The Bible sends the reader to mountains again and again, and there’s nothing coincidental about it.
There is something about a mountain. When you’ve stood at the foot of one, it’s a special moment. You look upward. You feel small, and it feels worth climbing. In the Bible, mountains are mentioned not merely as geographic settings but as sacred places where Heaven and Earth collide – where the divine presence joins humanity to provide instruction, direction, and hope for the day when all of Heaven and Earth are finally one.1
The author of Psalm 125 knew this and, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, used the image of the mountains surrounding Jerusalem as a theological manifesto: The Lord surrounds you. He is not merely near you. That’s why they wrote, “As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people, from this time forth and forevermore.”2
What kind of God surrounds His people, and just what does it mean to be surrounded by Him? Scripture answers these questions with stories that are unironically set near mountains. These stories form a portrait of the God who surrounds His people with wisdom, power, and unmatched holiness.
Exodus 19 opens with Israel camping in the wilderness of Sinai. They have been delivered from slavery in Egypt, but they are nowhere near a fully formed nation. They are free, but without a home and an identity. They are pilgrims somewhere between lost and found. They know the God who rescued them, but I’m not certain they know how to live before Him. That tension is where the importance of this mountain starts to take shape.
In 19:5, Yahweh said to Moses, “If you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine.” After watching Yahweh’s power humble Egypt and guide them to Sinai, this mountain is about to show Israel what He expects in return.
The mountain is deliberately overwhelming. There is thunder, lightning, a thick cloud, and the blast of a trumpet that seems to grow louder and louder. The mountain is trembling (see 19:16,19) alongside the people. It’s such a sight that they were told to stay back, to set boundaries, and to be careful so their curiosity wouldn’t kill them because Yahweh had “descended on it in fire” (see 19:18). That should lead all of us to marvel at the wonder of a simple idea:
When the Lord draws near, you are in the presence of something wonderous.
From this terrifying, yet wonderful mountain, God spoke clearly. He did not speak in riddles or mysteries that people must piece together for themselves. He spoke with clarity, precision, and purpose when He said, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me” in Exodus 20:2-3. He went on to give Israel the ten commandments and a fully formed law that governed worship, justice, property, sexuality, sabbath, and sacrifice. Every portion of life was addressed and given a sacred expectation so that no one could be left wanting an explanation.
This experience is the epitome of divine wisdom. It is not information for its own sake. It is purposeful, intelligent, and profound. The book of Proverbs will later tell us that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” in 9:10. Sinai is the physical manifestation of that fear. Yahweh spoke and gave orders to the chaos of their life, their nation, and their existence. They are no longer alone in the wilderness; they are in Yahweh’s presence at the foot of the mountain.
It’s worth noting that the Lord did not deliver the law from a distance. He came down to the mountain that Israel looked up at. He could have sent an angel or any other heavenly messenger with a scroll, but He chose instead to go Himself. Simply put, He is not merely interested in Israel’s behavior. He wants Israel to know Him personally. Wisdom does not always begin with a set of rules; sometimes it blossoms out of a relationship. That means Sinai is not fundamentally about the law. It is about a Lawgiver who loved His people enough to surround them with His own Word.
That is unrivaled wisdom, and it is undeniable.
About six hundred years after Sinai, Israel had largely forgotten the God of that mountain. Under the rule of King Ahab and the influence of his wife Jezebel, the nation has turned to idolatry. Jezebel is generally considered one of the most evil and despicable characters in all of Scripture. The reason is simple, according to Janet Howe Gaines, who explains below:
As the Books of First Kings tells us, the princess Jezebel was brought to the northern kingdom of Israel to wed the newly crowned King Ahab, son of Omri (see 1 Kings 16:31). Her father is Ethbaal of Tyre, king of the Phoenicians, a group of Semites whose ancestors were Canaanites. Phoenicia consisted of a loose confederation of city-states, including the sophisticated maritime trade centers of Tyre and Sidon on the Mediterranean coast. The Bible writer’s antagonism stems primarily from Jezebel’s religion. The Phoenicians worshiped a swarm of gods and goddesses, chief among them Baal, the general term for “lord” given to the head fertility and agricultural god of the Canaanites.3
Despite her efforts to push Yahweh out of Israel’s view, Elijah stands firm. He is the lone antagonist to their evil kingdom and Israel’s complete collapse into spiritual adultery. He has not bowed the knee and has pronounced a drought in the name of the Lord that has now lasted three and a half years (see 1 Kings 17:1).
That drought itself is the opening act of the contest on Carmel. Baal, the supposed “lord of the rain”, cannot produce it or solve their problems. Now, in direct confrontation to their idolatrous sensibilities, Elijah has challenged all of Israel by saying, “Your god (Baal) is impotent, powerless. A fraud.”
The scene of 1 Kings 18 is almost theatrical. Eight hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and Asherah on one side. Elijah alone on the other. Two bulls, two altars. The people of Israel once again looking up to the mountain for a message.
The prophets of Baal go first. They cry out from morning until noon. They cut themselves with swords and lances. They limp around the altar in frenzied ritual (see 18:26-29). In the midst of their cries, Elijah, with confidence, mocks them, saying, “Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened“ in 18:27.
But there is no voice. There is no answer. Elijah is not struck down for his insolence because Baal is not there.
In the midst of the midday heat, Elijah steps forward and builds an altar with twelve stones. He digs a trench around it, lays the wood and the bull, and then, to eliminate any possible natural explanation, commands four large jars of water be poured over the offering (see 18:30-33).
Then he asks for the water a second time (see 18:34).
And then, a third time, just for good measure (see 18:34).
