Mount Tabor
תָּבוֹר · “Mt. Tabor” on the map
Where is Mount Tabor? Above Kfar Tavor and Daburiyya, about 18 km southwest of Tiberias. I mark it certain.
Barak gathered ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun on this summit. When Deborah gave the word, he charged down on Sisera's chariots in the valley below.
By Aaron Shaffier, licensed Israel tour guide and mapmaker · About the mapmaker
- Site today
- Mount Tabor, above Kfar Tavor and Daburiyya
- How sure
- Certain The name, the sources and the finds all agree.
- Other names
- Tabor, Har Tavor, Jebel et-Tur, Itabyrion, Atabyrium, Mount of the Transfiguration, Christian tradition
- Location
- 32.6862° N, 35.3894° E (Google Maps)
How we know where it was
The name never changed. It is still Har Tavor. Nobody could mistake the mountain either. Its round dome rises alone out of the plain at the northeastern corner of the Jezreel Valley, 575 meters high. Jeremiah could swear "as Tabor is among the mountains and Carmel by the sea" because everyone knew both shapes.
Tabor stood where the borders of Zebulun, Issachar and Naphtali met. That is the logic of Deborah's order. She tells Barak to gather the men of Naphtali and Zebulun at the corner where their lands touched. Sisera's 900 iron chariots filled the valley floor. "Up! This is the day!" Deborah cried, and Barak's men poured down the slope. Her song tells how the Kishon swept the Canaanite army away.
Tabor comes up again in Gideon's story, when he questions the captured kings of Midian about the men they killed at Tabor. The psalmist pairs it with Hermon, the two mountains singing G-d's name.
Visiting today
A winding road and a hiking trail climb to the summit, where a Franciscan church and a Greek Orthodox monastery look out over the Jezreel Valley.
Read it in the Bible
Verse numbers follow the Hebrew Bible. In a handful of chapters English Bibles count one verse off.
See Mt. Tabor on the interactive map →
The whole Land on your wall
A hand-drawn map of Biblical Israel, with more than 160 places from Dan to Kadesh Barnea, printed on archival matte paper.
Free with every print: a companion ebook on every place on the map, a $19.99 value.
From $49.99 · Free US shipping
Get the print + free ebookNearby places
- Endor 5 km south
- Shunem 10 km southwest
- The Spring in Jezreel 15 km south
- The Spring of Harod 15 km south
- Jezreel 15 km south
- Hammath 18 km northeast