Monday, 3 January 2011


Moses led the chosen people to the Promised Land which flowed with milk and with honey and must therefore have been a rather sticky place. But God, keeping one eye on the OED, did not allow Moses to enter the Promised Land, only to glimpse it from a high promontory.




And from Moses' misery the English language gained the word Pisgah. A Pisgah-sight is a glimpse of something that can never be obtained. The phrase has been doing steady but slow business for four centuries now. Pisgah is eminently useful when describing window-shopping.

Pisgah's advantage is that either you know about Pisgah and the Old Testament and understand the reference, or you hear syllables - Piss! Gah! - and get some sense of Moses' frustration. One can imagine him up on the mountain top cursing and swearing and wiping the Sinai sand from his feet.







Given that Moses is meant to have written the book of Deuteronomy, that last passage has always troubled the commentators. How, they ask, was Moses able to describe his own death? And what's that unto this day doing if it was written back in the day?

The answer is, of course, that God dictated the book of Deuteronomy to Moses and Moses wrote down the story of his own death with the tears flowing down his face, and probably muttering "Pisgah, pisgah, pisgah!"

The Bible does not record whether the sign was there at the time

For Pisgah the OED cites a reference that refers to the OED's original editor, Sir James Murray who died before his dictionary could be published:

Sir James Murray planned and led to within a Pisgah sight of completion a larger and more scientifically organized work of linguistic reference than Dr. Johnson could have produced.

This is either James Murray or Moses; nobody is sure.


  1. I have NEVER heard of such a thing, despite having in-depth* knowledge of the Land of Holes. I shall commence using it forthwith! Toda raba.

    * in-depth of about 1mm

  2. I had always thought that the last passage there was written by Joshua. This made sense to me, since he had been Moses' attendant and was the writer of the very next book of the bible.

    The 'unto this day' bit fits in that context as well.

  3. I beheld a Pisgah-sight, but for a brief moment, of the Son of Man reconciling the world to himself. Now I delve deep into the Scriptures to more clearly see that sight.