Apr 13 - Mount Nebo

Third post for today.....

Today is Friday which is like Saturday for us back home. All along the side of the road, there were trucks parked selling vegetables. It was like a really long, narrow farmers' market. They had carrots, radishes, cauliflower, beets, turnips, tomatoes and fennel. Fennel looks somewhat like an onion but has a sweeter taste with almost a liquorice flavour. Ruby got some for us and passed them around. (Tried fennel at dinner tonight - it's good.) The vendors grow these vegetables in the fertile ground of the Jordan Valley. Note - there was cold pink turnip on the buffet last night. It's dyed using beet juice. It looks like candy. I didn't try it.

From Bethany by the Jordan, we drove about an hour up to Mount Nebo. We wound our way up to the top of the mountain through incredibly rugged and forbidding mountains. We needed many switchbacks to wend our way upwards.

From www.baptismsite.com:

Upon Mount Nebo, God revealed Himself to Moses, as He had previously revealed Himself at Sinai, and Moses stood and looked over the Promised Land stretched out in front of him. He saw the Jordan River before him, descending from the heights of Mount Hermon into the depths of the Jordan valley.

From Wikipedia:

Mount Nebo is an elevated ridge in Jordan, approximately 710 metres (2,330 ft) above sea level, mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as the place where Moses was granted a view of the Promised Land. 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.

According to the final chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses ascended Mount Nebo to view the Land of Canaan, which God had said he would not enter, and to die there; he was buried in an unknown valley location in Moab.

A serpentine cross sculpture (the Brazen Serpent Monument) atop Mount Nebo was created by Italian artist Giovanni Fantoni. It is symbolic of the bronze serpent created by Moses in the wilderness (Numbers 21:4–9) and the cross upon which Jesus was crucified (John 3:14).

On the highest point of the mountain, Syagha, the remains of a Byzantine church and monastery were discovered in 1933. The church was first constructed in the second half of the 4th century to commemorate the place of Moses' death. The church is first mentioned in an account of a pilgrimage made by a lady Aetheria in A.D. 394. Six tombs have been found hollowed from the natural rock beneath the mosaic-covered floor of the church. In the modern chapel presbytery, built to protect the site and provide worship space, remnants of mosaic floors from different periods can be seen. The earliest of these is a panel with a braided cross presently placed on the east end of the south wall.

On the way home, we saw shepherds with goats and sheep and the occasional camel along the road. There are stray dogs and cats all over Jordan - saw lots of them, especially the dogs that saunter lazily across the road willy nilly.

We made one last stop - at Pearl Nebo. This place specializes in mosaics and employs many people with disabilities. We watched how mosaics are made - it is a very intricate and demanding skill. Doug and I bought two lovely mosaic hot plates to use when we eat soup and crackers for supper on Saturday nights in the living room while we watch This Old House!

The hotel is full of families tonight. They come out from Amman (just an hour away) just for Friday night and Saturday. They swim in the two pools and enjoy the lovely buffets.

Lots on the agenda tomorrow. It will be our last day with Ruby since we fly to Cairo on Sunday.Read more