This is also where we arrive by considering the early encampments of Ishmael, who, according to Genesis, 21: 21, settled in the wilderness of Pârân. According to the Assyrian and Biblical accounts, Ishmael’s descendants encamped from the Egyptian frontiers and the northern gulf of the Red Sea as far as Dûmât al-Ǧandal, and al-ʻAraba, or Pârân, formed a kind of center from which they spread both to the west and to the east.
In the accounts of the migrations of the Israelites from Mount Sinai to the Promised Land there are references to Pârân, and not a single one of them is at variance with our identification.
According to Numbers, 10: 12, the Israelites, having departed from the wilderness of Sinai, encamped in the wilderness of Pârân; according to Numbers, 13: 3, Moses sent spies from there to the Promised Land. These proceeded from Pârân to Ṣin and returned (Num., 13: 26) to “the wilderness of Pârân, which is Ḳadeš.”—
The wilderness of Ṣin is the name of the territory extending westward from northern Seʻîr and southward from Palestine. The spies, wishing to become acquainted with the Promised Land (that is Palestine proper) proceeded from Pârân to Ṣin. This is entirely possible if we identify Pârân with the southern half of al-ʻAraba. The spies proceeded to the northwest and came to the Biblical wilderness of Ṣin and, farther, to the southern part of Palestine and the mountain of the Amorites. Returning, they came back to the wilderness of Pârân, or Ḳadeš, which we locate in the vicinity of Petra, on the borders of Pârân and Ṣin.
The sojourn of the Israelites in Pârân is mentioned in Deuteronomy, 33: 2, where it is recorded that Jehovah came from Sinai and shone upon his people from Seʻîr, gleaming from Mount Pârân, coming from Merîbat Ḳadeš. This repeats in other words Habakkuk, 3: 3, where it is stated that God came from Têmân and the Holy One from Mount Pârân.—
Mount Pârân here denotes the broken plateau enclosing al-ʻAraba on the east and extending as far as the foot of Mount Seʻîr.
APPENDIX IX
THE CITY OF MADIAN, THE MADIANITES,
AND THE MOUNTAIN OF GOD
THE CITY OF MADIAN
Flavius Josephus, Archaeologia (Naber), II, 257, writes that Moses fled to the city of Madiana opposite the Red Sea. This shows that in the first century of our era the city of Madian was commonly known. The old Madianite settlement of Ḥawra near the oasis of al-Bedʻ was not enlarged and fortified by the Nabataeans until about the first century before Christ. Thus we can understand why it is that the older writers are silent about it, although they are well acquainted with the region in which Madian is situated.
