the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Pisgah
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
or A ridge of the Abarim mountains W. from Heshbon. Nebo was a town on, or near, that ridge, lying on its western slope (Numbers 21:20; Numbers 32:3; Numbers 32:38; Deuteronomy 32:49; Deuteronomy 34:1). From Pisgah, Israel gained their first view of the Dead Sea and Jordan valley; hence Moses too viewed the land of promise. The correct designation for the mount is not "Nebo" (which has become usual for convenience sake) but "the mountain adjoining Nebo." In Scripture Nebo denotes only the town (Isaiah 15:2; Jeremiah 48:1-22). The uniform peakless nature of Pisgah caused its parts to be distinguished only by the names of the adjacent villages. It always has the article "THE Pisgah" E. of Jordan, near "the field of Moab, opposite Jericho." The field of Zophim was on it Ashsoth-Pisgah; Deuteronomy 3:17. (See ASHDOTH-PISGAH.)
Pisgah is derived from paasag "to divide," a detached range of Abarim. Tristram from a point about 4,500 ft. high, three miles S.W. of Heshbon and one and a half W. of Main, saw to the N. and E. the Gilead hills, and the vast Belka ocean of grain and grass; to the S., Her and Seir of Arabia; to the W., the Dead Sea and Jordan valley and the familiar objects near Jerusalem; and over Jordan, Gerizim's round top, and further the Esdraelon plain and the shoulder of Carmel; to the N. rose Tabor's outline, Gilboa and little Hermon (jebel Duhy); in front rose Ajlun's dark forests, ending in Mount Gilead, behind Es Salt (Ramoth Gilead) The name Pisgah survives only on the N.W. end of the Dead Sea, in the Ras el Feshkah (Hebrew: Rosh ha-Ρisgah , "top of Pisgah"). Jebel Siugah ("fragment") probably answers to Pisgah. It is "over against Jericho," and the view corresponds. It is a fragment cut off by declivities on all sides, and separated from Nebo by the wady Haisa.
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Fausset, Andrew R. Entry for 'Pisgah'. Fausset's Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/fbd/p/pisgah.html. 1949.
