Isaiah 14:13

the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north Render: the Mount of Assembly in the uttermost north. We have here apparently an allusion to Babylonian mythology which is partly elucidated by Assyrian inscriptions. There the chief gods are spoken of as born in "the house of the mountain-summit of the lands, the mountain of Aralu" (Schrader, Cuneif. Inscr., ad loc.). The conception is very obscure, and it has not been proved that the Babylonians located their world-mountain in the north (like the Hindus and Persians). According to Jensen (Kosmologie der Babylonier, pp. 201 ff.) the idea of the "world-mountain" originated in the conception that the earth is itself a huge hollow mountain, resting on the primeval ocean. However that may be, there is little room for doubt that the "mount of assembly" in this verse is the mountain of Araluwhere the great gods assemble. The opinion once prevalent that Zion is denoted was suggested by a similar phrase in Psalms 48:2; but the idea is obviously out of place in the present context.