nebo (1) Summary and Overview

(prophet), Mount, the mountain from which Moses took his first and last view of the promised land. #De 32:41; 34:1| It is described as in the land of Moab, facing Jericho; the head or summit of a mountain called Pisgah, which again seems to have formed a portion of the general range of Abarim. (Notwithstanding the minuteness of this description, it is only recently that any one has succeeded in pointing out any spot which answers to Nebo. Tristram identifies it with a peak (Jebel Nebbah) of the Abarim or Moab mountains, about three miles southwest of Heshban (Heshbon) and about a mile and a half due west of Baal-meon. "It overlooks the mouth of the Jordan, over against Jericho," #De 34:1| and the gentle slopes of its sides may well answer to the "field of Zophim." #Nu 23:14| Jebel Nebbah is 2683 feet high. It is not an isolated peak but one of a succession of bare turf-clad eminences, so linked together that the depressions between them were mere hollows rather than valleys. It commands a wide prospect. Prof. Paine, of the American Exploration Society, contends that Jebel Nebbah, the highest point of the range, is Mount Nebo, that Jebel Siaghah, the extreme headland of the hill, is Mount Pisgah, and that "the mountains of Abarim "are the cliffs west of these points, and descending toward the Dead Sea. Probably the whole mountain or range was called sometimes by the name of one peak and sometimes by that of another as is frequently the case with mountains now. --ED.)

1. A town of Moab, taken possession of by Reuben. Also the Mount of Moab, from which Moses viewed Canaan (Deuteronomy 32:49; Deuteronomy 34:1). Pisgah was a ridge of the Abarim mountains, W. from Heshbon. Nebo was a part of Pisgah named from the town, NEBO close by. Isaiah 15:2, "Moab shall howl 'at' (al) Nebo." (Jeremiah 48:1; Numbers 32:3; Numbers 32:38; Numbers 33:47). As Israel's encampment was "before Nebo," i.e. to the E. of Nebo, probably Nebo was on Pisgah's western slope. The peakless, horizontal straightness of the ridge caused the parts to be distinguished only by the names of adjoining villages. As Nebo "faced Jericho," and "the ravine of Moses' burying place in Moab faced Beth-Peor," Attarus suggested by Seetzen is too far S., and jebel el Jilad too far N. to correspond. Grove suggests jebel Nebbah, S. of wady Hesban. 2. "The other (town) NEBO" was W. of Jordan, in Benjamin (Ezra 2:29; Ezra 10:43; Nehemiah 7:33). Perhaps Beit Nubah.