Mount Tabor
To the right and to the east of our pilgrims, as they passed through the plains of Esdrælon, they would see Mount Tabor. Tabor is one of the traditional mounts of transfiguration. Hermon, on the north, contests with Tabor this honor. Churches have been built upon Tabor and pilgrimages have been made to it, and for fifteen centuries it has been honored as one of the shrines of the Holy Land. Tabor is situated on the frontier of Issachar and Zebulun. It was here that Deborah directed Barak to assemble an army, and hence the Israelites marched into the plain and defeated Sisera.—Judges, 4. It is more than 2,000 feet above the sea, and is dome-like in form. The slopes are wooded, the soil fertile, the pasture rich. The view from Mount Tabor is extensive. To the east the north end of the sea of Tiberias is visible, and in the extreme distance the blue chain of the Bashan Mountains. Toward the south and north the view resembles that from the high ground above Nazareth. To the west rises Mount Carmel, to the north are lofty hills, and the south of Safed is in sight. Out-towering all other summits is the majestic Hermon. Rev. J. L. Porter says of the view from Mount Tabor: “It is one of those wonderful panoramas which time can never obliterate from the memory.” The ruins on the summit of Tabor are extensive and are overgrown with thorns, briers and thistles. Some of these may date back as far as the sixth century, when three churches were erected here in memory of the “three tabernacles” which St. Peter proposed to build. The two monasteries which now occupy the top of the hill are comparatively modern.
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