Footnote 2 – Reading David in Genesis

Moreover, there is a concentration of key words in the Genesis 22 story that begin with the consonants yod and resh, the same letters that begin the word “Jerusalem.” Most prominent are the phrases ’elohim yir’eh, [“God will see”] (v. 8); YHWH yir’eh; Adonai yir’eh (v. 14); and behar YHWH yir’eh, “on the mount of the Lord [there is vision]” (v. 14). All of these words evoke the name Jerusalem. Note also “the land of Moriah” (v. 3). This word occurs in the Bible in only one other place, 2 Chronicles 3:1: “Solomon began to build the Temple of YHWH in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, which appeared to David his father, and which David had prepared as the place, at the threshing floor of Ornan [variant of Araunah] the Jebusite.” This passage comes from a late book; it indicates that by the Persian period Jewish readers of the Torah had identified Moriah with Jerusalem. Unfortunately, we have no independent confirmation, especially from an earlier period, that Moriah was in the vicinity of Jerusalem.