Mount of Olives

The limestone ridge immediately east of Jerusalem, rising about a hundred meters above the temple platform across the Kidron valley — the slopes terraced for centuries with the silver-leafed olive groves that give the mountain its name. Jesus comes down its western slope on the colt at the Triumphal Entry (Mark 11) with Jerusalem spread out below; later in the same week he sits on it to deliver the Olivet Discourse, and after the resurrection he ascends from its summit (Acts 1). Zechariah 14 sees the mountain split in two on the day of the Lord.