Oboth

Oboth is a wilderness encampment of Israel during the forty years of wandering, on the approach to Moab from the south.

A Camp on the Way to Moab

The narrative line in Numbers places Oboth between Punon and Iye-abarim. "And the sons of Israel journeyed, and encamped in Oboth. And they journeyed from Oboth, and encamped at Iyeabarim, in the wilderness which is before Moab, toward the sunrising" (Num 21:10-11). The stage-list in Num 33:43-44 confirms the same sequence: "And they journeyed from Punon, and encamped in Oboth. And they journeyed from Oboth, and encamped in Iye-abarim, in the border of Moab."

The two notices fit together. Oboth sits east of Edom, one stop short of the Moabite frontier, and the next move from Oboth carries Israel to Iye-abarim "in the wilderness which is before Moab, toward the sunrising" — the staging point for everything that follows in the plains opposite Jericho.