The Northern Ḥeǧâz/Appendix 2
APPENDIX II
THE LAND OF ʻÛṢ
According to Genesis, 10: 23; 22: 21, the clan of ʻÛṣ belonged to the Aramaic clans related to Abraham. We might look for the land of ʻÛṣ to the north of Palestine, but in Genesis, 36: 28, and 1 Chronicles, 1: 42, it is recorded that Ûṣ was related also to the Seʻîr clan of Dîšân and is located in Edom. In Lamentations, 4: 21, the poet invites the daughter of Edom living in the land of ʻÛṣ to exult.
It seems that separate Aramaic clans settled to the east and southeast of the Dead Sea among their kindred, the people of Moab and Edom, who likewise were descended from the Aramaic kinsmen of Abraham. We may therefore locate Job’s land of ʻÛṣ in Edom. This is borne out by the friends who visited Job as well as by his manner of life.
Job was the most important man among all the Bene Ḳedem (“men of the east”) (Job, 1: 3). He was engaged in agriculture, but he also bred cattle, including not only oxen, but also sheep, asses, and even camels. He thus dwelt upon the borders between the tilled land and the desert, in which his camels grazed. The camels were fallen upon and stolen by the Chaldaeans (Job, 1: 17).
These Chaldaeans dwelt or camped for the greater part in Babylonia itself, whence they could undertake raids to the east and southeast of the Dead Sea, just as various nomadic tribes in modern Irak do at the present day. Moreover, according to Jeremiah, 25: 9, 20, destruction at the hands of the “king of Babylon” is threatened to all the Arabs and all the kings of the land of ʻÛṣ. Hence the land of ʻÛṣ must have been adjacent to the area of the nomads.
In his illness Job is visited by four friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, Zophar the Naamathite (Job, 2: 11 f.), and Elihu the Buzite (Job, 32: 2, 6).
TÊMÂN
The Septuagint designates Eliphaz as the king of Têmân, in agreement with Genesis, 36: 15, 42, where it is stated that Têmân was a duke, belonging to the clan of Eliphaz through the descendants of Esau (Gen., 36: 11). In Genesis, 36: 34, there is a reference to Husham, king of Edom, from the land of Têmân. From this it is clear that Têmân must be located in Edom, where so many scattered clans settled down.
References are quite frequently made in the Bible to the Têmân settlements which connected the settlements with Boṣra, a city of Edom. Hence it would appear that they were situated in the northern part of eastern Edom. For instance:
Amos, 1: 12, threatens that the Lord will send a fire upon Têmân, which shall devour the palaces of Boṣra.
Jeremiah, 49: 20, exhorts all to hear the counsel of the Lord, which he had taken against Edom and his purposes against the inhabitants of Têmân. In verse 22 he describes an eagle rising, soaring, and spreading its wings over Boṣra, so that the hearts of the mighty men of Edom tremble with fear.
The men of Têmân held sway over the rest of the inhabitants of Edom, both by their sagacity and by their heroism. Nevertheless, Obadiah, 1: 8–9, threatens that the Lord will “destroy the wise men out of Edom, and understanding out of the mount of Esau” and that the mighty men of Têmân “shall be dismayed to the end that everyone of the mount of Esau may be cut off by slaughter.” The same threat also occurs in Jeremiah, 49: 7, in the form of a question: “Is wisdom no more in Têmân?,” the reply being: “Counsel is perished from the prudent, their wisdom is vanished.” And there follows an exhortation: “Flee ye, turn back, hide in deep basins, O inhabitants of Dedan; for I will bring the calamity of Esau upon him, the time that I will visit him.”
It is interesting that the same fate which threatens the men of Têmân is to befall Dedan as well. The dwelling place of the men of Dedan was the oasis of the same name, the modern al-ʻEla’, situated 425 kilometers south of the extreme border of Edom, whereas the men of Têmân owned the northern border of Edom and were thus at least 525 kilometers away from Dedan. It cannot be supposed that the enemy who subdued Têmân would undertake an expedition across five hundred kilometers of desert in order to gain possession of Dedan also; nor in the sources hitherto discovered is there the slightest reference to any such martial achievement. We must therefore assume that the men of Dedan were in direct touch with the men of Têmân and that this was the result of their trade journeys. The settlement of Dedan was situated on the great transport route connecting southwestern Arabia with Egypt and Syria. It was the residence of the representative of the south Arabian merchants, who equipped the trade caravans which set out from there These were the caravans from Dedan which, according to Jeremiah, 49: 7, were threatened with destruction by the enemies of Têmân. We may therefore infer that the great transport route from Dedan to Syria traversed the territory of the people of Têmân and that the latter acted as sureties for the safety of the trade caravans. If this is the case, we must locate the people of Têmân in the eastern part of northern Edom, whence led and still lead the main routes connecting north and south, avoiding the deep gorges and ravines in the western part of northern Edom. When the people of Têmân were destroyed, the caravans of Dedan were without protection and could easily be plundered by the common enemy. Ezekiel, 25: 13, refers to the same thing when he threatens that the Lord will stretch out his hand upon Edom and will cut off man and beast from it, that he will make it desolate from Têmân, and that they of Dedan shall fall by the sword. Têmân here designates the whole of Edom, and Dedan all the territory ruled by the master of the oasis of that name which bordered on Edom to the south.
In Habakkuk, 3: 3, there is evidence that a great transport route passed through Têmân, for in this passage it is stated that God came from Têmân and the Holy One from Mount Pârân. After leaving Madian, which bordered on Edom to the south, the Israelites passed along the eastern side of the rift valley of al-ʻAraba, or the ancient Pârân, halted at the latitude of what was later the city of Petra, turned southward, entered the southwestern spur of the Seʻîr mountain range, and reached the southeastern extremity of Moab by way of the transport route. Hence they proceeded along the eastern border of Edom, where we locate Têmân; and thus Habbakuk could say God came from Têmân and the Holy One from Mount Pârân.
