Anciently, God's "holy mountain" or "holy hill" (as some translations render the Hebrew) was a symbol of God's Temple. It implied the places that the ancients went to be closest to the Divine. While, in biblical times, that was often a literal, physical Temple, for many in the Bible (like Moses or Jesus), that was also frequently a hill, a mountain top, or even the wilderness. Places that were separate from the world were common places of retreat for the ancients, because the distractions of the world were gone and, thus, the prophet petitioning God for revelation would feel that his prayers-and God's answers-were more readily heard in these sacred, set apart spaces.

In this passage, King David sings of "crying" to the Lord regarding his personal needs; and he says that God answered those prayers from his "holy mountain." Of course, David had chosen Mount Moriah-the same mountain on which Abraham had built an altar of sacrifice-for the future temple. However, in David's day, there was no physical temple on the earth. Thus, here, David reminds us that, at times, we too must find our own places of retreat-a hill, a mountain, a church, a temple, a closet. We need our own "holy mountain" to which we can go, get away from the world, and "cry out loud" to our "Lord" about our challenges and needs. And like David, as we remove the distractions of the world from our lives, we too will hear Him "answer" us in that space that functions as our own "sacred site" or "holy mountain."