Forlong - Rivers of Life

176
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
The “Tabernacle” was supposed to have remained in Nob and Gibea (a hill), on two
occasions, and the surveyors now tell us that a platform suitable for it adjoins the Nob
or Ed, “which seems to have been made for it.” All the same, we have no authority
for saying that the Jewish tribes then had a “tabernacle” nor anything probably, save
the small box of Deut. x. 1. Mount Neb or Nebo was apparently Mount Peor or
Priapus; or else these two holy cones, because so closely adjoining each other, were
called indifferently NEB or PEOR. The explorers seem to be of this opinion. Some
persons allege that Nob is from OB, the serpent, or sun-hill, which would also embrace the
term Pi-or. Later intelligence from the American Exploration Society tells us that one
of the names of Jabel Neba or Nebo, is Siaghah, which Professor Paine reads Pisgah; the
explorers fixing on this high peak principally because it gives most of the view which
Moses was said to have seen from it, viz, from Dan to Negeb. 1 What is of more consequence,
and likely to give a truer result as to the ancient faith of these parts is the
fact which the explorers tell us, of all the hills having abundant cromlechs or hermi.
On the southern portion of this Nebo is, they write, a truncated cone of small stones,
130 feet in diameter and 25 feet high. Cromlechs about, have broad, flat stones, but
“not a sign of hewing or preparation beyond the rough straightening of edges can be
found about the stones, nor any trace of letters.” The ruins of a large temple were
found on the summits of Jabel Siaghah, or, as Professor Paine says, Beth-Peor, our
Ob or Nob. In Hebrew, Ob, Ab, Aub, Oub, Oph, Op, Eph, Ev are all from the root
ba Ab, or bwa Aub, which signifies inflare, and is therefore applied to the inflating and
irritated or irritating one. In the LXX., says the Rev. Mr. Deane, in his Worship of
the Serpent, p. 81, bwa is rendered “one who speaks from his belly, which is the Greek
notion of inflation or a familiar spirit;” the italics are those of the reverend writer,
and requrire to comment, being much nearer the mark than much else that the
orthodox gentleman states in his nevertheless most excellent volume. We see the
force of the italicised words when we remember, that in the rites of Mithras as well as
“the mysteries of Sebazius, a serpent was thrown into the bosom of the initiated, and
taken out at the lower end of his garments,” as Mr. Deane relates, attaching much
importance to the fact (p. 49); “initiation,” we should remember, is our “confirmation,”
or “coming of age,” when the sacred serpent-thread of the Hindoo should
be able to reach from bosom to “thigh.” Aub is also the “familiar spirit,”
for dealing with which a Jew was to be put to death, according to Lev. xx.
27 and Deut. xviii. 11; and as we know what an important part of Ophiolatry
this divinining by Serpents was, the Serpent being a “fascinator “ and “persuader,”
so we see in the condemnation by these books, which date from the sixth or
seventh oentury B.C., the probable decline of our third faith among Jews at
this period. The Rev. J. B. Deane, in writing of serpent-worship makes this
clearer when he assures us that the reading of the LXX. here should be, that
1 Siaghah or Pisgah is 2300 feet high, and near it is Muskar, 2600 feet, and Nebs, 2700 feet.
Pisgah may be Phasgah, Phogor, or Phegor, i.e., Priapus; in Irish Ferragh.