Mount Ebal
mountain in the immediate vicinity of the city of Nablus in the West Bank
Mount Ebal (Hebrew: הַר עֵיבָל, romanized: Har ʿĒḇāl; Arabic: جَبَل عَيْبال, romanized: Jabal ʿAybāl) is one of the two mountains near the city of Nablus (biblical Shechem) in the West Bank, and forms the northern side of the valley in which Nablus is situated, the southern side being formed by Mount Gerizim. The mountain is one of the highest peaks in the West Bank and rises to 935 m (3,068 ft) above sea level, some 60 m (200 ft) higher than Mount Gerizim. Mount Ebal is approximately 17 km2 (6.6 sq mi) in area, and is composed primarily of limestone. The slopes of the mountain contain several large caverns which were probably originally quarries, and at the base towards the north are several tombs.
Biblical account
In advance of the Israelites' entry to the Promised Land, Deuteronomy 11:29 records Moses' direction that "when the Lord your God has brought you into the land which you go to possess, that you shall put the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal".
In the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint version of Deuteronomy 27, an instruction is given to build an altar on Mount Ebal, constructed from natural (rather than cut) stones, to place stones there and whiten them with lime, to make peace offerings on the altar, eat there, and write the words of this law on the stone. According to the Samaritan Pentateuch and a Qumran fragment, this instruction actually concerns Mount Gerizim, which the Samaritans view as a holy site; some scholars believe that the Samaritan version is probably more accurate in this respect, the compilers of the masoretic text and authors of the Septuagint being likely to be biased against the Samaritans. Recent Dead Sea Scrolls work supports the accuracy of the Samaritan Pentateuch's designation of Mount Gerizim rather than Mount Ebal as the sacred site. A study published in 2018 asserts that the Mt. Gerizim reading is older than that referring to Mt.
The public source identifies “Mount Ebal” as mountain in the immediate vicinity of the city of Nablus in the West Bank. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Mount, Ebal and mountain.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Mount Ebal”, the useful work is to connect “mountain in the immediate vicinity of the city of Nablus in the West Bank” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1975866. VIAF identifies the subject as 315149700. Authority coordinates are 32.234, 35.273. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2018.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mount Ebal” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.