Têmân is located in these regions also by Eusebius, who in the Onomasticon (Klostermann), p. 96, says that Teman is the land of the princes of Edom in the country of Gebal and that the settlement of Taiman is still there, at 15,000 paces (according to Jerome, 5000 paces) distant from the city of Petra and with a Roman military garrison. The came Eliphaz, king of Teman, and also one of the sons of Ishmael whose name was Taiman.—The distances given by Eusebius and Jerome should not be taken into account, as the latter does not agree with the former. Jerome must have used a different source. In any case it is difficult to decide which of them is accurate, especially when we see that the statements in the Onomasticon concerning eastern Edom are often at variance with the real facts. Thus, we know with absolute certainty the situation of the Biblical Dedan; nevertheless, contrary to the Bible and to the facts, the Onomasticon locates it in northern Edom, stating that it is situated 4000 paces to the north of Fênân in Edom (ibid., p. 81).
The eastern environs of Petra have been thoroughly explored to a distance of 10,000 paces. They contain no settlement with a name resembling Têmân nor the remains of the Roman camp which existed there according to the Onomasticon. Teman of the Onomasticon , therefore, must have been situated more in the southern half of Edom at some distance from the main caravan route; whereas, according to the Bible, it must be sought in the northern half and upon that route. We may therefore suppose that at the time of Eusebius there was a settlement in Gebal located on the Roman road and known as Teman or something similar; that it contained a Roman garrison; and that the informant of Eusebius knew it to be 51,000 paces from Petra. By an error in transcription the accurate figure 51 was transformed into an incorrect 15 and, in the case of Jerome, into a still more incorrect 5.
Pliny, Naturalis historia, VI, 157, mentions the Timaneans among the tribes in the interior of Nabataea and says that in his time they were called Taveni. According to Pliny, therefore, the old name Timanei had been replaced by a more modern Taveni, a name which, in our opinion, has been preserved in that of the ruins of Tawâne (pronounced also Twâne). The settlement of at-Twâne, fifty-six kilometers to the north of Maʻân (see Musil, Karte von Arabia Petraea), lies in the eastern region of northern Edom on the great transport route connecting north with south, contains the remnants of a Roman camp, and tallies both with the Biblical statements and with the Onomasticon. We may therefore identify it with the main dwelling place of the Biblical tribe of Têmân, of which Eliphaz, the friend of Job, was a native.
ŠÛAḤ, NAʻAMA, AND BÛZ
Bildad, the second friend of Job, belonged to the clan of Šûaḥ, which is mentioned in Genesis, 25: 2, among the descendants of Abraham and Keturah, and thus among the Madianites, who possessed the territory along the transport route from Dedan through Edom to Syria. Thus this friend of Job also dwelt in the closest proximity to Edom.
Zophar, the third friend of Job, who hailed from the Naʻama, came from the southern part of Edom. There is no other mention of the tribe of Naʻama in the Bible. The Septuagint replaces Naʻama by “Meinaion,” thus allotting the Naʻama to the Minaeans. The process by which the Greek connected the Minaeans and Naʻama will perhaps be clearer if we remember that Naʻama was transcribed from Raʻama (Gen., 10: 7) and that the clan of Raʻama was akin both to the Sabaeans and to the people of Dedan, thus belonging, in the Biblical view, to the Minaeans.
The fourt friend who visited Job (Job, 32: 2, 6) was Elihu of the tribe of Bûz. According to Genesis, 22: 21, this Bûz was of the same origin as ʻÛṣ. If we take the Assyrian records as a basis, we shall expect to find its headquarters in the depression of Sirḥân, where its name has been preserved in the local appellation of Bîẓ, or Bîḏ, near which various settlements were and still are situated. Through the territory of the tribe of Bûz led the great transport route uniting Babylonia and the Persian Gulf with Syria and Egypt. We therefore understand why, according to Jeremiah, 25: 9, 23ff., Bûz is threatened with destruction at the hands of the Babylonians just as are the inhabitants of Dedan and Têmân.
As, therefore, some of the friends of Job came from Edom and some from the closer and remoter surrounding districts—that is from territory situated to the east and south of the Dead Sea—we must seek the country of Job, the land of ʻÛṣ, in the same direction. This is where it is located also by the Septuagint, which completes the Biblical Book of Job (42: 17 b) with the observation that Job, whose real name was Jobab, dwelt in Ausitis, on the mountain range of Idumea and Arabia. This passage (42: 17d in the Septuagint) identifies Jobab, known as Job, with the king Jobab of Genesis, 36: 33.
The mountain range of Idumea was later known as Gebalene, and thus the Septuagint places Job’s land of ʻÛṣ in the same region in which Eusebius locates Teman (Têmân), i. e. in the northern part of eastern Edom. Geographically this region can be divided into two halves: the eastern, which is flat, and the western, which is uneven. The center of the eastern half was the ancient city of at-Twâne (Têmân), while the western half is dominated today by the large settlement of aṭ-Ṭefîle, fifteen kilometers northwest of at-Twâne (see Musil, op. cit.). At a distance of three kilometers south-southeast of this settlement extends a heap of ruins known as ʻÎṣ. We may regard the word ʻÎṣ as equivalent to the Hebrew ʻÛṣ (just as Fênân, which is not far off, is the Hebrew Pûnôn), and we may therefore say that this was the center of the Biblical land of ʻÛṣ, from which Job came.