³ tn Heb “as the chief of the mountains, and will be lifted up above the hills.” The image of Mount Zion being elevated above other mountains and hills pictures the prominence it will attain in the future.

¹ sn The mountains skipped like rams, the hills like lambs. This may recall the theophany at Sinai when the mountain shook before God’s presence (Exod 19:18).

¹ tn Heb “this mountain.” The whole land of Canaan seems to be referred to here. In Exod 15:17 the promised land is called the “mountain of your [i.e., God’s] inheritance.”

¹ tc Instead of the MT’s “fields of grain offerings” the Lucianic recension of the LXX reads “your high places are mountains of death.” Cf. the Old Latin montes mortis (“mountains of death”).

² tc The LXX, Theodotion, and the Vulgate have “from a mountain,” though this is probably a harmonization with v. 45.

¹ sn The mountainous terrain of Israel would contrast with the exiles’ habitat in the river valley of Babylonia.

⁴ tn Heb “in all my holy mountain.” These same words appear in 11:9. See the note there.

¹ tn Heb “it.” The third feminine singular pronominal suffix probably refers to the land that contains the aforementioned mountains.

³ tn Heb “[at] the mountain God desires for his dwelling place.” The reference is to Mount Zion/Jerusalem.

² sn In this context the Lord’s mountain probably refers to Zion/Jerusalem (see Isa 2:2-3).

¹ sn H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 173) says these are the great mountains, perceived to hold up the sky.

² sn The area is in the mountains of Moab; Deut 34:1 more precisely identifies it as Mount Nebo.

¹ tn These too are adverbial in relation to the main clause, telling how long Moses was with Yahweh on the mountain.

³ sn Scholars offer three interpretations of her figurative request: (1) The Beloved desires her Lover to embrace her breasts, like a gazelle romping over mountains (mountains are figurative); (2) The Beloved entreats her Lover to leave and go back over the hills from whence he had journeyed (mountains are literal); and (3) As her Lover prepares to leave her country village, the Beloved asks him to return to her again in the same way he arrived, like a gazelle bounding over the mountains in 2:8-10 (mountains are literal).

² sn The mountain is Mount Sinai, the mountain of God, the place where God had met and called Moses and had promised that they would be here to worship him. If this mountain is Jebel Musa, the traditional site of Sinai, then the plain in front of it would be Er-Rahah, about a mile and a half long by half a mile wide, fronting the mountain on the NW side (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 169). The plain itself is about 5000 feet above sea level. A mountain on the west side of the Arabian Peninsula has also been suggested as a possible site.

¹ sn There is some ambiguity here. The clause either means that no man will touch the mountain, so that if there is someone who is to be put to death he must be stoned or shot since they could not go into the mountain region to get him, or, it may mean no one is to touch the culprit who went in to the region of the mountain.

³ sn Every island fled away and no mountains could be found. Major geographical and topographical changes will accompany the Day of the Lord.

² sn As in some ancient Near Eastern treaties, the mountains are personified as legal witnesses that will settle the dispute between God and Israel.

⁷ sn Gilead is a mountainous region on the eastern side of the Jordan River in what is today the country of Jordan.

² tn Heb “from Abarim.” This was the mountain range in Moab from which Moses viewed the promised land (cf. Deut 32:49).