The trench around the altar fills with water. Everything is saturated, and Elijah prays a single, unhurried prayer when he says, “O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word. Answer me, O LORD, answer me, that this people may know that you, O LORD, are God” (18:36–37).
Then fire falls.
It’s not a spark. It’s not a flame. It is fire from the Lord that consumes the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, the dust, and licks up the water in the trench (see 18:38). Then the people fall on their faces saying, “The Lord, He is God. The Lord, He is God”, in 18:39.
In that one single moment, Mt. Carmel declares out loud what Sinai had established: there is no God but the LORD. The gods of the nations are nothing, and the idols Israel has worshipped do not answer because there is no one listening.
In stark contrast, the LORD who surrounds His people is alive, present, and sovereign over fire and rain and the hearts of all people. His power is not to be compared with rival deities. It is in a category of its own, and when He acts, and His wonder is seen, even a faithless generation falls to its face in recognition.
That is unequalled power, and it’s undeniable.
The third mountain is quieter than the others, and yet it is the most staggering of all.
In Matthew 17 (alongside Mark 9 and Luke 9), Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up a high mountain (traditionally identified as Mount Tabor or Mount Hermon4) and there, before their eyes, He is transfigured. Matthew 17:2 says, “His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became white as light.”
This was not a light shining upon Jesus from somewhere else. It was His deity shining from within. The light of His essential deity, which had been dimmed from His birth, was suddenly turned up to burn in the brightness of His true glory.5
Out of paradise, Moses and Elijah appeared, speaking with Him (see 17:3), and a bright cloud overshadowed them (see 17:5). I can’t help but believe that cloud of divine presence was either the same cloud that descended on Sinai (see Exodus 19:16, 18) or something very similar. From that cloud came the voice of the Father saying, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to Him” (see 17:5).
The disciples fell on their faces, overcome with fear. When Jesus touched them, they looked up and saw no one but their Savior (see 17:7-8).
Every detail here is a theological statement.
Moses is present. The man of Sinai, the mediator of the Law, who once asked to see God’s glory and was permitted only to glimpse His back (see Exodus 33).
Elijah is present. The prophet of Carmel, the man who called down fire, and later heard Yahweh’s voice at Sinai and saw His presence in the chaos (see 1 Kings 19).
Both of them, standing in the radiance of Jesus, are found paying Him respect. They are the Law and the Prophets (represented by the two greatest figures of each), bowing to Jesus, the One who fulfilled both of them (see Matthew 5:17).
They are not His equals. They are His witnesses.
Then the cloud speaks, “This is My beloved Son.” Jesus is not a prophet. Not a teacher. Not a reformer in the tradition of Moses or a bold voice in the tradition of Elijah.
He is The Son of God.
He is not the latest installment in a series of good men. He is the One to whom the whole history of faithfulness was pointing. He is The Son of Man, and He has come to change everything.
Peter, James, and John are witnesses to the unveiled glory of the eternal Son of God. Even though He hid that glory in His physical existence, it now shines through for one holy, wonderous, and profound moment. As the holiness of Yahweh is seen in a human face that shines like the sun, we see something clear. Jesus does not just stand near the holy of Yahweh’s presence.
He is the holy.
He is not anointed with the Spirit like a prophet, He is not appointed to lead Israel out of the wilderness, He is the eternal Son in whom “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (see Colossians 1:19). Therefore, the Transfiguration of Jesus is the culmination of all the “mountain theology” found in the Old Testament.
In that moment, His existence is pure holiness, and it is unmatched.
At Sinai, God revealed His wisdom through the Law, and Moses was His servant. At Carmel, God revealed His power through fire, and Elijah was His instrument. At the Mount of Transfiguration, God reveals His holiness through His Son, but Jesus is not a servant or an instrument. He is the radiance of the Father’s glory, and the exact imprint of His nature (see Hebrews 1:3), and each of the stories from the mountains has been building to this.
Return now to Psalm 125:2 and the simple phrase, “As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the LORD surrounds His people.“
The mountains that surround you are not silent terrain. They are speaking. They declare the wisdom of a God who has not left you without His word. They declare the power of a God who answers by fire. They declare the holiness of a God who loved you enough to send His Son, in whom the fullness of deity dwells.
To be surrounded by the mountains of God is to be enclosed in wisdom, power, and holiness. It is to live within the presence of a God who is not indifferent to you, not impotent against your enemies, and not merely a divine force. It is to live in the presence of a Father, who points us to His Son and says, “Listen to Him!”
The mountains surround Jerusalem still. And the LORD surrounds His people “from this time forth and forevermore!”
Notes and Further Reading
- Taken from The Bible Project Guide, Mountain. Read more by following this link (https://bibleproject.com/guides/the-mountain/). ↩︎
- Scripture quotations are from The ESV (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version), copyright (c) 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ↩︎
- To read more, follow the full link to the article entitled “How Bad was Jezebel?” ↩︎
- According to Herschel Hobbs in An Exposition of the Four Gospels (page 227), “Some would identify this mountain with Mt. Tabor in Galilee. But this is hardly likely. For the scene suggests a place of seclusion. The top of Mt. Tabor was the site of an armed fortress and a castle. A more likely location is Mount Hermon. It is a ‘high mountain’ having an elevation of above nine thousand feet. On a clear day, it may be seen from the Dead Sea over one hundred miles away. Furthermore, it is in the region of Caesarea Philippi. So in all probability it was somewhere in the lofty slopes of this towering peak that heaven bent low to reveal the Son of Man in a glory never before seen on this earth.” ↩︎
- Hobbs, An Exposition of the Four Gospels, 230. ↩︎
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