KING JAMES BIBLE DICTIONARY

Proclaimer; prophet.

1. A Chaldean god whose worship was introduced into Assyria by Pul (Isaiah 46:1; Jeremiah 48:1). To this idol was dedicated the great temple whose ruins are still seen at Birs Nimrud. A statue of Nebo found at Calah, where it was set up by Pul, king of Assyria, is now in the British Museum.

2. A mountain in the land of Moab from which Moses looked for the first and the last time on the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 32:49; 34:1). It has been identified with Jebel Nebah, on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea, near its northern end, and about 5 miles south-west of Heshbon. It was the summit of the ridge of Pisgah (q.v.), which was a part of the range of the "mountains of Abarim." It is about 2,643 feet in height, but from its position it commands a view of Western Palestine. Close below it are the plains of Moab, where Balaam, and afterwards Moses, saw the tents of Israel spread along.

3. A town on the east of Jordan which was taken possession of and rebuilt by the tribe of Reuben (Numbers 32:3, 38; 1 Chronicles 5:8). It was about 8 miles south of Heshbon.

4. The "children of Nebo" (Ezra 2:29; Nehemiah 7:33) were of those who returned from Babylon. It was a town in Benjamin, probably the modern Beit Nubah, about 7 miles north-west of Hebron.

that speaks or prophesies

1. A city allotted to Reuben:

General references
Numbers 32:3; Numbers 32:38; 1 Chronicles 5:8

Prophecies concerning
Isaiah 15:2; Jeremiah 48:1; Jeremiah 48:22

2. A mountain range east of the Jordan:

Moses views Canaan from
Deuteronomy 32:49-50

Moses dies on
Deuteronomy 34:1

3. A city in Judah
Ezra 2:29; Nehemiah 7:33

4. The ancestor of certain Jews
Ezra 10:43

5. A Babylonian idol
Isaiah 46:1

1. (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.)
2. 

1. 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.)

2. 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.
3. 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.