Mountains in the Book of Leviticus
In today’s exploration of what religious texts say about mountains and hills, I am looking at the third book in the Jewish Torah and the Christian Bible: Leviticus.
The Book of Leviticus is called Leviticus because it deals with religious ritual and law as it pertains to the priesthood, first beginning with Aaron and continuing patrilineally through his tribe of Levi. The book’s first section lays out the rituals and laws for the priestly class of Israelites who originate with Aaron. Its second section does the same, but for lay Israelites.
Because the Book of Leviticus deals with the details of Jewish ritual and law — the requirements for the priests and the greater community of Israelites to be holy — it does not contain many direct references to mountains. Yet it does contain a few interesting indirect references, which I will discuss below.
Sinai as the Backdrop of Leviticus
As we saw, the Book of Exodus details the Israelites’ journey from Egypt to Mount Sinai, where they received the Ten Commandments and built the Tabernacle. But before the Israelites can continue their onward journey to the promised land, god gives the Israelites new rules and regulations. The Book of Leviticus documents these new rules and is set in the same place as the Book of Exodus: around Mount Sinai.
The Tabernacle or Mount Sinai?
Yet, it is not entirely clear whether god offers these new rules from Mount Sinai, his mountain abode, or from the Tabernacle, his manufactured-mountain-home amongst the Israelites.
Leviticus begins with the clear statement that god commands these new rules from the tent of meeting, also known as the Tabernacle:
The LORD summoned Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying: Speak to the people of Israel.1
Just as god gave his Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai, he now offers more religious laws and requirements from his analogue mountain, the Tabernacle.
Yet, the very last line of Leviticus seems to contradict the very first. It states that these new rules and regulations “are the commandments that the LORD gave to Moses for the people of Israel on Mount Sinai.”2
That god gave the Levitical rules and regulations from Mount Sinai and not from the Tabernacle is noted several times in Leviticus. In detailing the types of rituals god just commanded, Leviticus 7 states:
This is the ritual of the burnt offering, the grain offering, the sin offering, the guilt offering, the offering of ordination, and the sacrifice of well-being, which the LORD commanded Moses on Mount Sinai, when he commanded the people of Israel to bring their offerings to the LORD, and the wilderness of Sinai.3
Additionally, Leviticus 25:1 states that “The LORD spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai.” Leviticus 26:46 states “These are the statutes and ordinances and laws that the LORD established between himself and the people of Israel on Mount Sinai through Moses.”
So, where does god speak to Moses? Is it in the Tabernacle or on Mount Sinai?
I wonder if the confusion about the location arises from the conflation between mountain and temple. What I mean is, the confusion between Mount Sinai and the Tabernacle arises from the fact that Mount Sinai and the Tabernacle are one and the same. For all intents and purposes, the Tabernacle is a portable Mount Sinai. They are both holy places in which god resides and issues commandments.
As we saw in Exodus, the Tabernacle — the abode of god amongst the Israelites — can be understood as a mobile mountain. In fact, most Judeo-Christian temples and houses of worship could be viewed as manufactured mountains for El Shaddai (literally, God of the Mountain) to dwell in and amongst the faithful.
Or, perhaps I’m reading too much into the matter. It could be that when Mount Sinai is referenced in Leviticus as being the place where god directs his new rules, it is used in a way to mean the greater area. After all, the Israelites are still camping next to the mountain.
Legislating Rituals and Sacrifice
The new rituals god directs Moses, Aaron, and the Israelites to perform are to be performed in the Tabernacle compound.
Whereas god previously asked for ritual sacrifice on mountains (see the Testing of Abraham in Genesis, god’s order to Moses in Exodus, etc.), he now requires them in his manufactured mountain. Animals are to be brought to the “entrance of the tent of the meeting” where they “shall be slaughtered before the LORD.”4 Similarly, offerings of grain are to be consumed on the altar.
Instead of summiting a holy mountain to worship god via ritual sacrifice, one can do so in the comfort of one’s neighborhood temple.
Rewards for Obedience
At the end of Leviticus, after he lays out a slew of requirements and the punishments for failing to follow them, god offers some inducements for obedience. God tells the Israelites through Moses:
If you follow my statutes and keep my commandments and observe them faithfully, I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. Your threshing shall overtake the vintage, and the vintage shall overtake the sowing; you shall eat your bread to the full, and live securely in your land.5
Here again is the trope of abundance. El Shaddai — the God of the Mountain — promises abundance and prosperity to those who follow his commands. God here speaks of material abundance, but this could be seen as a metaphor for spiritual plenitude.
God provides more incentives to those who follow his commands:
And I will grant peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and no one shall make you afraid; I will remove dangerous animals from the land, and no sword shall go through your land. You shall give chase to your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.6
As we saw in Genesis, mountains are safe spaces. Here, in Leviticus, the mountain-safety trope reappears. The God of the Mountain promises more than a fruitful land of milk and honey to his followers. He promises to them a land of safety and refuge. The promised land, let’s not forget, is the hill country of Canaan.
God’s final incentive to the Israelites makes another connection between temple and mountain:
I will place my dwelling in your midst, and I shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be my people.7
Not only does god offer abundance and safety, he offers his divine presence in the manufactured mountain that the Israelites built for him.
A Threat to Destroy High Places
After laying out his incentives for obedience, god offers a few final threats for Israel’s compliance. It is worth quoting at length:
But if, despite this, you disobey me and continue hostile to me, I will continue hostile to you in fury; I in turn will punish you myself sevenfold for your sins. You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars; I will heap your carcasses on the carcasses of your idols. I will abhor you. I will lay your cities waste, will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your pleasing odors. I will devastate the land, so that your enemies who come to settle in it shall be appalled at it. And you I will scatter among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword against you; your land shall be a desolation and your cities a waste.8
If god promises abundance and safety in exchange for obedience, he promises devastation and danger for disloyalty.
But god will also destroy the sites of worship and temples established to worship other gods, here described as “high places.” El Shaddai, the Judeo-Christian mountain god, knows that worship on mountains — to him or to other gods — is widespread. The assumption that sites of worship dedicated to El Shaddai or any other god would be located on “high places” or elevated areas is quite interesting. It suggests ritual worship on mountains was widespread.
The nineteenth-century theologian Albert Barnes says the following about the use of “high places” here in Leviticus 26:30:
There is no doubt that the word here denotes elevated spots dedicated to false worship (see Deuteronomy 12:2), and especially, it would seem, to that of Baal (see Numbers 22:41 and Joshua 13:17). Such spots were, however, employed and approved for the worship of Yahweh, not only before the building of the temple, but afterward (see Judges 6:25-26; Judges 13:16-23; 1 Samuel 7:10; 1 Samuel 16:5; 1 Kings 3:2; 1 Kings 18:30; 2 Kings 12:3; 1 Chronicles 21:26, etc.). The three altars built by Abraham at Shechem, between Bethel and Ai, and at Mamre, appear to have been on heights, and so was the temple. The high places in the holy land may thus have been divided into those dedicated to the worship of Yahweh, and those which had been dedicated to idols. And it would seem as if there was a constant struggle going on.9