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The Site – The Temple Mount
Mount Moriah
The site on which Herod’s Temple stood during the time of Jesus is believed to be the same holy
mountain known in the Old Testament as "Mount Moriah" which was one of the hills in
"The land of Moriah" where Abraham, the first Hebrew, went to build an altar and
offer up his son Isaac. It is also the hill in Jerusalem on which Solomon
built the Temple, on the spot once occupied by the threshing floor of Ornan the
Jebusite. The Jews themselves believe that the rock, which sticks out on the top
of the Temple hill, is exactly the spot where the altar of burnt offering in the
Temple stood and the very site of the altar on which Abraham intended to offer
up his son.
Gen 22:2 "Then He said, "Take now 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 of which I shall tell you."
2 Chron 3:1-2 "Now Solomon began to build the house of the LORD at Jerusalem
on Mount Moriah, where the LORD had appeared to his father David, at the place
that David had prepared on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. "