prising things in the narrative is the circuitous route by which the Eastern kings march against the rebels. We may assume that they had followed the usual track by Carchemish and Damascus: thence they advanced southwards on the E of the Jordan; but then, instead of attacking the Pentapolis, they pass it on their right, proceeding southward to the head of the Gulf of Aḳaba. Then they turn NW to Ḳadesh, thence NE to the Dead Sea depression; and only at the end of this long and difficult journey do they join issue with their enemies in the vale of Siddim.
In explanation, it has been suggested that the real object of the expedition
was to secure command of the caravan routes in W Arabia,
especially that leading through the Arabah from Syria to the Red Sea
(see Tu. 257 ff.). It must be remembered, however, that this is the
account, not of the first assertion of Elamite supremacy over these
regions, but of the suppression of a revolt of not more than a few
months' standing: hence it would be necessary to assume that all the
peoples named were implicated in the rebellion. This is to go behind
the plain meaning of the Heb. narrator; and the verisimilitude of the
description is certainly not enhanced by Hommel's wholly improbable
speculation that the Pentapolis was the centre of an empire embracing
the whole region E of the Jordan and the land of Edom (AHT, 149).
If there were any truth in theories of this kind, we should still have to
conclude that the writer, for the sake of literary effect, had given a
fictitious importance to the part played by the cities of the Jordan valley,
and had so arranged the incidents as to make their defeat seem the
climax of the campaign. (See Nöldeke, 163 f.)
The general course of the campaign can be traced with sufficient
The reading of the Sixtine and Aldine edd. of G, (
Greek characters),
which even Di. adduces in favour of a distinction between
the two cities, has, amongst the MSS used by the Cambridge
editors, the support of only one late cursive, which Nestle maintains
was copied from the Aldine ed. It is doubtless a conflation of (Greek characters)
and the (Greek characters) (? (Greek characters)) of GE, al. (Nestle, ZDPV, xv. 256; cf. Moore,
JBL, xvi. 155 f.).—(Hebrew characters)] G (Greek characters) = (Hebrew characters): so STOJ. Σ. has (Greek characters)
= (Hebrew characters).—(Hebrew characters)] GVS read (Hebrew characters) ((Greek characters), etc.). Some MSS of [E]
have (Hebrew characters), which Jerome expressly says is the real reading of the Heb.
text.—6. (Hebrew characters)] [E]GSV (Hebrew characters). Duplication of (Hebrew characters) is rare and doubtful
(Ps. 308, Jer. 173) in sing. of this word, but common in const. pl. Buhl
strikes out (Hebrew characters) as an explanatory gloss, retaining (Hebrew characters).—(Hebrew characters)] GS
render 'terebinth of Paran,' and so virtually VThas {OJ}, which have 'plain'
(see on 126). If the ordinary theory, as given above, be correct, (Hebrew characters)
is used collectively in the sense of 'great tree' (here 'palms').—7. For
(Hebrew characters), STOJ (also Saadya) have (Hebrew characters), apparently identifying it with Petra:
see Tuch's Note, p. 271 f.—(Hebrew characters)] GS (Hebrew characters), 'princes.'
