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| view of Mount Nebo, courtesy, Wikipedia |
The Mount
Nebo area was where the Israelites encamped on the last stage of their journey during
the Exodus (Deut. 32:49). Before the rise of the leadership of Joshua, Moses had
already allotted the area to the tribe of Reuben, on condition that they assist
their fellow Israelite tribes in conquering the Land of Canaan on the west side
of the River. According to Deut. 32:49, it was from Mt. Nebo, that Moses was
able to survey the Promised Land before he passed away on this spot. Then god
buried him there, but his exact resting place remains unknown to this day. According
to Jewish tradition, this was because the priests wished to prevent his resting
place from becoming a place of worship so as not to take away from worship of
god alone. After the conquest of Canaan, the tribe of Reuben took over its
territory and established the town of
Nebo near its namesake mountain, becoming the abode of the family of Bela
(i Chron. 5:8) for many centuries. But at the same time, ownership of the area
was often hotly contested between Israel and Moab. When the united kingdom of
Israel split in to, the tribe of Reuben, including the Mount Nebo area, became
part of the northern kingdom of Israel. It remained an Israelite possession until
the revolt of the Moabite king Mesha against the house of Omri of the northern
kingdom. On his stele (lines 14ff.) Mesha describes his conquest of the town of
Nebo, the destruction of the sanctuary
of the God of Israel before the Moabite god Chemosh and the sacrifice of
7,000 men, boys, women, girls, and maid-servants. The prophets Isaiah (15:2)
and Jeremiah (48:1, 22) mention Nebo among the cities of Moab in their
descriptions of the "burdens" on that land. According to 2 Maccabees (2:4–7), the prophet Jeremiah hid the tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant in
a cave there during the Babylonian
invasion and conquest in 586 BCE. After the Roman destruction of Jerusalem,
Mount Nebo and the surrounding area became a place of Christian pilgrimage. A
small Aramaic-speaking monastery was
built on the mountain which they called “Siagha”, an Aramaic word meaning
monastery. Historian Eusebius refers to the town of Nebo as a ruined town and
during the Byzantine period, the
Theotokos Chapel was built on the site on the mountain where many Christians
suppose Moses was buried. This chapel was first mentioned in an account of
a pilgrimage made by a lady Aetheria in 394 CE. The Diakonikon Baptistery was built in 597. Both were, long ago,
abandoned. When the Arabs came to the area, they named this mountain “Jebel
Naba”.
In 1927, a group attempt to find the Ark of the Covenant on Mount Nebo, led by the explorer and adventurer AF Futterer, President of the American Jerusalem Bible Institute of Los Angeles, did not materialize due to Futterer’s failure to get the proper permits from the British and Arab occupation authorities. So he ended up going alone. His trip turned out to be fruitless but he did find a human skeleton in one of the caves on the mountain. No one thought much of it at the time. A few years later, the Franciscan church, represented by the Franciscan Bible School in Jerusalem, attempted to continue Futterer’s work and, in 1930, offered to buy the site from the Bedouin tribe that owned it. Negotiations for purchase were long and drawn out but by 1932, Mount Nebo finally came under Franciscan ownership and archaeological expeditions began immediately. Their intention was to make it a tourist destination. By 1933, their expeditions began to bear fruit. They discovered the remains of the Byzantine-era church as well as the monastery. Several mosaics were also discovered including a mosaic of the Temple in Jerusalem located in the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin, and also a Samaritan inscription. The Moses Memorial that houses the Byzantine mosaics was closed for renovation from 2007 to 2016. It reopened on October 15, 2016.
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