This entry incorporates text from Easton's Bible Dictionary, 1897, with some modernisation.
Moriah - the chosen of Jehovah. Some contend that MountGerizim is meant, but most probably we are to regard this as one of the hills of Jerusalem. Here Solomon's Temple was built, on the spot that had been the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite (2 Sam. 24:24, 25; 2 Chr. 3:1). It is usually included in Zion, to the north-east of which it lay, and from which it was separated by the Tyropoean valley. This was "the land of Moriah" to which Abraham went to offer up his son Isaac (Gen. 22:2). It has been supposed that the highest point of the temple hill, which is now covered by the IslamicQubbat As-Sakhrah, or "Dome of the Rock", is the actual site of Araunah's threshing-floor. Here also, one thousand years after Abraham, David built an altar and offered sacrifices to God. (See Jerusalem ; Numbering of the people.)
MountMoriah is the name of the elongated north-south stretch of land lying between Kidron Valley and "Hagai" Valley, between Mount Zion to the west and the Mount of Olives to the east.
The best-known tradition related to MountMoriah is the Binding of Isaac for sacrifice by his father Abraham, related in Genesis 22.
At the summit of MountMoriah, traditionally, is the "Foundation Stone," the symbolic fundament of the world's creation, and reputedly the site of the Temple's Holy of Holies, the supreme embodiment of the relationship between God and the people of Israel.
The topographic map shows that MountMoriah is not a single peak, but an elongated ridge which commences to rise at its Southern end at the junction of the Kidron and Hinnom Valleys, at the original City of David, (elevation approximately 600 meters).
East of Mt. Moriah a few hundred meters is the Mount of Olives which is about 100 meters higher than the high points of Mt. Zion or Mt. Moriah.
Moriah, however God chose Solomon for this task instead, after allowing David to amass the material resources that would be required.
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