NEBO, MOUNT Spas Mons Nebo). This celebrated mountain is mentioned only three times in Scripture, and as each is topo graphically important it may be well to cite the passages. In the general itinerary given in Num. xxxiii. 47, it is said, They removed from Almon diblathaim, and pitched in the mountains of Aba rim, before Nebo' (11)+]D, 'in the face of Nebo '). It is not quite clear from this passage whether the writer means the mountain or the town of Nebo; but a comparison with Deut. xxxii. 49 shows that it is most probably the former. In this passage is recorded the divine command to Moses, Get thee up into this mountain Abarim, Mount Nebo lzrin ntri which is in the land of Moab, which is over against yericho' Inv). Three points are here established—i. Abarim was the name of a range or group of hills, of which Nebo was a peak; 2. Nebo was in the land of Moab, and consequently east of the Jor dan; 3. The peak was opposite to and in view of (such is the obvious meaning of the Hebrew 4)tiv as here used) Jericho. The next passage is Deut. xxxiv. r, 'And Moses went up from the Plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho.' It is not quite certain whether Pisgah is here a proper name, or, as rendered in the margin and in some of the later Targums, ' hill' or peak'—' Moses went up to the mountain of Nebo, the top of the kill' (ripBri rit41)• If it be a proper name, then it seems to have been equivalent to Abarim, and to have denoted a range or group, of which Nebo was one summit (nsGAH).
It is evident from these notices that Mount Nebo commanded a wide view over Palestine, both east and west of the Jordan. Josephus, speaking of the death of Moses, says of Abarim, ' It is a very high mountain, situated over against Jericho ('leptxdivros cirrucpin), and one that affords to such as are upon it a prospect of the greatest part of the excellent land of Canaan' (Antiq. iv. 8. 48). Eusebius says that Nebo is a mountain over the Jordan opposite (cirlinum) Jericho in Moab . . . and until this day it is shown in the sixth mile west of Heshbon' (Onomast., s. v. Naban). In another place he locates it between Heshbon and Livias (s. v. Aba rim), and states that the mountains are still called Abarim, and are near Mount Phogor. Livias lay in the plain on the east bank of the Jordan, and the site ofHeshbon is well known. According to Eusebius and Jerome, therefore, Mount Nebo must be some peak on the brow of the mountain range, near the place where Wady Heshbon breaks down from the lofty plateau of Moab ; and this agrees with the statements of the sacred writer.
There is not in that region any very prominent peak which the eye of an observer could identify as Nebo. On the south bank of Wady Hesban, and about seven miles west of the ruins of the town, the writer noticed some projecting points of the range—not perhaps higher than others near them, but shooting out further westward so as to command the Jordan valley and western Palestine more than the others. Some one of these may have been the Nebo on which the lawgiver died, though it is now impossible to identify the exact spot. There is no evidence that Nebo was the highest peak of the range ; and travellers and geo graphers searching for such a peak have been mis led as to the true locality. Thus Burckhardt, when on his way from Heshbon to Kerak, in passing Jebel Attarus says, this is the highest point in the neighbourhood and seems to be the mount Nebo of Scripture' (Travels in Syria, p. 37o: cf. Seetzen, Reim, i. 408; Irby and Mangles, p. 464). But Attarus is not opposite Jericho, nor is it visible from it. It lies much too far south to be identified with Nebo. Even Robinson was not altogether free from this wrong impression of the altitude and isolation of Nebo, for he remarks, ' During the whole time we were on the coast of the Dead Sea, on the Jordan, and in or near the plains of Jericho, we were much interested in look ing out among the eastern mountains for Mount Nebo. . . But our search was in vain; for although we passed in such a direction as to see the moun tains over against Jericho from every quarter, yet there seems to be none standing so out from the rest, or so marked, as to be recognised as the Nebo of Scriptures' (B. R., i. 569; so also Stanley, S. and P., p. 294). In fact there are only two conspicuous peaks in the mountain range east of the Jordan—Atlaras, and near es-Salt—and neither of these can be Nebo; the former is too far south, the latter too far north.
The name Nebo Gesenius derives from the root r13), `to project;' and hence In) would signify `a projection.' This would seem to favour the iden tity of one of these projecting bluffs south of Wady Hesban (Thesaurus, p. 841). Others trace the name to the heathen deity A'ebo, and suppose that there was an ancient high place on the peak where that deity was worshipped (Stanley, p. 294). Of this there is no proof. (For fuller information, see Ritter, Pal. and Syr., ii. 1176, seq., 1iS6, seq. ; Handbook, 299; Drew, Scripture Lands, p. 96; Reland, Pal., pp. 342, 496).—J. L. P.