by the route we have indicated, would be about 170 miles, the number of the stations agrees very well with the actual distance. It will, of course, be understood that the Israelites did not encamp in the city of Kadesh, which could not have contained (if its inhabitants had quitted it for their accommodation) the three-hundredth part of their numbers. They encamped on the west of the city, and in the desert of Paran. Kadesh was near the uttermost border of the kingdom of Edom. Some modern writers, to favour their peculiar theories, have excluded the chain of mountains on the north-west of the Arabah (which we have termed the Western Mount Se'yr) from the territories of Edom; but this view of the border of Edom is clearly erroneous. How admirably situated the position of Kadesh was for an invasion of the Amorite territory, will appear from the map. It was about fifteen miles to the south of the Canaanite border, and near the territories both of the Philistines and the Amorites; so that if these nations felt any alarm at the unexpected propinquity of a wandering nation of three millions of souls, neither could tell against which the attack was contemplated; and being scions of different ethnical stocks, they were not likely to combine either for attack or defence. 'Arâd, a principal city of the Amorites, was marked by the Israelites as the first object of attack; and Kadesh was peculiarly well situated for a march against this city. We may now proceed to the various criteria, which all unite in identifying the site of Kadesh with that of El-Khalesah. 1. Kadesh was exactly on the line of the south border of Israel, as marked out by Moses (Numb. xxxiv. 3-5) and Joshua (xv. 2, 4). This border extended from the southern limit of the Dead Sea, called by Moses the Salt Sea, to the mouth of the Nachal Mitzrayim, the modern Wady el-'Arish. Both the north and south borders of Israel, as defined by Moses, were deduced from east to west, or from west to east, as nearly as possible in a straight line. If we draw such a direct line, on any good map, between the mouth of the Nachal Mitzrayim and the southern extremity of the Salt Sea, it will pass through El-Khalesah, or at a very short distance to the north of that site. The intermediate positions between the Dead Sea and Kadesh were the Ma'aleh Akrabbim (or Ascent of the Scorpions) and the desert of Tzin. Ma'aleh in Hebrew signifies exactly such a steep and dangerous pass or ascent as the modern Arabs describe by the words Nukb or Akabah. The Ma'aleh Akrabbim was certainly that remarkable pass by which travellers ascend from the Wady el-'Arabah to the south of Judæa, and which is now called the Nukb es-Sufah. The northern extremity of this pass, at the village of Kurnab, lies exactly on the proposed line. The situation of Kurnab agrees with that assigned by Eusebius to Tamar, or Oaμapw, and Tamar is described by Ezekiel as lying exactly on the south border of Israel (Ezek. xlvii. 19; xlviii. 28). The word Tamar, it will be observed, signifies a palm-tree; and the next position on the south border, proceeding westward, after quitting Tamar and the Ma'aleh Akrabbim, is the desert of Tzin. As is used by the Talmudists to signify a dwarf palm-tree, the cognate meanings of this word and Tamar appear a strong indication of their propinquity. The desert of Tzin was in the east of Kadesh, which therefore follows immediately after this desert in the western direction of the boundary. We may therefore place the desert of Tzin in the intermediate position between Kurnab and El-Khalesah. After quitting ElKhalesah, the boundary proceeds through several places, which cannot be identified in the present state of our geographical knowledge of this region, to the mouth of the Wady el-Arish. The general direction may possibly have been collaterally with the bed of the torrent now called the Wady el-Khubarah. 