the mountains: These mountains were a ridge of rugged hills east of Jordan, and north and west of the Arnon. Nebo, Pisgah, and Peor, were but different names of the hills of which they were composed.
Eusebius and Jerome inform us, that some part of them, as one went up to Heshbon, retained the old name of Abarim in their time; and that the part called Nebo was opposite Jericho, not far from the Jordan, six miles west from Heshbon, and seven east from Livias.
Dr. Shaw describes them as "an exceeding high ridge of desolate mountains, no otherwise diversified than by a succession of naked rocks and precipices; rendered in some places the more frightful by a multiplicity of torrents, which fall on each side of them.
This ridge is continued all along the eastern coast of the Dead sea." Mount Nebo is now called Djebel Attarous; and is described as a barren mountain, the highest point in the neighbourhood, with an uneven plain on the top.
Burckhardt, Travels, pp. 369, 370.