The Holy Land and Syria

by Frank G. Carpenter

The geologists say that Mount Moriah is one of the two oldest parts of the world, the other being Mount Sinai, upon which Moses received the Ten Commandments. They prove this by the rocks, saying that when the world was thrown off by the sun and floated about in its nebulous state through the air the parts which first solidified were the summit of Sinai and the rock which now stands inside the mosque on the top of Moriah. There is also a Jewish tradition that as the Lord saw the solid earth rising out of chaos He blessed these two spots and said:

“They shall be great in the history of the human race, which I shall create, and upon one of them shall my holy city be built.”

Mount Moriah is on the eastern edge of Jerusalem proper. It is just opposite the Mount of Olives and above the Garden of Gethsemane across the Valley of Jehoshaphat. Its top is a plateau containing thirty-five acres, or about one seventh of the whole of Jerusalem, inside the walls. The walls partially bound this plateau, and in them at the northeast corner of the city is the gate through which St. Stephen is said to have passed when he was stoned to death by the Jews. Across from the plateau and far down below it is the Jews’ wailing place. Hugging it on the west, south, and north are the box-shaped limestone houses which form the greater part of Jerusalem.

In going to it we leave our hotel on Mount Zion and make our way down David Street through a horde of pilgrims of all colours and races. We pass the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, go through a bazaar where men and women, sitting on the ground, are selling glass bracelets and beads from Hebron, past shops selling candles to be burnt at the tomb of our Saviour, and on through a vaulted tunnel-like street which was once the cotton bazaar, but which now sells everything else. Ascending a stairway at the end of this tunnel, we find ourselves on the plateau now occupied by the Mosque of Omar, but formerly the site of the Temple of Solomon.

This plateau rises in terraces. We come first on to the level, which was known as the Court of the Gentiles, and was open to Jew and Gentile alike. From this we go up to the Court of the Israelites and then to the Court of the Priests, which is now under the great Mosque of Omar. In the latter court stood the open-air altar for burnt offerings, the very rock upon which Abraham tied Isaac when he was about to sacrifice him in obedience to the Lord’s command.

The great flat rock on the summit of Mount Moriah over which the dome of the Mosque of Omar now rises was the ancient threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite. In many parts of Palestine to-day a flat rock or a hard piece of ground is selected as a threshing-floor upon which the ripe grain is laid down to be trodden out by cattle or mules. David purchased this particular floor from Ornan as an offering to the Lord so that the people might be freed from a terrible pestilence then raging in Jerusalem. The Bible account continues: “Then David said, This is the house of the Lord God and this is the altar of the burnt offering for Israel.” And right away he began preparations for the temple which was actually built on this spot by his son Solomon.

The Moslems have their own tradition regarding this rock. Since ancient times it has been the custom in the Holy Land to bring the harvested grain to the community threshing-floor, which is soon walled with toppling piles of sheaves, each pile belonging to a different farmer. The owners of the wheat sleep on the threshing-floor at night so as to keep watch over their property. According to the Mohammedan story, two brothers, one married, the other a bachelor, lay down to sleep beside their respective piles. The married brother, waking in the night, began to think how much grain he had and then of his brother’s lot compared with his own.

“Poor fellow,” said the married man, “he has no wife and children to comfort him and make his life happy. To even things up a little I will slip over and add some of my sheaves to his and he will never know I have given them to him.”

This he did, and then fell fast asleep again.

A little later the bachelor brother woke and thought of his great stacks of grain and how he, being unmarried, needed so much less than his brother.