Nob
נֹב
Where was biblical Nob? At the ridge north of Jerusalem, at Shuafat (approximate). I mark it debated. The case for the main rival site is below.
David came here alone, on the run from Saul. The priest Ahimelech gave him the holy bread and the sword of Goliath, kept wrapped behind the ephod. When Saul heard, he had Doeg the Edomite kill eighty-five priests and put the whole town to the sword. Only Abiathar escaped to David.
By Aaron Shaffier, licensed Israel tour guide and mapmaker · About the mapmaker
- Site today
- The ridge north of Jerusalem, at Shuafat (approximate)
- How sure
- Debated Two or more serious candidates.
- Other names
- Nov, Nob, city of the priests
- Location
- 31.8108° N, 35.2331° E (Google Maps)
How we know where it was
No ruin carries the name. But the clues point to the ridge just north of Jerusalem. Nob was a town of priests near Saul's Gibeah, close enough for Saul to summon them all at once. After the exile, Nehemiah lists Nob together with Anatot.
Isaiah gives the sharpest clue. His Assyrian army marches down the ridge through Geba, Ramah, Gibeah of Saul and Anatot. At Nob it halts and the king waves his hand at the mount of Zion. So Nob was the last stop before the city, within sight of the Temple Mount.
The map marks the ridge between Gibeah and Jerusalem, at Shuafat, on the road into the city. It's impossible to know for sure which hilltop it was. Just over half a mile south, on French Hill, excavators found an Iron Age fortress that looks out over the Temple Mount, and it has been proposed as Nob.
Other suggestions are Mount Scopus, Isawiya and the Mount of Olives. Northern Mount Scopus has the view Isaiah describes, but no Iron Age remains have turned up there. Isawiya has Iron Age pottery, but no view of the city.
Visiting today
There are no identified ruins. The lookouts on Mount Scopus, near the Hebrew University, give the view toward the Temple Mount that Isaiah describes.
Read it in the Bible
Verse numbers follow the Hebrew Bible. In a handful of chapters English Bibles count one verse off.
See Nob on the interactive map →
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Get the print + free ebookNearby places
- Gibeah of Saul 1 km north
- Anathoth 3 km east
- Nephtoah 4 km southwest
- Jerusalem 4 km south
- Ramah (Ramathaim Zophim) 4 km north
- Gibeon 6 km northwest