with the southern half of the rift valley of al-ʻAraba and its immediate mountainous neighborhood. The Israelites therefore went from Sinai in a north-northwesterly direction.
Whether the Israelites took the same road as the one upon which they reached Sinai, or whether they chose another road, cannot be exactly determined from the account given in Numbers, but it seems as if the description there refers to another road, because there is no mention of Êlîm, and it is stated (Num., 10: 33) that after three marches from the mountain of God the Israelites fared ill. We may suppose that at the head of the al-Abjaẓ valley they reached the present shrine of Samʻûl, where the broken country begins. The people murmured, the camp was set on fire, and they therefore called the place Tabʻêra (burnt-out encampment) (Num., 11: 3).
They continued their march, and many perished as a punishment for having consumed meat; they therefore called that place Ḳibrôt hat-Ta’awâ (dust graves) (Num., 11: 34). Thence they passed to Ḥaṣêrôt (Num., 11:35). I look for this halting place near the ruins of al-Ḥomejma, where there is a small šeʻîb called al-Ḥaẓra. They then reached the wilderness of Pârân (Num., 12:16), which they entered near the ruins of Ḥammad, about seventy kilometers north-northeast of al-ʻAḳaba, where the rocks forming the eastern border of al-ʻAraba approach the foot of aš-Šera’. The spies sent from Pârân to the Promised Land (Num, 13:3), after having inspected the whole country, returned to the wilderness of Pârân (i. e. Ḳadeš). From this it is clear that Ḳadeš must be located in the wilderness of Pârân and thus near al-ʻAraba, not far from the real frontier of the Promised Land.
The account given in Deuteronomy, 1: 2, fixes the distance from Ḥoreb to Ḳadeš Barneʻa by way of Mount Seîr at eleven days’ march. For our purposes there is a more important fact than the fixing of this distance that is that the journey from Ḥoreb to Ḳadeš was made by the road of Mount Seʻîr. The account thus refers to the transport route which leads to Mount Seʻîr but does not pass through it. The same route is indicated in Deuteronomy, 1: 19, where it is stated that the Israelites, after departing from Ḥoreb, passed, by the road of the mountain of the Amorites, through a “great and terrible wilderness.” The road of Mount Seʻîr and the road to the mountain of the Amorites may be the same, for the mountain of the Amorites rises to the northwest of Seʻîr, so that the road leading to it is only a continuation of the road leading to Seʻîr. This road passes through a great and terrible wilderness; but Mount Seʻîr was cultivated and inhabited, and it must therefore be supposed that the road in question passed along its western foot on the border between Seʻîr and Pârân. In that district there is actually an ancient transport route leading from Madian through the valley of al-Abjaẓ past Mount Iram (Ramm) and the ruins of al-Ḥomejma northward to the ruins of Petra, then farther through the convenient an-Namala pass to the rift valley of al-ʻAraba, and in a northwesterly direction to Hebron or in a west-northwesterly direction to Gaza. This road, upon which in the Nabataean period the main import trade from the south to Petra and Gaza was concentrated, may thus be identified with the road to Mount Seʻîr and the road to the mountain of the Amorites. If the Israelites passed along it, then they reached the actual wilderness of Pârân via the modern