Mount Nebo (Arabic: Jabal Nibu. Hebrew: Har Nevo, ) is an elevated ridge that is approximately 817 meters (2680 feet) above sea level, in Jordan. The view from the summit provides a panorama of the Holy Land and, to the north, a more limited one of the valley of the River Jordan. The West Bank city of Jericho is usually visible from the summit, as is Jerusalem on a very clear day.

Judaism and Christianity

According to the final chapter of Deuteronomy, Mount Nebo is where the Hebrew prophet Moses was given a view of the promised land that God was giving to the Israelites.

And Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho.

According to Jewish and Christian tradition and the Bible, Moses was buried on this mountain by God Himself, and his final resting place is unknown. Scholars continue to dispute whether the mountain currently known as Nebo is the same as the mountain referred to in the Torah. According to the 2 Maccabees 2:4–7, the Prophet Jeremiah hid the tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant in a cave here.

Umm Qais is a town in Jordan. It is situated in the extreme north-west of the country, where the borders of Jordan, Israel and Syria meet, perched on a hilltop (378 metres above sea level), overlooking the sea of Tiberias, the Golan heights and the Yarmuk gorge. It is located on the site of the ruined Hellenistic-Roman city of Gadara . (The town was also sometimes called Antiochia or Antiochia Semiramis (Ancient Greek: and Seleucia.)

Church terrace at Umm Qais

The modern name, Umm Qais, is Arabic for "Mother of Qais," Qais perhaps being a mofification of the Latin name, Caius.

The ancient name, Gadara, seems Semitic and possibly derived from the Hebrew gader , meaning "fence" or "border". The name Gadara may still heard in 'Jedūr', the name of the ancient rock tombs and sarcophagi east of the present ruins. (These tombs are closed by carved stone doors, and are used as storehouses for grain, and as dwellings. The place is not mentioned till later times.)

The town is situated on a ridge, which falls gently to the east but steeply on its other three sides, so that it was regarded as a of strategic importance.

By the third century BC the town was of some cultural importance. It was the birthplace of the slave, Menippos, who became a Cynic philosopher and satirised the follies of mankind in a mixture of prose and verse. His works have not survived, but were imitated by Varro and by Lucian.

Jordan River

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the river in West Asia. For other rivers named Jordan River or River Jordan, see Jordan River (disambiguation).

The Jordan River (American English) or River Jordan (British English) (Hebrew: Nehar haYarden, Arabic: Nahr al-Urdun) is a 251 kilometres (156 mi) long river in West Asia flowing to the Dead Sea. Currently, the river serves as the eastern border of the State of Israel and of the disputed Palestinian Territories. In Christian tradition, Jesus was baptised in it by John the Baptist. The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan takes its name from this river.