The Mount of Olives is the ridge just east of Jerusalem, across the Kidron valley, covered with olive groves — including Gethsemane at its foot. Jesus often withdrew here. From its slopes he wept over Jerusalem, and here he gave the great discourse about the end of the age and his return.
It was from the Mount of Olives that Jesus ascended into heaven, and the angels promised he would return in like manner. Zechariah had prophesied that in the last day his feet shall stand upon the mount of Olives. The hill of his tears and his ascension is also, Scripture hints, the hill of his return — a place freighted with the whole arc of hope.
The Mount of Olives in Scripture
And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.