The Messiah, say the rabbis, will be greater than all the patriarchs — greater than Abraham, greater than Isaac, greater than Moses. This is the reading Aggadat Bereshit makes of Isaiah's servant passage: "Behold, My servant will prosper; he will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted" (Isaiah 52:13). "High" refers to Abraham, "lifted up" to Moses, and "greatly exalted" surpasses them both.
The mountain that falls away — "Who are you, O great mountain?" (Zechariah 4:7) — is the question posed to every great obstacle that stands between Israel and redemption. Zechariah's answer: it becomes a plain. The Messiah does not go around the mountain. He makes it level. The rabbis saw in this image a statement about the nature of the messianic era: it is not just the removal of enemies. It is the removal of the conditions that made enemies possible. The landscape of suffering becomes the landscape of peace.
The Psalm of Ascents runs through this section — "I lift my eyes to the mountains; from where does my help come?" (Psalm 121:1). The answer in the messianic reading is the Messiah himself — the one who surpasses the mountains that were the patriarchs, who levels the mountains that are the kingdoms, who makes it possible at last to look toward the hills without fear.