Mount of Olives
Also known as Mount Olivet, the Mount of Olives is a series of peaks on the east side of Jerusalem. From early Hebrew history, it figured as a place of prayer, refuge, and revelation. It’s the site to which David fled from Absalom, where Ezekiel beheld God’s glory, and from which God would defend Jerusalem (see II Samuel 15:30; Ezekiel 11:22, 23; Zechariah 14:4). Zechariah’s prophecy includes the promise, “The Lord shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord, and his name one” (v. 9).
In the New Testament, it was on this mountain that Jesus prophesied about the times to come in his “Olivet Discourse” (see Matthew, chaps. 24, 25). The Master made his final entry into Jerusalem from the mount and spent the last night before his crucifixion in the garden of Gethsemane, on its western slope (see Matthew 21:1–11; 26:36–46). At Bethany, on its eastern side, the disciples received Jesus’ final blessing and witnessed his ascension (see Luke 24:50, 51; Acts 1:9–12). Contemporary visitors—Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike—honor the mount as sacred to their religious traditions.
Nineteenth-century poet John Greenleaf Whittier refers to the Mount of Olives in these lines about Christ Jesus:
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