their camels into the Promised Land, ravaging the fields and gardens, plundering the sheep, cattle, and asses throughout the country as far as Gaza. According to Judges, 6: 33, the Madianites came across the Jordan; and according to 7: 24, they fled back across that stream.
In Judges, 8: 10 ff., it is related how two chiefs of the Madianites, during their retreat eastward, came from Jordan to Ḳarḳor and how Gideon pursued them with his men on the “Road of the Nomads” eastward from Nobaḥ and Jogbeha. Having taken their camp by surprise, Gideon captured the two chiefs, scattered their troops, and (Judg., 8: 13) returned home again by the Ascent of Ḥeres.
This account clearly indicates that it was not only the Madianites who harassed the Israelites but that the chiefs of the Madianites were leaders of various Bedouin tribes, for Bene Ḳedem was a current expression for camel breeders. When, therefore, these allied tribes ravaged and plundered the Promised Land as far as Gaza, it was easy for the Amalekites to join them.
The Madianites and the Bene Ḳedem, to whom, according to the Bible, belonged various Ishmaelite tribes encamped to the east of Moab and Ammon, came from the east across the Jordan and fled to the east. Gideon pursued them upon the “Road of the Nomads.” If a similar occurrence were narrated at the present time, I should not hesitate to define this “Road of the Nomads.” The territory of an-Nuḳra extends from Damascus as far as the ancient Jabbok, the present stream of az-Zerḳa. To the east it is bordered by the Ḥawrân mountain range and volcanic territory which is very difficult of access. To the east of Damascus, between this volcanic territory and the chain of mountains extending from the Antilebanon to the Euphrates, there remains a passage, in places only six hundred meters broad, through which it is possible to pass easily from the desert to the territory of an-Nuḳra. A similar ntural gateway affords an opening southeast of Ḏerʻât between the southeastern spurs of the Ḥawrân and the broken hills in which az-Zerḳa has its source. Through these two gateways the camel breeders enter the territory of an-Nuḳra from the desert at the end of June, and through them at the end of August they return to their desert. The roads leading through these gateways (see Jâḳût, Muʻǧam [Wüstenfeld], Vol. 2, p. 46; Vol. 4, p. 669) used to be and still are called the “Roads of the Nomads.” We may therefore locate the Road of the Nomads referred to in Judges, 8: 11, southeast of Ḏerʻât, to which country the settlements of Nobaḥ and Jogbeha also point. The defeated chiefs of the Madianites together with their allies, the Bene Ḳedem, certainly fled along the road leading into the depression of Sirḥân, in which they found both pasturage and water. Knowing that Gideon was pursuing them, they fled a considerable distance and encamped by Ḳarḳor (which I identify with the modern Ḳarḳar or Ḳerâḳer), at the junction of important routes. Here they supposed that they had gone far enough and that Gideon would not follow them.
The wells of Ḳerâḳer are situated in a capacious basin surrounded by almost impassable limestone hills, from which only a single, convenient, but not very broad, outlet, leads to the depression of Sirḥân. Gideon, on coming up, stationed some of his men at this outlet, while with the others he climbed the hills surrounding the basin, took the camp by