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Moses on Mount Nebo

Also called: Death of Moses, Pisgah, Bronze serpent

A story told in religious scripture.

A story told in the Books of Numbers and Deuteronomy: after forty years in the wilderness, having gone around Edom to the plains of Moab, Moses climbed Mount Nebo, looked out over Canaan and died at a hundred and twenty; Joshua succeeded him.

The Jordan valley and the Dead Sea seen from Mount Nebo
The Jordan valley and the Dead Sea seen from Mount Nebo

Faris El-Gwely · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source

This is the story told in the Books of Numbers and Deuteronomy. As the years in the wilderness drew to an end, the Israelites set out from Kadesh to enter Canaan from the east. When the king of Edom refused them passage they went far around Edom, and on the way Aaron died on Mount Hor. It is here too that those bitten by fiery serpents lived by looking at the bronze serpent Moses set on a pole. Defeating Sihon king of the Amorites and Og king of Bashan, they camped on the plains of Moab east of the Jordan.

Moses had been told that, for disobeying God at Meribah, he would not enter Canaan. He gave the people his last teaching (Deuteronomy), climbed to the top of Pisgah on Mount Nebo, and looked across the Jordan to Jericho and the land of Canaan. There he died at a hundred and twenty — “his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated” — and no one knows his grave.

His successor Joshua led the people across the Jordan into Jericho (the Book of Joshua). A church honouring Moses has stood on the summit of Nebo since the 4th century, and pilgrims still look down from it over the Dead Sea and the Jordan valley.

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The map in 1210 BC

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States at the time
New Kingdom of Egypt
Places
Mount Nebo

People

  • Moses

    key figure · Leader and prophet of Israel in the Hebrew Bible, who is said to have led the Israelites out of Egypt and received the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai; he does not appear in records outside the Bible

  • Joshua

    participant · Moses’ aide and successor in the Hebrew Bible, who with Caleb brought back a good report from Canaan and, after Moses’ death, led the people across the Jordan

  • Aaron

    related figure · Elder brother of Moses in the Hebrew Bible, who spoke for him before Pharaoh and became the first high priest of Israel; he is said to have died on Mount Hor

Before and after

Earlier
1249 BC The Twelve Spies at Kadesh Barnea

Themes that include this event

  • The Exodus1279 BC – 1208 BC

    From slavery and the burning bush, the ten plagues and the parted sea, to the Ten Commandments at Sinai, forty years in the wilderness and Moses on Mount Nebo — the Exodus as the Hebrew Bible tells it, followed on the map alongside Ramesses II’s capital and the Merneptah Stele, the first record to name “Israel”