Pisgah

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PISGAH

PISGAH (Heb. פִּסְגָּה), mountain in Transjordan in the territory of the tribe of Reuben (Josh. 13:20). It lay on the border between the land of Sihon the Amorite and the territory of Reuben, northeast of the Dead Sea (Deut. 3:17; 4:49; Josh. 12:3). In the above passages, the reference is apparently to the slopes of Mt. Pisgah near the Dead Sea (Num. 21:20; 23:14; Deut. 3:27; 34:1). More precisely, they probably refer to the western slope of the mountain. The slopes of Mt. Pisgah served as an important junction for the roads in the area of the mountain ridge of Nebo. It is probably due to the area's geographic location that biblical sources emphasized its location within the borders of Israelite settlement. The "top of Pisgah" (Deut. 34:1) is identified with Raʾs al-Siyāgha, west of Mt. Nebo (supposedly the Siyaran mentioned in one version of Targum Onkelos, Num. 32: 3: cf. "Netinah la-Ger," ibid.). This is the place from which Moses viewed the Promised Land before his death.

bibliography:

Birch, in: pefqs, 40 (1898), 110–1; A. Musil, Arabia Petraea, 1 (Ger., 1907) passim; I.S. Horowitz, Ereẓ Yisrael u-Shekhenoteha (1923) s.v. Ashdot ha-Pisgah; Abel, Geog, 1 (1933), 281, 379ff.

[Michael Avi-Yonah]

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