Web 2.0 → Homepage → Nebo

Nebo

Nebo Nebo prop. n. (Babylonian mythology) The Babylonian god of wisdom and agriculture and patron of scribes and schools.

Syn: Nabu. [WordNet 1.5]

Bible Dictionary

Nebo

A town of Reuben on the east side of Jordan. (numbers32:3,38) In the remarkable prophecy adopted by Isaiah,(isaiah 15:2) and Jeremiah, (jeremiah 48:1,26) concerningMoab, Nebo is mentioned in the same connection as before, butin the hands of Moab. Eusebius and Jerome identify it withNobah 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, amile south of its summit, and dr. robinson seems to agreewith this

ed.)

The children of Nebo returned from Babylon with Zerubbabel.(ezra 2:29; 10:43; nehemiah 7:33) The name occurs betweenBethel and Ai and Lydda, which implies that it was situatedin the territory of Benjamin to the northwest of Jerusalem.This is possibly the modern Beit-Nubah, about 12 milesnorthwest by west of Jerusalem, 8 from Lydda.

Nebo, which occurs both in Isaiah, (isaiah 46:11) andJeremiah, (jeremiah 45:1) as the name of a Chaldean god, is awell known deity of the Babylonians and Assyrians. He was thegod who presided over learning and letters. His generalcharacter corresponds to that of the Egyptian Thoth the GreekHermes and the Latin Mercury. Astronomically he is identifiedwith the planet nearest the sun. In Babylonia Nebo held aprominent place from an early time. The ancient town ofBorsippa was especially under his protection, and the greattemple here, the modern Birs-Nimrud, was dedicated to himfrom a very remote age. He was the tutelar god of the mostimportant Babylonian kings, in whose names the word Nabu orNebo appears as an element.(prophet), Mount, the mountain from which Moses took his firstand last view of the promised land. (32:41; 34:1) It isdescribed as in the land of Moab, facing Jericho; the head orsummit of a mountain called Pisgah, which again seems to haveformed a portion of the general range of Abarim.(notwithstanding the minuteness of this description, it is onlyrecently that any one has succeeded in pointing out any spotwhich answers to nebo. tristram identifies it with a peak(jebel nebbah) of the Abarim or Moab mountains, about threemiles southwest of Heshban (heshbon) and about a mile and ahalf due west of Baal-meon. "It overlooks the mouth of theJordan, over against Jericho," (34:1) and the gentle slopes ofits sides may well answer to the "field of Zophim." (numbers23:14) Jebel Nebbah is 2683 feet high. It is not an isolatedpeak but one of a succession of bare turf-clad eminences, solinked together that the depressions between them were merehollows rather than valleys. It commands a wide prospect. Prof.Paine, of the American Exploration Society, contends that JebelNebbah, the highest point of the range, is Mount Nebo, thatJebel Siaghah, the extreme headland of the hill, is MountPisgah, and that "the mountains of Abarim "are the cliffs westof these points, and descending toward the Dead Sea. Probablythe whole mountain or range was called sometimes by the name ofone peak and sometimes by that of another as is frequently thecase with mountains now