which, or in the immediate neighborhood of which, the caravans passed, such guides were and still are easier to find than at a distance in the desert.
From the context it cannot be decided whether Madian denotes the settlement, the tribe, or the territory of the tribe. All these interpretations are possible, and none of them can be wholly rejected. But, whatever it may denote, Madian must be located outside Edom and to the south of it, as we cannot suppose that the servants would have ventured, accompanied as they were by the king’s son, to penetrate to Pârân through Edom, which was occupied by Joab’s army. Pârân was situated between Egypt and Edom and thus to the west of Edom proper. Furthermore, Pârân may have been not only a settlement but also a territory which did not belong, however, to Edom and was as yet unoccupied by Joab.
The harbor of Elath, with which I identify Êl Pârân, or Pârân, is not situated in Edom proper and certainly never belonged exclusively to it. The inhabitants of the port, as well as those in charge of the transport routes, whether southern Arabians or others dwelling and encamping to the southeast, east, west, and northwest of Elath, took care that the garrison of Edom should not fortify itself there and that the Edomite officials should not retain the payments which they themselves received. From the Biblical accounts we see that the Edomites held authority in Elath only temporarily. At the time when Joab occupied Elath he controlled al-ʻAraba as far as the Red Sea, and a secret journey from east to west to Egypt would therefore have been very dangerous and even impossible. Hence, it must be supposed that the servants saved Ḥadad before the army of Judea had reached the Red Sea. If we judge Pârân to be a locality, then we must identify it with Êl Pârân and Elath; but if we decide that in our account it denotes a larger territory, then we must locate it in al-ʻAraba and must locate the place where the servants crossed the rift valley with Ḥadad on the transport route not far from Elath.
In 1 Samuel, 25: 1f., it is stated that David ascended from Engadi into the mountains; whereupon he went down into the wilderness of Pârân, whence he sent messengers to Nabal, the husband of Abigail, at Maon.
The positions of Engadi on the western shore of the Dead Sea, and of Maon to the southwest of it, are known. The rift valley of al-ʻAraba, the southern part of which we identify with the Biblical territory of Pârân, extends from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, so that we might locate the wilderness of Pârân, where David stayed with his men, in this lowland. But it would seem that the word Pârân found its way into this account owing to an inaccurate transcription of the word Maon. This might very easily happen because of the great similarity of the two first consonants in the ancient script. Even if, however, we insist upon Pârân, it is not necessary for us to extend the wilderness of Pârân to the Dead Sea itself: we may admit that the shepherds in charge of Nabal’s flocks remained during the rainy season in the rift valley of al-ʻAraba at some distance from Maon and that David protected them from the raids of various nomads. Although we should thus not gain absolute certainty as to where the Pârân of this account should be located, yet we see that we are led by it into al-ʻAraba or at least to its border.
