Page:Keil and Delitzsch,Biblical commentary the old testament the pentateuch, trad James Martin, volume 1, 1885.djvu/1273

 1:42]] seems to favour this-the wells of Jaakan would have to be sought for on the mountains that bound the Arabah on either the east or west.Gudgodah is only a slightly altered and abbreviated form of Hor-hagidgad, the cave of Gidgad or Gudgodah; and lastly, Moseroth is simply the plural form of Mosera. But notwithstanding the identity of these four places, the two passages relate to different journeys. Deu 10:6 and Deu 10:7 refers to the march in the fortieth year, when the Israelites went from Kadesh through the Wady Murreh into the Arabah to Mount Hor, and encamped in the Arabah first of all at the wells of the children, and then at Mosera, where Aaron died upon Mount Hor, which was in the neighbourhood, and whence they travelled still farther southwards to Gudgodah and Jotbathah. In the historical account in Num 20 and 21 the three places of encampment, Bene-Jaakan, Gudgodah, and Jotbathah, are not mentioned, because nothing worthy of note occurred there. Gudgodah was perhaps the place of encampment mentioned in Num 21:4, the name of which is not given, where the people were punished with fiery serpents; and Jotbathah is probably to be placed before Zalmonah (Num 33:41). The clause, “a land of water-brooks” (Deu 10:7), points to a spot in or near the southern part of the Arabah, where some wady, or valley with a stream flowing through it, opened into the Arabah from either the eastern or western mountains, and formed a green oasis through its copious supply of water in the midst of the arid steppe. But the Israelites had encamped at the very same places once before, namely, during their thirty-seven years of wandering, in which the people, after returning from Kadesh to the Red Sea through the centre of the great desert of et Tih, after wandering about for some time in the broad desert plateau, went through the Wady el Jerafeh into the Arabah as far as the eastern border of it on the slopes of Mount Hor, and there encamped at Mosera (Moseroth) somewhere near Ain et Taiyibeh (on Robinson's map), and then crossed over to Bene-Jaakan, which was probably on the western border of the Arabah, somewhere near Ain el Ghamr (Robinson), and then turning southwards passed along the Wady el Jeib by Hor-gidgad (Gudgodah), Jotbathah, and Abronah to Eziongeber on the Red Sea; for there can be no doubt whatever that the Eziongeber in Num 33:35, Num 33:36, and that in Deu 2:8, are one and the same town, viz., the well-known port at the northern extremity of the Elanitic Gulf, where the Israelites in the time of Solomon and