrificed as a substitute.
The account is kind of transient and lacking in geographical details. There are theories about where this took place, but nobody is kind of sure what is supposed by the ‘land of Moriah’, mentioned only in Genesis 22:2. It reads like an unoccupied wilderness area, and the mountain reads like a big mountain visible from distant, and the dearth of trees is recommended by the necessity to take wood. It doesn’t fit with being at Jerusalem.
As often happens within the Bible the dearth of detail is filled in by later tradition. The story has played an important part in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions and theology.
The Amorites
From an etymological perspective, it shouldn’t be certain what the foundation meaning of Moriah is, although there are ideas. Almost all modern translations render the world Abraham went to because the ‘land of Moriah’, but some have translated it in a different way. The Catholic Douay-Rheims had ‘land of vision’, Brenton’s Septuagint translation had ‘high land’.
The Aramaic Bible in Plain English has ‘land of the Amorites’, which reflects the concept the land of Moriah may discuss with the land of the Amorites. The Amorites were a tribe which inhabited Canaan, who’re mentioned persistently within the Pentateuch. A clue as to where the land of the Amorites was, is present in Genesis 48:22 when it says that the land of the Amorites was given to the tribe of Ephraim, who settled to the north of the tribe of Benjamin, which later became a part of Samaria.
Moreh
Another theory is that the name of Moriah may also be a variant of Moreh mentioned 3 times within the Old Testament. When Abram arrived in Canaan he travelled through the land so far as the positioning of the good tree of Moreh at Shechem (Genesis 12:6). It is mentioned again in Deuteronomy 11:29-30, within the context of Mount Gerizim. Then in Judges 7:1, we read that Gideon defeated the Midianites within the valley near the hill of Moreh.
An early tradition ascribes the place that Abraham went to as Mount Gerizim, a belief still held by the Samaritan group within the holy land today. Deuteronomy 11:29 gives Mount Gerizim as a spot for giving blessings. When the Israelites crossed the River Jordan, Moses commanded the tribes of Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph and Benjamin to face on Mount Gerizim to bless the people (Deuteronomy 27:11-13). So the mountain which Abraham went up may be Mount Gerizim, which does fit the outline, and it became a sacred site for the Samaritans.
Site of the Temple
The next time we discover the place name of Moriah is sort of a thousand years later, and it’s the name of a high point at Jerusalem, called Mount Moriah, where the Temple was built. In the Bible, places often called ‘Mount’ included what in English we would call mountains, or what we would call hills. Jerusalem was built on different hills or mounts, which later got names like Mount Zion, the Mount of Olives, and Mount Ophel (2 Chronicles 33:14).
The Bible tells us that King David bought a threshing floor from Araunah the Jebusite (2 Samuel 24:18-25). The Jebusites were the unique inhabitants of Jerusalem when King David conquered it. The story is told in 1 Chronicles 21:14-16 how David erected an altar there. A threshing floor by its nature is high and flat, making it a great location.
For some Jews and Christians there are clear parallels between the story of Abraham going to sacrifice his son Isaac within the land of Moriah, and the Temple on Mount Moriah where sacrifices were made. Many books, web sites, and sermons assume that these were the identical place, but that’s an assumption or a practice. The Bible accounts don’t mention, nor imply, that this is identical place where Abraham tried to sacrifice Isaac.
The Temple
It was after David’s death, within the fourth 12 months of Solomon’s reign, that King Solomon built the temple on the positioning (1 Kings 6:1). It is barely later in 2 Chronicles 3:1 that we get the reference to the placement of the Temple being called Mount Moriah, when the chronicler reviews the events. It reads, “Then Solomon began to construct the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David.” The reason for the placement is given as, “It was on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, the place provided by David.”
So the place appears to be given the name of ‘Mount Moriah’ later. This may be to recall the story of Abraham, quite than to suggest it was the identical place. In any case the outline of Abraham’s mountain within the land of Moriah doesn’t fit the outline of David’s hill called Mount Moriah in Jerusalem, within the land of the Jebusites.
Analogy with Jesus
Some preachers stretch the analogy even further and suggest that Mount Moriah can also be the identical place where Jesus was crucified in the last word sacrifice. The concept that where Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac, where the Temple was built, and where Jesus was crucified are all the identical place could be very tempting, and a gorgeous and neat theological thread.
Mount Moriah and Golgotha
The Temple built on Mount Moriah is inside the city partitions of Jerusalem. Before the time of Jesus, King Herod had developed the Temple area. He enlarged and levelled the hill to make the fashionable Temple Mount, so people visiting the positioning today are unaware that the unique Mount Moriah was much smaller.
John 18:17-18 states that the place where Jesus was crucified was near town of Jerusalem, and in Hebrews 13:12 it says Jesus suffered outside town gates. The place was a rocky outcrop called Golgotha (Matthew 27:33, Mark 15:22, Luke 23;33 and John 19:17), and never Mount Moriah. Jerusalem was considered a holy city and it was not allowed to execute people nor bury people inside its partitions. The Jews wouldn’t have had crucifixions within the sacred temple precincts. Jesus was not crucified on Mount Moriah, but it surely is sufficient to say that Golgotha is near Mount Moriah.
Conclusions
Where Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac shouldn’t be the identical place as Mount Moriah, and this shouldn’t be the identical place as Golgotha. These are three different places, however the symbolism and analogy of those three places is significant to Christian theology. The concept that the attempted sacrifice of Isaac foreshadows the crucifixion is a theological, not a geographical, connection. The analogy is robust enough with no need them to happen at the identical location. It is what happened, not where it happened which is significant.
