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The Mount of Olives in YEHOVAH God’s Plan 15

had abandoned the Temple mount as the place of His “footstool” and was now choosing the Mount
of Olives as the proper “footstool of God.”

This was the place where YEHOVAH’s people could gather around “his feet” to worship
Him and to learn His ways. This is why Zechariah 14:4 said that YEHOVAH God would one day
stand on the Mount of Olives at the end of the age (Olivet represented His “footstool”). This is more
than likely the reason why the Jewish authorities placed the second site of the Sanhedrin at
Bethphage on the Mount of Olives during the time of the Second Temple. They came to this area to
worship at YEHOVAH God’s “feet.” In Acts 22:3 the apostle Paul gave a symbolic teaching of
learning when he stated that he was trained at Gamaliel’s feet.

Notes Ernest L. Martin –

The Christian community at Jerusalem after the destruction of the city and Temple in A.D.
70, also came to see this region on the Mount of Olives as being the official “footstool” of
God (until God would restore Shiloh to that position in the Millennium). In fact, it can now
be shown that Christians established their top headquarters after A.D. 70 (and in one way of
looking at it, until the time of Constantine) at this spot on the Mount of Olives (ibid., page
7).

In fact, the Christian authorities became so influential in this area on the Mount of Olives
that the Jewish authorities felt it better to move their Sanhedrin away from the “Christian” region of
Jerusalem after 70 A.D. They relocated to Jabneh (Jamnia) on the coast of Palestine and remained
there until 135 A.D. From there they moved into other regions of Galilee until 429 A.D. when the
Romans disbanded the Sanhedrin. It was only later, with the arrival of Islam, that the Jewish author-
ities raised up another Sanhedrin (which they eventually called the “Great Sanhedrin”) -- and they
did this by returning to the summit of the Mount of Olives (the place of “God’s footstool”) so that
they could be in close association with YEHOVAH God. (See the Encyclopedia Judaica, Vol. XII,
pp. 481-485).

The Christian authorities continued to be powerful on the Mount of Olives until Constantine
built the Church of the Holy Sepulcher on the western side of Jerusalem. Both Christians and Jews,
after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., saw the significance of the Mount of Olives in YEHOVAH’s
eyes. They recognized the symbolic holiness of the area -- not only because (as Christians saw it)
the Messiah was crucified in that area, but also because Ezekiel saw, with his own eyes, the
Shekinah Glory leave the Temple on the other side of the Kidron Valley and ascend directly to the
top of the Mount of Olives. This is just as Isaiah and Micah said it would happen at a future date.
(Read Ezekiel 11:22-23, Isaiah 2:1-4 and 40:9, and Micah 4:1-2).

The early Jerusalem church clearly knew that the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy meant
that Zion would be transferred to the top of the Mount of Olives -- to the place of “God’s footstool.”
This was exactly where Yeshua the Messiah was crucified, and near where he was buried and resur-
rected. This, of course, was brought to pass when YEHOVAH’s Shekinah Glory left the Temple in
the period of the Jewish/Roman War, which saw the Temple Herod built destroyed and reduced to
rubble (Eusebius, Proof of the Gospel, Book One, Chapter 4, Section 8, 9 [d]).

The Berean Voice March-April 2003