p. 51 | Mount of Olives

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 6, 1859

Mount of Olives.

THE mount of Olives, or mount Olivet, was a ridge running north and south, on the east side of Jerusalem. Its summit was about half a mile from the city wall, and was separated from it by the valley of the Kidron. It is composed of a chalky limestone, the rocks everywhere showing themselves through the thin soil. The olive-trees that once covered it and gave it its name, are now represented by only a few trees and clumps of trees which ages of desolation have not destroyed.

There are three prominent summits on the ridge; of these, the southernmost and lowest is known as the "mount of Offence," formerly the "mount of Corruption," because Solomon defiled it by idolatrous worship. 1 Kings xi, 5-7; 2 Kings xxii, 13. Across this ridge lies the usual road from Jerusalem to Bethany and Jericho. In the rocks on the west side of the mount are many excavated tombs, now in ruins. The central elevation rises 200 feet above the city, and presents a fine view of the whole, as well as of the mountains of Ephraim towards the north; while from the east side may be seen the valley of the Jordan, and a part of the Dead sea in the south-east, with the mountains of Moab beyond it.

Perhaps no spot on earth unites so fine a view, with so many memorials of the most solemn and important events. Over this hill our Saviour often climbed in his journeys to and from the holy city. Gethsemane lay at its foot on the west, and Bethany was on its south-eastern slope. Matt. xxiv, 3; Mark xi, 3. A Romish "church of the Ascension" now occupies the summit; but it was not from this spot that Christ ascended to heaven. The spot must have been near Bethany, east of the summit. Luke xxiv, 50; Acts i, 12. From this mountain, five days before his death, Christ beheld Jerusalem and wept over it in view of its approaching ruin—one of the most impressive scenes recorded in the gospels—Sel.