Page:The Northern Ḥeǧâz (1926).djvu/271

 somewhere near the present station of al-Ḳwêra, and upon it they turned off to the north. They certainly passed through the Seʻîr mountain range, but upon its eastern edge where numerous other nomad tribes used to betake themselves. As they did not plunder, the inhabitants of Seʻîr did not resist their passage but merely guarded their border.

This march through Seʻîr is recalled by Deborah (Judg., 5: 4), extolling Jehovah who went out of Seʻîr and marched from the fields of Edom. There is an analogous statement in Deuteronomy, 33: 2, to the effect that Jehovah came from Sinai and showed the people his radiance from Seʻîr. He shone from Mount Pârân and came from Merîbat Ḳadeš.

By locating Ḳadeš on the western border of Seʻîr, I can understand Deuteronomy, 1: 44, where it is narrated that the Amorites pursued the Israelites, who had departed from Ḳadeš against the will of Moses, and destroyed them in Seʻîr as far as Ḥorma. The defeated Israelites certainly fled to the western border of Seʻîr, where they had their headquarters. There the Amorites went after them and thus likewise reached the border of Seʻîr, where they attacked the encampments and flocks of the separate clans who were dwelling at a distance from the headquarters.

All the passages quoted hitherto require, or at least permit, us to locate Seʻîr to the south-southeast of the Dead Sea. Difficulties are presented, however, by Joshua, 11: 17; but they can be disposed of. It is there stated that Joshua held sway over all the land from Mount Ḥalaḳ going up toward Seʻîr as far as Baal-Gad in the depression of Lebanon. As we cannot precisely define the position of Baal-Gad, likewise we cannot identify Mount Halak. I think, however, that it is the mountainous knot rising in the environs of ʻAbde, south of Beersheba and west of Petra (see Musil, Karte von Arabia Petraea), where we locate Ḳadeš. This mountainous knot actually rises opposite our Seʻîr, being separated from it by the rift valley today known as al-ʻAraba. Thus interpreted, it not only does not contradict our identification but actually corroborates it.

According to Ptolemy, Geography, VI, 7: 2, 27, the northern frontier of Arabia Felix, leaving the shore of the Red Sea between the settlements of Ajla and Ḥaḳl, swung off in a northeasterly direction to the aš-Šera’ mountain range, the southern slope of which separated Arabia Felix from Arabia Petraea.—Ptolemy is concerned with the geographical rather than the political frontiers.

The southern ridge of aš-Šera’ appears to have formed also the frontier of the provinces of Arabia and Palestina Tertia, for Eusebius, Onomasticon (Klostermann), p. 124, writes that the town of Madiam is situated beyond Arabia to the south in the Saracen desert east of the Red Sea. According to this it would be necessary to locate the frontier of the province of Arabia, and hence also of Syria, to the north of Madiam.

The same statement is repeated by Jerome, ''Comment. in Isaiam'' (Migne), 60: 6.

According to Procopius, De bello persico, I, 19, it must be inferred that the islet of Târân belonged to the province of Palestina Tertia, although the adjacent coast did not. The southern frontier of Palestina Tertia coincided with the northern frontier of Arabia Felix.