Mount Tabor

In the Bible

• Tribal boundaries: In Joshua 19:22, Tabor is named as a boundary point of the territory of the tribe of Issachar. In 1 Chronicles 6:77, "Tabor" appears among the towns the tribe of Zebulun gave to the Levites.
• The battle of Deborah and Barak: In Judges 4, Deborah instructs Barak to take ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali and of Zebulun and go to Mount Tabor (Judges 4:6). Barak went down from Mount Tabor and defeated the army of Sisera by the river Kishon (Judges 4:14–15).
• The story of Gideon: Gideon asks Zebah and Zalmunna, the kings of Midian, "What manner of men were they whom ye slew at Tabor?" (Judges 8:18).
• Poetry and prophecy: Psalm 89:12 declares, "Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice in thy name." Jeremiah 46:18 likens the might of the king of Babylon to Tabor: "Surely as Tabor is among the mountains, and as Carmel by the sea, so shall he come." Hosea 5:1 rebukes the leaders of Israel, comparing them to "a net spread upon Tabor."

Background

Mount Tabor lies east of Nazareth and southwest of the Sea of Galilee. Its elevation is generally given as about 575 meters (roughly 1,890 feet). It is conspicuous from a distance less for its height than for its rounded shape, rising alone in the midst of a broad plain. Because it stood where the territories of several tribes met and overlooked the plain, it was regarded as militarily important. In the first century, the Jewish historian Josephus wrote that he himself fortified the mountain during the war against Rome.

The Transfiguration Tradition and Debate

The New Testament never uses the name Mount Tabor. The Gospels describe the site of the Transfiguration—where Jesus was transfigured before Peter, James, and John, and where Moses and Elijah appeared—only as "an high mountain" (Matthew 17:1; Mark 9:2; Luke 9:28). Second Peter 1:18 calls it "the holy mount."

The tradition identifying this mountain as Tabor is thought to have emerged by the fourth century at the latest, and the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church have long followed it. A church and a monastery commemorating the Transfiguration stand on the summit today. In Orthodox theology, the light of the Transfiguration is called the "Light of Tabor" and has long been the subject of profound contemplation.

Many Protestant commentators and scholars, by contrast, leave open the possibility that it was a different mountain. Pointing to the fact that the preceding scene takes place in the region of Caesarea Philippi (Matthew 16:13), to the expression "an high mountain," and to the possibility that the summit of Tabor was inhabited or fortified in the first century, they regard Mount Hermon as a strong candidate. Still other mountains have also been proposed. Because the biblical text does not specify the location, the identification of Tabor as the Mount of Transfiguration is treated here as an understanding based on church tradition, distinct from the testimony of Scripture itself.

In the Korean Church

On pilgrimages to Israel, Mount Tabor is frequently visited as the site commemorating the Transfiguration. In preaching on the Transfiguration passages, it is commonly introduced as the traditional location, and in sermons on Old Testament passages it is mentioned as the setting of the story of Deborah and Barak.