MOUNTAIN
Mountain
SEE MOUNT.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Mountain
(Hebrew har). Both single heights, as Sinai, Zion, etc., and ranges as Lebanon. Also a mountainous region, “the mountain of Israel” and “Judah” (Jos 40:16; Jos 40:21), i.e. the highland as opposed to the plain, the hill country (Jos 21:11). “Mount Ephraim” is Ephraim’s hilly country (2Ch 15:8). “The mount of the valley” (2Ch 13:19) a district E. of Jordan in Reuben, the vale of Siddim (Gen 14:3; Gen 14:8) according to Keil. Even more than with ourselves the parts of a mountain are compared to bodily members: the head KJV “top,” the ears Aznoth Tabor (Jos 19:34), the shoulder, the back.
Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary
Mountain
Melted
Psa 97:5; Deu 4:11; Deu 5:23; Jdg 5:5; Isa 64:1-3; Mic 1:4; Nah 1:5
Overturning and removing of
Job 9:5; Job 14:18; Job 28:9; Eze 38:20
Abraham offers Isaac upon Mount Moriah, afterward called Mount Zion, the site of the temple
– General references
Gen 22:2 Zion
Horeb appointed as a place for the Israelites to worship
Exo 3:12
Used for idolatrous worship
Deu 12:2; 1Sa 10:5; 1Ki 14:23; Jer 3:6; Hos 4:13
Jesus tempted upon
Mat 4:8
Jesus preaches from
Mat 5:1
Jesus goes up into, for prayer
Mat 14:23; Luk 6:12; Luk 9:28
Jesus is transfigured upon
Mat 17:1-9; Mar 9:2-10; Luk 9:28-36
Jesus meets His disciples on, after His resurrection
Mat 28:16-17
Signals from
Isa 13:2; Isa 18:3; Isa 30:17
Removed by faith
Mat 17:20; Mat 21:21; Mar 11:23
Burning mountains
Volcano
Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible
Mountain
Mountain. The Hebrew, har, like the English, “mountain,” is employed for both single eminences more or less isolated, such as Sinai. Gerizim, Ebal, Zion and Olivet, and for ranges, such as Lebanon. It is also applied to a mountainous country or district.
Fuente: Smith’s Bible Dictionary
MOUNTAIN
The governing part of the political world appears under symbols of different species, being variously represented, according to the various kinds of allegories.
If the allegory be fetched from the heavens, then the luminaries denote the governing part; if from an animal, the head or horns; if from the earth, a mountain or fortress; and in this case the capital city, or residence of the governor, is taken for the Supreme, by which it happens that these mutually illustrate each other. So a capital city is the head of the political body; the head of an animal is the fortress of the animal; mountains are the natural fortresses of the earth; and therefore a fortress or capital city, though set in a plain level ground, may be called a mountain.
Thus head, mountain, hill, city, horn, and king, are, in a manner, synonymous terms to signify a kingdom, or monarchy, or republic united under one government; only with this difference, that it is to be understood in different respects. For the head represents it in respect of the capital city; mountain or hill, in respect of the strength of the metropolis, which gives law to, or is above, and commands the adjacent territories, and the like.
Thus concerning the kingdom of the Messias, says Isa 2:2; “It shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it.” And ch 11:9; They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain;” that is, in all the kingdom of the Messias, which shall then reach all over the world; for it follows: “The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord.” So the whole Assyrian monarchy, or Babylon, for all its dominions, is called a mountain in Zec 4:7, and Jer 51:25, in which last place the targum has a fortress; just as Virgil, in his neid, Lib. vi. ver. 783, calls the seven hills of Rome, arces, or fortresses; though there was but one-the Capitol.
Septemque una sibi muro circumdabit arces.
Thus also in Dan 2:35 “the stone that smote the image, became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth:” that is, the kingdom of the Messias having destroyed the four monarchies, became an universal monarchy, as is plainly made out in Dan 2:44-45.
In this view, then, a mountain is the symbol of a kingdom, or of a capital city with its dominions, or of a king, which is the same.
Mountains are frequently used to signify all places of strength of what kind soever, and to whatsoever use applied; mountains being difficult of access to an enemy, and overawing and commanding the country round about; being properly qualified, both to secure what is on them, and to protect and govern what is about them. See Jer 3:23.
