Thursday, July 16, 2009

Mount Moriah

2 Chronicles 3:1 KJV
Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD at Jerusalem in mount Moriah, where the LORD appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite.

The place where Solomon chose to build the Temple was the site of two previous events in Jewish history.

First, it was the place where Abraham offered Isaac to God.
Genesis 22:2
Moriah was the most prominent of a range of mountains they called Zion.[1] Years later the city of Jebus was built on that site and, years after, was conquered and renamed Jerusalem. Remembering that God is orchestrating the movement of Israel and that He knows where the focus of His worship will be, it is not difficult to see God sending Abraham to that spot as a precursor to those sacrifices that will one day be offered in His name.

Secondly, this was the spot where the angel of the Lord appeared to David as he smote the people for David's sin of numbering them.David purchased that spot from Ornan the Jebusite and offered the sacrifice that stopped the sword of the angel. Solomon likely knew the significance of that summit and chose the spot because of it.

Every sacrifice that was ever offered on that spot would be a reminder, first of David's sin. And then every sacrifice offered would be a reminder that God provided Himself a sacrifice for Abraham and Isaac. God has now not only provided Himself a sacrifice but provided Himself as a sacrifice in Jesus Christ. Sin is pardoned and its effects stopped through a sacrifice that costs us nothing but cost God the life of His only begotten Son.
[1] (A Commentary on the Old and New Testaments by Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown)

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