Mountains in the Book of Exodus, Part 2

In Part 1 of my notes on mountains in Exodus, we saw that mountains are established as explicitly holy places and divine dwelling spaces, with Mount Sinai serving as “the mountain of God” where Moses encounters the burning bush and receives his calling to deliver the Israelites to a promised land described as an elevated “land of milk and honey.”

Below, in Part 2, we will see how Mount Sinai becomes increasingly sanctified with three distinct levels of holiness, how God delivers the Ten Commandments from the mountain summit, and most importantly, how the Tabernacle emerges as Judaism’s first constructed temple — a “manufactured mountain” or a “portable mountain” that serves as God’s mobile home, establishing a foundational connection between mountains and houses of worship.

Water from the Rock on the Mountain

The mountain-provider trope resurfaces when in the wilderness Moses and the Israelites face a series of crises involving food, water, and a military threat from the Amalekites. When, for the second time, the Israelites lack water, god instructs Moses to “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.”¹ Here, god is working through Moses and his magical staff again, both providing for the Israelites and proving his power to them.

Channeling God’s Power

Now hydrated, the Israelites face another crisis, this time a military threat from the Amalekites. Moses says to Joshua, who will become his successor, “Choose some men for us and go out, fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.”² On the hill, when Moses raises his staff into the air, the Israelites make gains in battle. When Moses lowers his tired arms, the Amalekites make gains. It is as if Moses, channeling the power of god on the podium-like mountain, conducts an orchestra of combat. But the Israelites prevail when Moses’s companions help him by supporting his arms. Mountains and hills are not just places to encounter god. They’re also places where the favored among us can channel god’s power.

The Increasing Sanctity of Mt. Sinai

It takes Moses and the Israelites three months to travel to Mount Sinai, a plausible amount of time if we’re to believe the story. They camp near the mountain. Moses fulfills his promise to god of delivering the Israelites from Egypt and bringing them to the holy mountain.

During Moses’s second encounter at Sinai — the first being his encounter with the burning bush — god orders him to tell the Israelites they’ve entered into a holy covenant. Moses conveys god’s message and the Israelites agree to the covenant. Moses goes back up Mount Sinai to inform god, who then instructs the Israelites to ritually cleanse themselves. Yet, in these instructions, god warns Moses that the holy mountain is off limits to the Israelites: “You shall set limits for the people all around, saying, ‘Be careful not to go up the mountain or to touch the edge of it. Any who touch the mountain shall be put to death.’ … When the trumpet sounds a long blast, they may go up on the mountain.”³

God tells the Israelites not to go up the mountain. But, when the trumpet sounds, they may go up on the mountain. Biblical scholars interpret up on as approach, meaning the Israelites may gather at the foot of the mountain but not climb its slopes or reach the summit.

God “descended upon” Mount Sinai in a cloud of smoke, and the mountain quaked. Moses summits Mount Sinai to meet him. God again tells Moses to warn the people not to ascend the mountain or to look at him, to “Set limits around the mountain and keep it holy.”⁴ God permits Aaron and the priests to ascend the mountain, but not to the summit.⁵

Thus there are three levels of sanctity on Mount Sinai: the foot of the mountain, reserved for the Israelites; the middle section, reserved for Aaron and the leaders; and the summit, reserved for god and Moses.⁶

The Ten Commandments

With the Israelites consecrated and at the foot of Mount Sinai, god speaks the Ten Commandments from the summit. When god finishes reciting the commandments, Mount Sinai becomes again a volcano-like scene with smoke, flame, thunder, and lightning.

Later, Moses and the leaders dine before god in the middle section of the mountain. Moses then goes to the cloud-covered summit to retrieve the tablets with the commandments when the mountain erupts. “Now the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel.”⁷

As one might do in a house of worship, Moses and the Israelites receive spiritual counsel and guidance from Mount Sinai.

A Lowly Altar

From the mountain, god instructs Moses to construct an altar of simple, mountain-like materials. Silver and gold are prohibited, so is hewn stone. God asks for lowly materials like dirt, earth, or un-hewn stone. Lastly, he commands that wherever the altar be constructed, “You shall not go up by steps to my altar, so that your nakedness may not be exposed on it.”⁸

God’s prohibition against steps leading up to the altar can be interpreted in a few ways. Perhaps god doesn’t want the altar to be at an elevated position. Or, perhaps god means that literal steps leading to an altar are prohibited. Or perhaps the prohibition isn’t about an altar’s elevation or the method of getting to one, but about preventing immodest exposure when someone wearing loose clothing without undergarments climbs stairs. Or, perhaps his issues with steps is a combination of these.

In any case, Moses “built an altar at the foot of the mountain.”⁹ The mountain itself is reserved for god, Moses, and the leaders.

