Ashdoth-pisgah

Ashdoth-pisgah is the older Hebrew name for the watercourses descending from Mount Pisgah, on the eastern side of the Jordan above the northern end of the Salt Sea. UPDV consistently renders the term descriptively as "the slopes of Pisgah," and the four passages that name the feature use it as a fixed boundary marker on the eastern fringe of the Arabah.

A boundary marker east of the Jordan

The term first appears as part of the territorial summary of the trans-Jordan: "the Arabah also, and the Jordan and the border [of it], from Chinnereth even to the sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, under the slopes of Pisgah eastward" (Deut 3:17). The phrase locates the slopes at the eastern edge of the rift valley, where the descent from Pisgah meets the Salt Sea. A parallel summary closes the same itinerary: "and all the Arabah beyond the Jordan eastward, even to the sea of the Arabah, under the slopes of Pisgah" (Deut 4:49). In both verses the slopes function as a southern terminus of the eastern Arabah.

In Joshua's territorial recap

Joshua repeats the locative phrase when recounting the kingdom of Sihon: "and the Arabah to the sea of Chinneroth, eastward, and to the sea of the Arabah, even the Salt Sea, eastward, the way to Beth-jeshimoth; and on the south, under the slopes of Pisgah" (Josh 12:3). Here the slopes anchor the southern boundary of the conquered Amorite land, with Beth-jeshimoth named as the route landmark on the way down.

Within Reuben's allotment

The final occurrence places the slopes inside a tribal inheritance list: "and Beth-peor, and the slopes of Pisgah, and Beth-jeshimoth" (Josh 13:20). The slopes are now part of Reuben's settled territory, paired with Beth-peor and Beth-jeshimoth — the same cluster of sites that surrounded Israel's encampment opposite Jericho. What was a boundary phrase in Deuteronomy and an outline marker in Josh 12 has become, by Josh 13, a named locality counted among the towns and features assigned to a tribe.