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 narrative also shows that the Amalekites were still dwelling to the south of Palestine proper. David also waged war against them when king (1 Chron., 18: 11) and slew many of them.

When Joab slaughtered the Edomites in Seʻîr and made safe the road to the harbor of Elath, in which Solomon later equipped a mercantile fleet, he certainly destroyed very many Amalekites, partly those who were helping their kinsmen the Edomites and partly those who were defending their territory (reaching as it did as far as Elath) against their enemies from Judea. It seems that they were completely driven out of their original settlements and that the last remnants of them were preserved in the southern part of Mount Seʻîr, where, according to 1 Chronicles, 4: 43, they were encountered by the migrating Simeonites, who killed them and occupied their settlements. From that time onward there is no further mention of the Amalekites.

The first mention of Ḳadeš is in Genesis, 14: 7, where there is a description of the march of the allied Babylonian kings. The kings went from north to south along the fields east of the Dead Sea, then through the Seʻîr range as far as Êl Pârân, and, passing around ʻÊn Mišpaṭ (i. e. Ḳadeš), reached the deep-set lowland of Siddîm, where they defeated the allied kings of the settlements situated by the Dead Sea. We identify the lowland of Siddîm with the southern border of the Dead Sea, and Êl Pârân with the later Elath and the present settlement of al-ʻAḳaba, at the northern end of the Gulf of al-ʻAḳaba. There is no reason why the kings, having reached Êl Pârân (al-ʻAḳaba) in the rift valley of al-ʻAraba, should have entered afresh the high western plateau, thence to descend with difficulty to the southern extremity of the Dead Sea. They could have taken the open road northward through al-ʻAraba, for they must have known that both in the rift valley and on its south-eastern and western borders they would find the numerous encampments of refugees from the Seʻîr range and herdsmen with goats and sheep from the western range; for, during the rainy season, the latter are very prone to linger with their flocks in this warm and well watered region. Thence the kings could easily have dispatched smaller bands to the western range against the Amalekites and Amorites, while they themselves with the main body of their army could have approached the settlements near the Dead Sea, whose owners refused them tribute. After a victorious battle they did not enter either the western or the eastern plateau but, passing round the Dead Sea, hastened with their booty and prisoners northward along the Jordan and did not turn aside until they were beyond the Lake of Tiberias. Thence they proceeded in a northeasterly direction to Damascus. We know the location of Siddîm,