The Tabernacle as a Mountain Abode

At one point, Moses disappears into the god-cloud that has gathered at the summit of Mount Sinai. He remains there for forty days and forty nights. God tells Moses to build a Tabernacle, a tent-like “sanctuary, so that I may dwell among” the Israelites.¹⁰ From the mountain, god dictates to Moses the specific design details of the Tabernacle compound and the Ark of the Covenant.

The Tabernacle is a rectilinear temple compound, a holy space with a laver, altars, curtains, and an inner room to hold the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant is a chest-like object designed to hold the Ten Commandments. Unlike the altar above, the Tabernacle and the Ark is to be made of exquisite materials like gold, silver, fine linen, bronze, and acacia wood.

The Hebrew word for tabernacle is miškān (מִשְׁכָּן), which means “home,” “dwelling place,” or “tent.” Even before the construction of the Tabernacle, Sinai is referred to as the abode of god. The Tabernacle thus acts as a surrogate, mountain home for god. It is a manufactured mountain, a symbolic mountain. Because it will be transported back to Canaan, it can be looked at as god’s mobile-home-mountain.

The Tabernacle is a rectilinear tent, thus appearing mountain-like due to its height and form. And when we consider the imagery of a rising, tent-like structure in the middle of a camp, the visual parallel to a mountainscape becomes clear: a tent evokes the familiar shape of a mountain. In any case, it is important for god to live among the people because they are not allowed to live among him on the summit of Sinai.

Exodus presents an early association between temples, houses of worship, and mountains. The Tabernacle was Judaism’s first constructed temple or house of worship, one that was created in the image of Judaism’s first non-constructed house of worship: a mountain.

There are many parallels between Mount Sinai and the Tabernacle. God’s presence covers and permeates the Tabernacle in the same cloud-like way it does on the summit of Mount Sinai. God communicates with Moses in the tent as he does on the mountain. And, as with the summit of Mount Sinai, only a select few are able to access the Tabernacle’s most spiritually charged zone, the chamber where the Ark of the Covenant rests: the holiest of holies. Whereas a veil separates and conceals the temple’s inner sanctum from the rest of the sanctuary, smoke and cloud obscures the mountain’s summit. Sacrifices, anointments, and offerings occur on mountain altars as they do on the new altar in the Tabernacle.

The mountain-temple connection is not unique to Judaism. We see it throughout world religions. Even the Hindu temple has long been designed with mountains in mind.

The Golden Calf

The story of the Golden Calf is an interesting one, no less because it illustrates that mountains are not sites of one-way communication. They are places of mutual exchange.

The Israelites — tired of waiting for Moses to come down from Mt. Sinai — melt their gold into an idol, worship it, and sacrifice to it. God, now angry, tells Moses that he will “consume” the offenders. But Moses talks him out of it.

On mountains, man listens to the council of god, and god listens to that of man.

Out of Sinai

God tells Moses, “Go, leave this place, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, and go to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob… Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey.”¹¹

As we saw in the first reference to “land of milk and honey”, the language of “going up” signifies gaining elevation from the lowlands of the Nile River, to Mount Sinai, and then finally to the promised land, which is here a figurative and literal high point.

The Tent of the Meeting

Before his departure, Moses erects a “tent of the meeting” outside of camp. This is a different tent than the Tabernacle. It was another surrogate mountain for god to commune with Moses. When visiting Moses in the tent, god appears there in the same way he appeared on the summit of Mount Sinai and on the road out of Egypt: as a cloudy vapor. “When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the Lord would speak with Moses. … thus the Lord used to speak to Moses, face-to-face, as one speaks to a friend.”¹²

Moses eventually returns to Mount Sinai to fetch another stone copy of the Ten Commandments, because he smashed the original tablet.

The Israelites finally finish the Tabernacle and Ark as instructed. The Tabernacle itself is now referred to as the “tent of the meeting,” which is not to be confused with the tent of the same name erected outside of camp.

Exodus ends with god’s presence covering the Tabernacle in the same way his presence covered Mount Sinai. Because the Tabernacle travels with the Israelites, it becomes the mobile, manufactured-mountain home of god. God also dictates when the Israelites would move. When god inhabits the Tabernacle, as indicated by his cloud-like presence, the Israelites will remain in camp. When the cloud lifts from the Tabernacle, the Israelites will march on towards Canaan.

Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle. … whenever the cloud was taken up from the Tabernacle, the Israelites would set out on each stage of the journey; but if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out until the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the Lord was on the Tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, before the eyes of all the house of Israel at each stage of their journey.¹³

The story of the Israelites’ journey from Mount Sinai to the promised land continues in the Book of Numbers. But before the Book of Numbers comes the Book of Leviticus, which I will examine next.