A town of
Reuben on the east side of
Jordan. (
Numbers 32:3,38) In the remarkable prophecy adopted by
Isaiah, (
Isaiah 15:2) and
Jeremiah, (
Jeremiah 48:1,26) concerning
Moab, Nebo is mentioned in the same connection as before, but in the hands of
Moab. Eusebius and Jerome identify it with
Nobah or Kerrath, and place it eight miles
South of
Heshbon, where the ruins of el-Habis appear to stand at present. (Prof. Paine identifies it with some ruins on
Mount Nebo, a mile south of its summit, and Dr. Robinson seems to agree with this.—ED.)
The children of Nebo returned from
Babylon with
Zerubbabel. (
Ezra 2:29; 10:43;
Nehemiah 7:33) The name occurs between
Bethel and Ai and
Lydda, which implies that it was situated in the territory of
Benjamin to the northwest of
Jerusalem. This is possibly the modern Beit-Nubah, about 12 miles northwest by west of
Jerusalem, 8 from
Lydda.
Nebo, which occurs both in
Isaiah, (
Isaiah 46:11) and
Jeremiah, (
Jeremiah 45:1) as the name of a Chaldean god, is a well known deity of the
Babylonians and Assyrians. He was the god who presided over learning and letters. His general character corresponds to that of the Egyptian Thoth the
Greek Hermes and the
Latin Mercury. Astronomically he is identified with the planet nearest the sun. In Babylonia Nebo held a prominent place from an early time. The ancient town of Borsippa was especially under his protection, and the great temple here, the modern Birs-Nimrud, was dedicated to him from a very remote age. He was the tutelar god of the most important Babylonian kings, in whose names the word Nabu or Nebo appears as an element.
(prophet), Mount, the mountain from which Moses took his first and last view of the promised land. (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,” (34:1) and the gentle slopes of its sides may well answer to the “field of Zophim.” (Numbers 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.)