THE TEMPLE MOUNT
My morning view - September 23, 2025
I woke up in Jerusalem on Rosh Hashanah, the Biblical Feast of Trumpets, in September of 2025. I was staying with my friends Joshua and Rachael Swanson in their apartment that overlooks the Old City, the Temple Mount, and the Mount of Olives (where Jesus intends to step foot again.) Not your run-of-the-mill morning view! Over a lovely breakfast of coffee and smoked salmon, I marveled at the vista before me.
“Do you ever take for granted that THE Temple Mount is out your kitchen window!?”
“It’s pretty remarkable isn’t it?” Joshua replied ponderously, in-between sips of coffee. We gazed out the window for a moment, looking at the very place God plans to reign from for 1,000 years.
“We should go!” He suddenly determined. “You wanna go?!”
“Now?! Absolutely.”
I grabbed a small bag and off we went, practically skipping toward the Old City.
But, what we were about to experience was not on our bingo card!
First, a little context…
Painting by William Brassey Hole - 1905
Jesus flipping tables might be the most well-known story that took place on the Temple Mount. Most scholars agree the drama unfolded in the Court of the Gentiles, where non-Jews were able to worship.
Why was this a problem?
The historian Josephus wrote that each year during Passover, Jerusalem swelled to a population of “three million souls” and 255,600 lambs were sacrificed! For the sake of convenience, the center of commerce for these transactions was moved from the Mount of Olives to the Court of the Gentiles. I imagine it felt like trying to navigate a retail store on Black Friday—sheer chaos!
This sheds a lot of light on why Jesus, whip in hand, would have quoted His Father saying, “My House will be a House of Prayer for ALL nations” (Isaiah 56:7). This wasn’t about selling stuff at church. This was about ALL PEOPLE having access to worship the God of Israel: both Jew and Gentile!
Flevit Super Illam (He wept over her) - Enrique Simonet - 1892
Just before His arrest, Jesus revealed this shocker to His disciples, “Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles, until the age of the Gentiles has run its course” (Luke 21:24).
40 short years later, Rome destroyed the Temple. Jewish People have been banned from praying or worshiping on the Temple Mount ever since. Even after Israel’s Independence in 1948, the Old City and the Temple Mount had been “trampled on by Gentiles” for 1,900 years.
Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans…AD 70
David Roberts 1850
Taking of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, 15th July 1099
Émile Signol 1847
Britain given power by League of Nations 1917
Gen. Allenby enters Jerusalem
Then 19 centuries later, in 1967, Israel won back sovereignty of the Old City, including the Temple Mount. Jews were finally allowed to visit the Temple Mount with limited access, but prayer was still strictly prohibited.
THEN, just as recently as 2018, the status quo began to shift. Whispered prayers to the God of Israel were not being stopped. In even more recent years, rumors began to circulate of Jewish People being given permission to pray aloud! I even heard about a Rabbi named Yehuda who led a coalition designed to expand Jewish access to pray at this location—where both Jewish Temples once stood. This Rabbi survived getting shot four times at point blank range for being an “enemy to Islam!” I heard he kept visiting the Temple Mount, with just a slight limp.
September 23, 2025. Joshua Swanson and I arrive at the Temple Mount entrance and wait in line, full of excitement. We were about to literally ascend to the PEAK of the Mountain of the LORD!
Right where God provided Abraham’s ram!
Right where Solomon built the Temple!
Right where Jesus taught day after day!
Then I saw him. 20 people ahead of us stood Rabbi Yehuda Glick!
Leading a select group of Jewish worshippers, Yehuda was being escorted by heavily armed Israeli Police Officers to the Northeast corner of the Temple Mount complex to PRAY on one of the most holy days on God’s Biblical Calendar.
We decided to follow as closely as possible!
We had no clue what to expect. We’re just two Gentile, American boys who love the God of Israel (and believe the Messiah already made His first appearance).
Finally, the inevitable happened. As we neared our destination, the policemen with their assault rifles politely blocked our path, extending their hands toward us, and grunting with deep, heavily-accented voices, “Please. Stop here, please.”
Not a full second passed before Rabbi Yehuda, with his salt & red-pepper beard, spun around like an angry prophet, waving his finger to the skies and shouting, “NOOO! Let them come!!! This is a House of Prayer for ALL NATIONS! LET THEM COME!!!”
I couldn’t believe my ears or hold back my tears. I felt as if Jesus Himself had said it. Like God the Father was announcing it. FOR US!
They began singing their prayers, punctuated by unison shouts of “KADOSH! KADOSH! KADOSH!”
“Holy Holy Holy!” was being proclaimed, in Hebrew, in the Temple Courts, to the God of Israel, by Jewish men and women for the first time in almost 2,000 years!
Joining the group praying on the Temple Mount - Rosh Hashanah 2025
“It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob.”
Isaiah 2:2-3 ESV