Among the heathen, persons of great note and eminency were buried in or under mountains;f1 tombs were erected over them in honour of their memory, and by degrees their souls became the objects of worship. This gave rise to a custom of building temples and places of worship upon mountains.f2 And though these temples were not always, strictly speaking, the very monuments of the heroes deceased; yet the bare invocation was supposed to call the soul thither, and to make the very place a sepulchral monument, as Turnebus proves from Virgil. n. L. iii. ver. 67; and n. L. vi. ver. 505. And therefore Servius on Virgil’s Aneid, L. iii. p. 701, observes, that human souls are by sacrifice turned into deities. For which see Lycophron’s Cassandra, ver. 927, 1123, and from ver. 1126 to 1140.
The said temples were also built like forts or towers; as appears from Jdg 9:46-49, where the temple of the god Berith, is called in the original the tower of the house,-or the tower,-the house of the god Berith. They were likewise places of asylum, and beyond all were looked upon as the fortresses and defenders of the worshippers, by reason of the presence of the false deities, and of the relics of deceased men kept therein within the sanctuaries. Thus in Euripides we find, that the heroes in their tombs were esteemed as saviours and defenders of the people.f3
Tullyf4 Clemens Alexandrinus,f5 Arnobius,f6 and Lactantius,f7 give examples of dead men worshipped, upon the supposition that the presence of their relics fixed the demon to the place, and protected those for whom they had a kindness when alive. Hence, the Spartans in distress were by an oracle directed to get the bones of Orestes;f8 and the Athenians in the like case were commanded to find the bones of Theseus.f9
Pausanias having observed that the bones of Aristomenes, the Messenian hero, were brought to the new Messene, and there gave out Ostenta,f10 gives a reason for it, fetched from the immortality of the soul, by which he supposes, that souls in the separate state keep still their thoughts and affections as before, and by consequence assist their votaries in suitable enterprises; on which account their relics were thought to do wonders. So the shield of that hero was thought to have helped the Theban army against the Lacedeemonians. So in the same author, the Thebans were commanded to get the bones of Hector.f11
The bones of Hesiodf12 were fetched out of Naupactia in a mortality those of Acton in a scarcity.f13 We read the like of the bones of Hercules and Pelops helping to take Troy. In the same writer the like fancy went current among the Indians,f14 as Clemens Alexandrinus observes;f15 and the same to be sure went among the Romans,f16 when they buried the bone of a man that had triumphed in the city.
This notion may be traced up as high as Hesiod.f17 It was the foundation of all idolatry, and was improved by the supposition that without the relics, as was before observed, the invocation with sacrifices might turn human souls into deities.
Upon the accounts now given, mountains were the forts of Paganism. And therefore, in several places of Scripture, mountains signify the idolatrous temples and places of worship, as in Eze 6:2-6; Jer 3:22; Mic 4:1. And thus mountains, by the rule of analogy, may be properly used in respect of the monasteries and churches of the Christian church when corrupted by the introduction of saints and images.
The aforesaid notion of the heathens concerning dead heroes was soon entertained by the new converts to Christianity in relation to the martyrs and their relics. And the fury of the people at last was so great, that they raised up altars in every place to the martyrs without relics, helping out the deficiency with dreams and revelations. The 86th Canon of the Council of Carthage shews all this; and the Fathers therein seem afraid of the tumults of the people in ordering those altars to be demolished which had no such relics. So that now no altar is reared in any consecrated place without them, true or false;f18 which are thrust into it in some hole made for that purpose; by which all their altars are become tombs of the dead, as were those of the Pagans; and their churches the houses of their protectors and saviours; all the difference being that they have taken the martyrs or heroes of the church, instead of those of Paganism.
It is also observable that, anciently, monasteries were built upon mountains, and built like forts.
