Abel Shittim
אָבֵל הַשִּׁטִּים
Where was biblical Abel Shittim? At Tell el-Hammam, in the Jordan Valley, in Jordan, about 40 km east of Jerusalem. I mark it debated. The case for the main rival site is below.
Israel made its last camp here before the crossing. From here Joshua sent two spies to Jericho, and from here the whole nation set out for the Jordan.
By Aaron Shaffier, licensed Israel tour guide and mapmaker · About the mapmaker
- Site today
- Tell el-Hammam, in the Jordan Valley, in Jordan
- How sure
- Debated Two or more serious candidates.
- Other names
- Abel-shittim, Shittim, Abila, Tell el-Hammam
- Location
- 31.8407° N, 35.6745° E (Google Maps)
How we know where it was
It was not a proud stay. While Israel camped at Shittim, the people went after the women of Moab and the worship of Baal Peor, and a plague broke out until Phinehas acted. Micah later told the people to remember the road "from Shittim to Gilgal," from that low point to the first camp in the Land.
Shittim means acacias, the desert tree whose wood built the Ark and the Tabernacle. The camp stretched along the plain from Beit Yeshimoth to Abel Shittim, so we are looking for the far end of a wide encampment in the plains of Moab.
Josephus gives the sharpest clue. He calls the place Abila and says it was full of palm trees. He sets it sixty stadia, about seven miles, from the Jordan, and names it as the place where Moses gave his final speeches. That distance fits Tell el-Hammam, a large mound at the foot of the Moab hills, where archaeologists found Iron Age fortifications.
No inscription confirms it. Some scholars prefer Tell el-Kefrein, a smaller mound nearby. Others promote Tell el-Hammam as Sodom, a claim most archaeologists reject. Josephus's distance is why the map leans to Tell el-Hammam.
Visiting today
In Jordan, near the town of al-Rawda in the Jordan Valley. It is an excavated mound, not set up for visitors.
Read it in the Bible
Verse numbers follow the Hebrew Bible. In a handful of chapters English Bibles count one verse off.
See Abel Shittim on the interactive map →
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Get the print + free ebookNearby places
- Beth Jeshimoth 9 km south
- Mount Nebo 9 km southeast
- Heshbon 13 km east
- Gilgal 15 km west
- Beth Hoglah 16 km west
- Medeba 18 km southeast