the Week of Proper 26 / Ordinary 31
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Bible Encyclopedias
Mountains
Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
or The mountains mentioned in Scripture are noticed under their different names, and a general statement with reference to the mountains of Palestine is given under that head. We have therefore in this place only to notice more fully some remarkable symbolical or figurative uses of the word in the Bible.
In Scripture the governing part of the body politic appears under symbols of different kinds. If the allegory or figurative representation is taken from the heavens, the luminaries denote the governing body; 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 power. These mutually illustrate each other. For a capital city is the head of the political body; the head of an ox is the fortress of the animal; mountains are the natural fortresses of the earth; and therefore a fortress or capital city, though seated in a plain, may be called a mountain. Thus the words head, mountain, hill, city, horn, and king, are used in a manner as synonymous terms to signify a kingdom, monarchy, or republic, united under one government, only with this difference, that it is to be understood in different respects; for the term 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 territory. When David says, 'Lord, by thy favor thou hast made my mountain to stand strong' (), he means to express the stability of his kingdom.
It is according to these ideas that the kingdom of the Messiah is described under the figure of a mountain (;; ), and its universality by its being the resort of all nations, and by its filling the whole earth. The mystic mountains in the Apocalypse denote kingdoms and states subverted to make room for the Messiah's kingdom (; ).
The Chaldean monarchy is described as a mountain in; . In this view, then, a mountain is the symbol of a kingdom, or of a capital city with its domains, or of a king, which is the same.
Mountains are frequently used to signify places of strength, of what kind soever, and to whatsoever use applied ().
Eminences were very commonly chosen for the sites of pagan temples: these became places of asylum, and were looked upon as the fortresses and defenders of the worshippers, by reason of the presence of the false deities in them. On this account mountains were the strongholds of paganism, and therefore in several parts of Scripture they signify idolatrous temples and places of worship (;;; comp.;;; ).
Public Domain.
Kitto, John, ed. Entry for 'Mountains'. "Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature". https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/kbe/m/mountains.html.