Those in the Greek church were certainly so, as appears by several authors, as Cyril of Alexandria,f19 and St. Chrysostome,f20who therefore calls the monks , the dwellers on the mountains. Upon Mount Athos there are still 22 monasteries, and about 6000 monks therein.f21 In this they are conformable to their pattern the Therapeut of Philo, who dwelt upon a mountain, and whose cells were called monasteries.f22
There are also monasteries upon Mount Sina,f23 and that is truly a fort built by Justinian to defend the monks from the incursions of the Arabs.f24 Therefore the emperor Manuel Commene was for keeping them to their primitive institution in the deserts, and upon the mountains.f25 The same is true of the Ethiopic monks. And therefore in their language the same word, viz. Dabuyr, signifies a mountain and a monastery.f26
We may observe also, that the very etymology of the word helps out the signification of the symbol. For , a mountain, comes from in Hiphil This, and the Chaldee , and Arabic , signify to command, subdue, and govern. So, in our military terms, hills and mountains are said to command the places about them. And accordingly the monasteries were the forts or mountains of Popery; and so many authors who speak of them have affected to call them. Sir R. Baker, speaking of the dissolution of the monasteries, styles the abbeys and priories the fortresses and pillars of the Pope; and a French author,f27 concerning the monasteries in his country, says “that it may be said of the monks, that all the houses they have in France are so many citadels which the court of Rome has within the kingdom.” In a word, the monks are by their very institution wholly devoted to the service and maintenance of the Romish see, and are as so many soldiers of the Papacy. They have fought in his wars; and the general of the Minorites offered once to the Pope, for an expedition against the Turk, thirty thousand soldiers out of the single order of the Franciscans, to perform the. duty of soldiers, besides their other functions.f28
As for the Oneirocritics, a mountain is with them the symbol of a man in a great station, and rich, in proportion to the size of the mountain seen. So all the interpreters, chap. 155.; and, in chap. 142., mountains burning with fire together with a strong wind, and seen by a king in his dream, signify, according to the Persian and Egyptian, the destruction of his people by a warlike enemy.
In the Portentum in Pliny, Rome and Corfinium, two capital cities are represented by two mountains.f29
A great mountain burning with fire, seems to denote a powerful nation, or combination of people, burning with the fury of war. Rev 8:8, “As it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea; and the third part of the sea became blood.”
Tumbling of mountains into the sea, signifies the dissolution of monarchies in democracy, as in Psa 46:2.
The mountains dissolved in blood, denotes the kingdoms of the earth dissolved in the blood of the people, Isa 34:3.
F1 See Serv. in Virgil. n. L. xi. ver. 849, 850. Spencer do Leg. Heb. L. ii. c. 11. . 2.
F2 Deut. 12.
F3 Eurip. Heraclid. ver. 1030, &c.
F4 M. Ti. C. de Nat. Deor. L. i. fin.’
F5 Clem. Al. Protrep. p. 13.
F6 Arnob. adv. Gent. L. vi.
F7 Lact. de f. Rel. L. i, c. 15.
F8 Herodot. L. i. 67.
F9 Pausan. Lacon. p. 84.
F10 Paus. Messen. p. 142.
F11 Pausan. &col. p. 295.
F12 Ibid. p. 311.
F13 Ibid. p. 311.
F14 Pausan. Eliac. L. i. p. 160.
F15 Clem. Al. Str. p. 194. L. iii.
F16 Plut. Qu. Rom. p. 252.
F17 Hesiod. Op. L. i. ver. 121, &c. Vid. Euseb. Prep. Ev. L. xiii. p. 388
F18 Vid. Pontifical. Rom. & Dall. de Obj. Cult. L. iv. c. 9.
F19 Advers. Anthropomorph.
F20 Hom. xiii. ad Ephes. p. 631. Ed. Savil. & Homil. i. ad Ant. 1′. vi. p. 449.
F21 Vid. Rutgers. Var. Lect. L. ii. c. xi. D. Bern. de Montfaucon Palogr. Gr. L. vii. Aymon. Mon. Auth. p. 476.
F22 Philo. de Vita Contempl. p. 611.
F23 Herbelot, tit. Sina.
F24 Vid. Evagr. Hist. Eccl. Lv. c. 6.
F25 Nicet. in Man. Como. L. vii. c. 3.
F26 Ludolph. Lex. }Ethiop. p. 376.
F27 Politiq. du Clerg. de France, p. 211.
F28 Sabellic. Ennead. ix. L. vi.
F29 Plin. Nat. Hist. L. ii. c. 83.