PISGAH (piz' gab), (Heb. a cleft), a mountain ridge in the land of Moab, on the southern border of the kingdom of Sihon (Num. xxi:2o; xxiii:14; Deut. iii:27; Josh. xii:3). In it was Mount Nebo, from which Moses viewed the promised land before he died (Deut. xxxiv:1).
Some scholars have questioned whether "pis gah" is a proper name. It occurs eight times in Scripture; four times with Ashdoth. In Dent. iv :4, 9 the English version reads "springs of Pisgah." The Septuagint renders "Pisgah" and "Ashdoth-pisgah" as a proper name only four times ; the Jewish Targums render it "hill." The English version regards it as a proper name, and it has a prominent place in Christian litera ture.
The great interest which Nebo and Pisgah pos sess, as the scene of the last days of Israel's law giver, has led recent travelers carefully to explore the region in order to discover the location of these historic peaks. Robinson long ago suggested that the name Nebd might represent the ancient Nebo. In 1863, De Saulcy, when about an hour's ride from Hesban on his way to Ma'in, found a peak which the Arabs called Jebel Nebd. This he regarded as the long-lost Nebo, and says he was rejoiced to recover the famous mount so long searched for without success. Among other ex plorers who have visited the region are Tristram in 1864, and again in 1872: Duc de Luynes, 1864 ; Captain Warren, 1867 ; and the expeditions of the American Exploration Society in 1873 and 1877.
In 1875 the American Society issued an ex tended statement on the identification of Pisgah by the Rev. J. A. Paine. He thinks De Saulcy mistook the height of jVebi ' Abdul/4h for Jebel Nebe? ; lie likewise rejects the description of Tris tram as inaccurate, and infers that Due de Luynes may have "suppressed the real name, Jebel Nebd, and endeavored to substitute a term of his own, Jebel Muni, as the Arabic name of the mountain," though he holds "that the members of Duc de Luynes' party were the first to ascend Mount Nebo with a consciousness that they were stand ing on the summit supposed to be made sacred by the death of the great lawgiver." Mr. Paine
claims to have discovered that the name Jebel Siaghah is applied by the Arabs to the extreme western headland or peak near Jebel Nebil ; and after noticing the extent of the view and the grandeur of the scenery declares : "Two conclu sions are irresistible—namely : the highest por tion of the range is Nebo; the extreme headland of the range is Pisgah." He urges in favor of this identification of Pisgah with Jebel Siaghah: t) the similarity in the names ; (2) the posi tion of Siaghah, "the only headland overlooking the circuit of the Jordan—the place above all others to be selected for the sake of a remarkable view ;" Mr. Paine says : "Two-thirds of the Dead Sea stretches out an azure sheet to the southward, and beyond it the land which Moses saw" (Dent. xxxiv :1-4).
His theory of the site of Pisgah is sharply questioned by Wolcott, Tristram, Warren, and others, chiefly on the ground that it fails to meet the requirements of the Biblical narrative, and that Siaghah is not the modern equivalent of Pisgah. (Schaff, Bib. Dia.) (See NEso.)