Sacred Mountains: Connecting the Revelation at Horeb and the Aqedah

It is an unusual, and perhaps strange, thing that I have written two commentaries on the Torah. One is traditional, titled Commentary on the Torah. The other is critical, titled The Bible with Sources Revealed. Actually, it is not so strange. Like many of you who are reading this, I grew up studying the parashah with Rashi’s commentary each Shabbat with my rabbi.

I was introduced to critical study of the Torah’s sources only in college by my professor. He had been a fundamentalist Baptist minister who had gone through a faith crisis when he first learned about the documentary hypothesis. Like him I became persuaded of the basic correctness of the critical conclusions. But also, like many of the contributors to TheTorah.com, I never lost touch with the Torah — the whole Torah — and with the traditional mode of studying it.

As it happens, Parashat Mishpatim contains one of the passages in the Torah that particularly highlights what we can learn from each kind of study. I included it in both of my commentaries, but with a different lesson derived in each; here I attempt to combine these perspectives.

The Parallels between the Revelation at Horeb and the Akedah

The passage in question is the account of Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the seventy elders who go up Horeb and have a vision of God in Exodus 24.

This account has a profusion of parallels to the account of the Aqedah:

• “Sit here till we return” – Moses says the same words to the elders that Abraham says to his servants:

These are the only two cases in the entire Bible where this collocation is used.

• Servant boys – Both accounts reference “servant boys (na‘arîm).”

This similarity is also significant since the word “boys” is an unusual word-choice in Exodus 24.

• “Bow” and “distance” – Both accounts use the terms “to bow” (hihstahawôt) and “from a distance” (merahoq).

• The Mountains – Both stories occur atop a mountain.

• Burnt offerings – Both have a burnt offering (ha‘alot ‘ôlah).

• Chain of common verbs – The two stories have a chain of ten more verbs in common. (The chart follows the order of appearance in the Aqedah story.)

All of these parallels alert us to the strong connection between these two passages. The culminating parallels convey the significance of the connection:

These culminating parallels are more than just matches of wording like the other dozen or so cases. They make a line that connects the two stories meaningfully. The reward that Abraham earns in Genesis 22 is realized in Exodus 34. The promise of Moriah is on its way to fulfillment at Horeb.

Critical Conclusions: The Artistry of the E Text

Critical scholarship usually attributes both this account and the Aqedah account to the source called E. In my critical commentary I concluded that such a large number of connections is further confirmation that E was an independent source. Many critical scholars currently see the E source as fragmentary; others claim that it does not even exist. The flow of connections like these, embedded in the other texts that are identifiable as part of E, confirm the identification and coherence of E. It also reflects E’s artistry.

E is a long work, fashioned with literary connections. Here its author used reminiscences of terms, phrases, and narrative elements to link two great scenes of divine communication. Thus, the author of E told his readers and hearers that the era of the patriarchs and the era of Exodus and Sinai were not two separate matters. This writer, who was possibly the first (or second) historian on earth, presented the flow of events in history as consequential, as being a chain of cause-and-effect that was significant, that was sacred. And this should teach us, in turn, that source criticism need not be a mindless cut-and-paste job on the Torah. Rather, when done right, it can reveal the theological, moral, and literary concerns of the Torah’s authors at each of their stages in the development of Israel, its religion, and its sacred texts.

Lessons from a Traditional Perspective

In my traditional commentary, I highlighted the implications of this chain of connections for some classic observations about the Torah, and not just one of its sources, in the tradition:

(1) This link back to the Aqedah is a reminder that the merit of Abraham remains the basis on which all of this now happens for Israel at Horeb. It is a quintessential example of the rabbinic concept of zekût ’abôt (זכות אבות): The merit of the ancestors protects and justifies the blessings on the descendants. (2) Israel’s experience at Horeb is a fulfillment of promises made following Abraham’s acts of extraordinary obedience. And (3) Abraham’s obedience is recalled as an example for his descendants, the people of Israel, to emulate.

The contrast between these two biblical passages is striking as well. Abraham’s obedience is the centerpiece of the Aqedah story. In the Horeb story, the people will soon commit their worst act of disobedience, the golden calf event.

The Mountain of YHWH and the Mountain of Elohim

The Aqedah is at “the mountain of YHWH”; the story of Moses and the elders is at Horeb, “the mountain of Elohim.” Both stories state that they are about divine appearances, which mark the sacredness of the two mountain locations. The “mountain of Elohim” is Horeb/Sinai.^[2] The identity of the “mountain of YHWH” is uncertain, though elsewhere this term refers to the location of the Temple in Jerusalem (Isaiah 2:3; Micah 4:2; Zechariah 8:3; once it refers to Mount Sinai, Numbers 10:33).

The parallels of these two stories link the mountain where the greatest revelation takes place to the mountain where the divine promise was confirmed in the past—and where the Temple will stand in the future. (The location of the Temple is identified with the place of the binding of Isaac—Moriah—in 2 Chronicles 3:1.) The two sacred mountains are connected; the patriarch and his descendants are connected; past, present, and future are connected—all in the embroidery of the Torah’s wording.

By learning from both critical and traditional studies, we can trace an expanding development and significance of the Torah’s passages. In this case we see a kernel of an important connection that was made by one of its earliest prose authors blossom into a larger stream of connections running through many centuries and several books of the Tanakh.