Summary
The evidence in all the foregoing records, therefore, shows that we are justified in locating the camping places of the tribes descended from Abraham by Keturah to the south of the Edom range of Seʻîr, or the modern aš-Šera’, and to the west of the sandy desert of Nefûd. It is there that Flavius Josephus, Archaeologia, II, 257, locates the place Madiana; Ptolemy, Geography, VI, 7: 27, the settlement of Madiama; Eusebius, Onomasticon (Klostermann), p. 124, the town of Madiam; and the Arabic tradition the center of the Madjan tribe.
The Assyrian records mention the oasis of Têma together with the Biblical tribes of Madian. This, with the position of the oasis of Tejma to the southeast of the former Seʻîr, strengthens our supposition that the inhabitants of the oasis of Tejma likewise belonged to the tribes descended from Abraham by Keturah and not to the Ishmaelite tribes. The Hebrew text (Gen., 25: 15) mentions Têma among the descendants of Ishmael, but the Septuagint has in this passage the tribe of Taiman, who, according to Biblical accounts, possessed the eastern half of northern Edom. In the enumeration of the sons of Abraham by Keturah the Septuagint, in Genesis, 25: 3, records between the accusatives Saban and Daidan, also the accusative Taiman. I judge that the nominative of this form Taiman is Taima, just as in the case of the preceding Saban the nominative is Saba, and that in his Hebrew manuscript the translator found the tribe of Têma among the tribes of Saba and Dedan, to which they actually belong.
According to this view, Moses sought and found a refuge in the land of Madian to the southeast of the harbor of Elath (al-ʻAḳaba) where also was the mountain of God, to which he led the Israelites.
THE MOUNTAIN OF GOD
The mountain of God, where the Commandments to the Israelites were issued is called both Ḥoreb and Sinai.
In Exodus, 3: 1, it is narrated that Moses, while guarding the sheep of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of the Madianites, once drove them across the desert and came to the mountain of God, to Ḥoreb.—Mount Ḥoreb is therefore situated in the land where the Madianites were encamped but at some distance from the place where Jethro dwelt. Knowing that the land of the Madianites was situated to the southeast of the northern extremity of the Gulf of al-ʻAḳaba, we must locate Mount Ḥoreb likewise there.
According to Deuteronomy, 1: 2, it is possible from Mount Ḥoreb to reach Ḳadeš Barneʻa by way of Mount Seʻîr in eleven days.
According to Deuteronomy, 1:19, the road to Mount Seʻîr is identical with the road to the mountain of the Amorites, upon which the Israelites after leaving Ḥoreb passed through a great and terrible wilderness as far as Ḳadeš Barneʻa. (See above, pp. 263—264.)
We locate Ḳadeš Barneʻa in the vicinity of the famous Petra, and we know that Mount Seʻîr rises to the east of the rift valley of al-ʻAraba close to ruins of Petra, while the mountains of the Amorites extend to the northwest of it. The road in question went along the western foot