‘And after six days Jesus takes with Him Peter, and James, and John his brother, and brings them up into a high mountain apart.'
‘After six days.' Here we must ask the question, six days from when? The answer could possibly be ‘after the confession of Peter at Caesarea Philippi', or it could signify six days ‘after saying these words'. The fact that Luke has it as ‘about eight days after', however, possibly warns against our trying to read too much into the ‘six days'. (Luke's ‘about eight days' includes a part day at the beginning and a part day at the end, and is therefore the equivalent of these six days). It would thus appear simply to literally indicate the passing of time an unusual situation in Matthew, although of course taken from his source. Nevertheless as he could easily have abbreviated it out, as he so often does with extraneous material, this suggests that at the very minimum it is because he wants to maintain the link between the Transfiguration and what has gone before. This would seem to confirm the fact that he sees the Transfiguration as at least a partial fulfilment of the promise in Matthew 16:28, if not the whole.
Some have seen the six days as connected with the six days in Exodus 24:16, but surely if Matthew had intended us to identify with those he would have introduced ‘and on the seventh day' as it does in Exodus. Nor are the circumstances anything like identical. In Exodus 24:16 Moses was already higher up the mountain prior to waiting for the six days, and the waiting was in order to enter the cloud. Furthermore Moses did not initially take up only three people, he took up seventy four, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, the seventy elders and Joshua. The differences are thus significant. If Jesus (or Matthew) had wanted us to identify the two scenarios surely more effort would have been put into some kind of nearer parallelism. The emphasis in Matthew, as in the other Gospels, is on Moses AND Elijah, even if Moses does come first, in other words on the Law and the Prophets.
‘Peter and James and John.' It is clear that these three are selected out as special and especially trustworthy witnesses from among the disciples (compare Matthew 26:37; Mark 5:37). Three is a number indicating completeness which is why we so often find threes in Scripture.
‘Into a high mountain apart.' The suggestion of a high mountain indicates an ‘other worldly' experience for Him. Compare Matthew 4:8. This in the same way as going up into ‘the mountain' always seems to indicate a specially blessed experience for His disciples, although at a lower level.
The mountain where the Transfiguration happened is traditionally said to have been Mount Tabor, a 600 metre (1,900 foot) hill that rises conspicuously at the east end of the Jezreel Valley. However as Josephus wrote that in those days there was a walled fortress on its summit it would not really have been the place to go for peace and solitude, and it is not really describable as ‘a high mountain'. Others have suggested Mount Hermon. This was close to Caesarea Philippi, and was 3000 metres (9,232 feet) high. But that would be an unlikely place to find Scribes and a crowd waiting at the bottom (although crowds did go long distances seeking Jesus). Another suggestion is Mount Miron, the highest mountain in Israel between Caesarea Philippi and Capernaum at 1,000 metre (3,926 feet) high. A fourth possibility is Mount Arbel on the west side of the Sea of Galilee. This is a high mountain from which the whole of the Sea of Galilee is visible. Mount Miron would appear a likely candidate, but clearly no one thought the question important, which tends to confirm that we are to learn a lesson from the fact that it was a ‘high mountain'.