2. Kadesh was on the exact spot where the caravan-route from Hebron to Egypt, by Shur, crossed the south border of Israel. When the capital of Lower Egypt was at Memphis, the ordinary caravan-route from Canaan to Egypt was across the desert from Beersheba to the northern extremity of the Gulf of Suez. It was not till the founding of Alexandria that the coast road became the common route between the two countries. The route then from Hebron to Egypt was by, 1. Beersheba; 2. Kadesh; 3. Beer-lachai-roi; 4. Bered; 5. Shur. It was by this route that Hagar, when she fled from Sarah, was proceeding to Egypt, her native country (Gen. xvi. 7 and 14). When Jacob and his family were on their journey to Egypt, they also took the route by Beersheba (Gen. xlvi. 1). El-Khalesah, which we identify with Kadesh, is about fifteen miles to the south-west of Beersheba, and exactly on the route from thence to Shur, the modern Suez. The station of Bered (we believe) still retains its ancient name. The whole route may be easily traced out, when travellers, actuated by the truc spirit of discovery, will venture to deviate from the trite and ordinary tracks. 3. Kadesh was just beyond the extreme limits of the kingdom of Edom. It belonged apparently not to Edom, but to Amalek, for the Israelites never entered the kingdom of Edom. It will be seen in Joshua xv. 28, that Beersheba lay to the north of the border of Edom; and as El-Khalesah is a little to the south-west of Beersheba, it would just be beyond the north-west corner of the limits of the children of Esau. 4. Kadesh lay between two deserts; those of Paran to the west, and of Tzin to the east. When the Israelites first visited Kadesh, they encamped in the desert of Paran; on their last visit, in that of Tzin. El-Khalesah is exactly on the borders of the desert of Paran, which comes up to it on the western side; and the desert of Tzin will naturally be sought for on the east of El-Khalesah, between that site and the Pass of Sufah and the village of Kurnab. When the spies proceeded from Kadesh to Hebron, they passed through the desert of Tzin (Numb. xiii. 21, 22). This agrees exactly with the supposition that El-Khalesah is the true site of Kadesh. 5. The desert in the immediate vicinity of Kadesh (though part of the desert of Paran, and perhaps of Tzin) is called (Psalm xxix. 8) the desert of Kadesh. "The voice of Jehovah breaketh the cedars; Here Kadesh and Lebanon are obviously mentioned as the. two extremities of Israel on the south and north; for the northern boundary crossed over the Lebanon chain from Gebal, by Mount Hor, to the Le-bo Chamath, and the southern boundary passed from the mouth of the Nachal Metzrayim, through Kadesh, to the Dead Sea. That the desert round El-Khalesah was formerly called the desert of Kadesh, may be easily proved. El-Khalesah was in the time of the Macedonians and Romans called Exovoa, or Elusa. This is proved both by the similarity of names, and the distances, in the Peutinger Itinerary, on the road from Ælia Capitolina (Jerusalem) to Aila (Akaba). The Jewish name for Elusa (as used in the first century after Christ) חלוצא was Now we find that in the time of St. Jerome, the desert around Elusa still retained the name of the desert of Kadesh, although the name of the city itself had been changed by the Idumæans to Alusa, from which the Macedonians formed the name of Exovoa. As the passage in Jerome is curious, we shall cite it in full it occurs in his life of Hilarion :-" Quantum autem fuerit in eo studii, ut nullum fratrem quamvis humilem, quamvis pauperem præteriret, vel illud indicio est, quòd vadens in desertum Cades, ad unum de discipulis suis visendum, cum : infinito agmine monachorum pervenit Elusam, eo forte die, quo anniversaria solennitas, omnem oppidi populum in templum Veneris congregaverat. Colunt autem illam ob Luciferum, cujus cultui Saracenorum natio dedita est. Sed et ipsum oppidum ex magnâ parte semibarbarum est, propter loci situm." Here we find the confutation of a common error (adopted inadvertently by Dean Milman, History of the Jews, vol. ii., p. 68), that Hircanus having subjugated Idumæa, "compelled the ancient rivals of his people to submit to circumcision, and to adopt the Jewish religion, and so completely incorporated the two nations that the name of Idumæa appears no more in history." The conquests of Hircanus only extended to that part of the south of Judæa which the Idumæans had seized upon during the Babylonian captivity. The territories of the Idumæans in the Negeb still remained distinct, till the old territorial divisions of the Negeb were incorporated in that of the Third Palestine. Ptolemy enumerates the cities of Idumæa, one of which is "Eλovoa; and from St. Jerome's life of Hilarion we find that the people retained their old idolatry, and the use of the Aramean dialect, till the beginning of the fourth century after Christ. The Elusans, according to Jerome, were Sabæans, worshipping the planet Venus, on its appearance as the morning star. This planet is mentioned by St. Nilus (an excellent authority on the subject) as a favourite object of the worship of the Nabathæan Arabs, who are described by him, as asρ Tô πρwiv προσκυνοῦντες καὶ θύοντες ἀνατέλλοντι. From this we may discern the origin of the name of Elusa. It is evidently the same name as the Alush, on the route from the desert of Sin to Mount Sinai; and both these names appear to signify the planet Venus, the favourite object of the veneration of the inhabitants. Herodotus, speaking of the Persians, observes, 'Еπiμеμаlýкаσi δὲ καὶ τῇ Ουρανίῃ θύειν, παρά τε Ασσυρίων μαθόντες καὶ ̓Αραβίων. Καλέουσι δε Ασσύριοι τὴν ̓Αφροδίτην, Μύλιττα· Αράβιοι δὲ, ̓Αλίττα· Πέρσαι δὲ Μίτραν (Clio, 131). For the Αλιττα of Herodotus we ought perhaps to read AXUTTα, and we may probably trace the name in the Phrygian Aλudda; for Phrygia was peculiarly imbued with the Syrian superstitions. For the name of Kadesh, or Kadesh Barnea, Canon Stanley suggests a derivation which is evidently not the true one." Its very name awakens our attention,-"The Holy Place,' the same name by which Jerusalem itself is still called in Arabic, ElKhods." This is an obvious inadvertence on the part of the pleasing writer of Sinai and Palestine. There is not an instance in the Hebrew language in which Kadesh is used in the signification of holy. The interesting visions therefore which Canon Stanley has raised on this error, are as unsubstantial as his identification of Petra with Kadesh, in which he follows on the track of the rabbins. We need scarcely remark that the proper adjective to express the idea of "holy" in Hebrew is win. The word is always used in a bad sense; and therefore Gesenius, with some propriety, marks the distinction between them by rendering the former "sanctus," and the latter "sacer,"-a word which is often used to signify the reverse of "holy." Kadesh, with its feminine Kedéshah, signifies a person dedicated by vow to the service of one of the idols of polytheism: it is the 'Tepodovλos of the Greeks; and so numerous were these devotees, that one temple alone in Cappadocia possessed five thousand of them. The groves which surrounded the temples of polytheism were haunts of debauchery, where in tents or buildings erected for the purpose, these wretched beings prostituted themselves as a sacred duty, highly meritorious to the idol whom they served. The , or meretricious hire, received as the reward of these debaucheries, was paid into the treasury of the temple for the profit of the priests. Such were the rites of polytheism, the enquiry into which is disgusting in itself, and yet of the utmost importance to the illustration of Biblical history. The most formidable objection ever made against revealed religion, can only be refuted by a thorough comprehension of some of the worst features of polytheism. The preceding remarks will conduct us to the true origin of the name of Kadesh Barnea. It means simply Bar-néa' (the proper name of a man), the Kadesh, or devoted slave, of the planet Venus, the guardian deity of the place. Being probably wealthy before his consecration, this person might have built a temple to Alytta, which attracted votaries, and led to the foundation of a city, which in gratitude to its founder took the name of Kadesh Bar-nea'; or the true Syrian name might always have been Alusa, and Kadesh have been a term of contempt applied to it by the Israelites in mockery of its origin. Viewing the matter in this light, we cannot agree with Canon Stanley in holding that the word Kadesh signifies "the holy place." The five criteria which we have successively examined establish so clearly the identity of Kadesh with El-Khalesah, that it might appear perfectly needless to adduce any further proofs; yet, in the course of the next chapter, additional evidence will present itself of such a nature, that without any reference to collateral proofs, it would be alone sufficient to demonstrate irrefragably the proposition for which we contend. |