We are now looking upon Mount Nebo which rises near the head of the Dead Sea on the east. Our point of view is that which the Israelite hosts first obtained, when after marching around Edom and Moab, fighting a battle at Jahaz, and crossing the river Arnon, they came in sight of this mountain from the eastern plain, and passed around it on their way to the river Jordan: As they came in sight of this mountain whose rounded summit stands 2700 feet above the sea, and a thousand feet more above the valley of the Jordan, they could see beyond the river, the walls of Jericho and the highlands of Canaan; they realized that their long journey was well-nigh over and the Promised land was now close at hand.
We have followed the route of the Israelites around mount Nebo from the east to the north. Perhaps this well-worn path upon which that Oriental stands, may have been trodden by the feet of the aged Moses walking with his companion and successor Joshua, together leading the Israelite host to their camp beside the river Jordan. There Moses gave his farewell counsels and sang his final song; then alone, staff in hand, slowly walked up this steep mountainside to the summit of Nebo.
We are now looking at the summit of Mount Nebo. You can see plainly that it has been the site of a great building, of which the ruins are scattered around; but whether an ancient fortress or a medieval moastery we know not. Near this place stood Moses, prophet, lawgiver, nation-founder, poet, whose mark has remained longer and whose influence has been deeper and more lasting than the work and influence of any other man in the world before the coming of Christ. From their heights he gazed over the landscape, viewing the land that he might not enter, and then alone lay down upon the mount to die. A Jewish tradition says that Moses died from the kisses of God's lips. "But no man dug hus sepulchre And no man saw it e'er; For the angels of God upturned the sod, And laid the dead man there.
