2 Chronicles 2-9: A Political Detail

The Chronicler continues in his familiar style or "rewriting history," as it were, in his account of Solomon. His story restates and to a degree reinterprets the reigns of the Kings of Israel. For more on this author's methods, check out last week's post.

Solomon's narrative in Chronicles runs roughly parallel to the one given in 1 Kings, though the Chronicler is careful to remove Solomon's character flaws, just as he did for David. In contrast to 1 Kings, we do not read of king Solomon's love of foreign women, the way they turned his heart away from the Lord, and the Lord's ensuing promise to wrench the united monarchy from Solomon's son (for that, see 1 Kings 11). Nor do we hear that he "sacrificed and offered incense at the high places." (1 Kings 3.3) The Chronicler's Solomon is much more faithful to the Lord. When the kingdom is wrenched from his son... Well, it happens for a different reason, not because Solomon failed to walk in the ways of the Lord. Likewise, his ascension to the throne happens quite simply, without any intrigue, in stark contrast to the account in 1 Kings 1.

1 Chronicles prepared us well for the construction of the House of the Lord, the temple. The building is exectured in 2 Chronicles, as one of Solomon's first acts as king. The account runs largely parallel to Kings, yet as we shall see, it includes a detail that would have a profound effect on future theology, to say nothing of the incendiary politics of a small Middle Eastern nation, (re-)founded only in the last century. That country goes by the name of one of the great patriarchs of the bible, the progenitor of the 12 tribes: Israel.

This essential piece of information is the location on which the temple will be built. 1 Chronicles 21.28-22.1 details David's declaration that the house of the Lord will be built at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 2 Chronicles gives the place a new name: Mount Moriah.

Solomon began to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David, at the place that David had designated, on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
(2 Chronicles 3.1)

Whither this detail? The mention of Mount Moriah transports us all the way back to Genesis 22: Abraham's near-sacrifice of his son Isaac. God commands Abraham:

Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.
(Genesis 22.2)

So Abraham called that place "The Lord will provide"; as it is said to this day, "On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided."
(Genesis 22.14)

Mount Moriah is the locale of the sacrifice! Though the location is not designated as such in 1 Kings, the Chronicler names the place. Mount Moriah becomes the geographical location that connects the past and present - without the mention in either Genesis or Chronicles, it would be a place with much less history. The connection is made, however, by the biblical redactor of the Kings tale, not the original author of Kings.

Why is this important?* It gives a very real location to two very important events in the history of Israel. The location of the Abrahamic story could not be proved at the time of the bible's composition. However, the location of the temple could be. The reference also aids in authorizing the separateness of the place: this is the place where the Lord first and foremost appeared to Abraham, and afterwards the place that David experienced the divine presence of an angel and deemed the place holy. The characters God and David serve to authorize the site as divinely separate. The implicit reference to Abraham by way of "Mount Moriah" further attests to the site's status.

This one phrase contains such mythological power ("myth" meaning "story," rather than "fake") as to create the connection we understand in popular culture today, millennia later. Without the Chronicler's temporally linking term, "Mount Moriah," we would have a much different understanding of the place today.

Over the years the place has been the cause of great dispute as it housed the two temples of Jerusalem and eventually a mosque. Today the location is known as the Temple Mount/Al-Haram al-Sharif. It is one of the most disputed places in the world for its importance in the three Abrahamic traditions [Judaism, Christianity, and Islam]. The dispute territorial dispute is mostly between Jews and Muslims. Jews regard the place as one of the most holy, as it is the location of the two temples and the binding of Isaac. In the Talmud it is even considered to be the place from which God gathered the dust to form the first man. It is also the location of the mythical [again, a "story"] third temple, which some Jewish thought asserts will usher in a new period of peace and prosperity for Jews. Today, the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock are located on the site, considered to be the third most-holy place in Sunni Islam. In Muslim theology, this is the location of Muhammad's Night Journey, in which he was transported to Jerusalem and then up to heaven. Some Christians view the Temple Mount/Al-Haram al-Sharif as an essential component of Christian eschatology. From this point of view, the end times mentioned in the Book of Revelation will not come until the rebuilding of the third temple by the Jews.

The (physical and political) battle for the location is of great importance today, especially as Israel faces a new outlook in the Middle East with the impending power shift in Egypt. Time will only tell what new stories will be added to the narrative of the Temple Mount/Al-Haram al-Sharif.

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*In addition to emphasizing the consistency of holy sites, the detail also fulfills the symbolic biblical cycle of departure and return. Israel and his family went down into Egypt, to be led out years later by Moses. Now the biblical narrative returns to this historical place - a place already consecrated by theophany [experience of the divine].