Kadesh-Barnea
Kadesh-barnea
The search for this interesting locality, and the controversy concerning its site, still continue. The most recent and enterprising explorer is H. Clay Trumbull, D.D., editor of the Sunday-School Times, who has written an elaborate and magnificent work on the subject (Kadesh-Barnea, its Importance and Probable Site, etc., New York, 1884, 8vo). After great pains, while on a trip through the Sinaitic desert, he succeeded in reaching ‘Ain Kadeis, which, in his map of the region, accompanying his volume, he locates fifty-five miles west by north of Petra, and seventy-five north-east of the castle of Nukl. His description of the spot is as follows (page 272).
“It was a marvelous sight! Out from the barren and desolate stretch of the burning desert-waste, we had come with magical suddenness into an oasis of verdure and beauty, unlooked for and hardly conceivable in such a region. A carpet of grass covered the ground. Fig-trees, laden with fruit nearly ripe enough for eating, were along the shelter of the southern hillside. Shrubs and flowers showed themselves in variety and profusion. Running water gurgled under the waving grass. We had seen nothing like it since leaving Wady Feiran; nor was it equalled in loveliness of scene by any single bit of landscape, of like extent, even there.
“Standing out from the earth-covered limestone hills at the north- eastern sweep of this picturesque recess was to be seen the large single mass, or a small hill, of solid rock,’ which Rowlands looked at as the cliff (sela) smitten by Moses, to cause it to ‘give forth his water,’ when its flowing stream had been exhausted. From underneath this ragged spur of the north-easterly mountain range issued the now abundant stream.
“A circular wall, stoned up from the bottom with timeworn limestone blocks, was the first receptacle of the water. A marble watering-trough was near this wellbetter finished than the troughs at Beersheba, but of like primitive workmanship. The mouth of this well was only about three feet across it, and the water came to within three or four feet of the top. A little distance westerly from this well, and down the slope, was a second well, stoned up much like the first, but of greater diameter; and here again was a marble watering-trough. A basin or pool of water, larger than either of the wells, but not stoned up like them, was seemingly the principal watering-place. It was a short distance south-westerly from the second well, and it looked as if it and the two wells might be supplied from the same subterranean source the springs under the rock. Around the margin of the pool, as also around the stoned walls, camel and goat dung as if of flocks and herds for centuries was trodden down and commingled with the limestone dust so as to form a solid plaster-bed. Another and yet larger pool, lower down the slope was supplied with water by a stream which rippled and cascaded along its narrow bed from the upper pool; and yet beyond this, westward, the water gurgled away under the grass as we had met it when coming in, and finally lost itself in the parching wady, from which this oasis opened. The water itself was remarkably pure and sweet: unequalled by any wehad found after leaving the Nile.”
Meanwhile the late indefatigable Reverend F.W. Holland, after several ineffectual attempts, had at length successfully achieved a visit to the same spot, and an account of it from his field-book is given in the Quarterly Statement of the “Pal. Exploro Fund” for January 1884. The accompanying sketch map of his route places ‘Ain Kadeis at about the same distance as above from Petra and Nukl respectively, and gives it an elevation of one thousand four hundred and eighty-five feet above the sea. The place is thus described (page 9).
“There are three springs, two on the hill-side, and one in the bed of the wady; from the lower spring, on the hillside a good stream of water flows for about one hundred yards down the wady, forming pools at which the goats. are watered; the camels go to the spring. The upperspring on the hillside is a poor one now; it is built round with large rough stones to a depth of five feet, and there is a rude stone trough here and at the lowest spring. The three springs are not more than forty yards apart. The wady, which is stony throughout, has a bed, below the springs, nearly fifteen feet deep, between stony jorfs. As one ascends, the mountains become lower and less steep; there is much pasturage on them; the lower strata are chalk with flints; the upper, hard limestone (nummulitic?); large masses have fallen down and lie in the valley. There are a few fig-trees and a bed of coarse grass. About fifty yards higher up the wady than ‘Ain Kadeis there is a deeper well with four old watering-places; there are also traces of others near.”
Both these explorers strongly identify the site with Kadesh-barnea, and the conclusion has been adopted by a large number of Biblical scholars. The name and character of the place have certainly been established as coincident, but still the position is unsatisfactory. Ain Kadeis is nearly midway between the Arabah and the Mediterranean, and after all the arguments of Dr. Trumbull and others, this seems too far west to suit the requirements of the Scriptural account, particularly the journeys of the Israelites. Especially is the attempt to remove the well-established position of Mount Hor to some locality west of the Arabah, for the purpose of accommodating this identification (as Dr. Trumbull does not hesitate to do) too herculean an undertaking. That the comparatively late name, “Idumaea,” may have been extended so as to include the region immediately south of Palestine, we may very well concede, without admitting that the older designation of Edom” ever passed the Arabah, which is the natural and still existing boundary. The reasoning of Dr. Trumbull to the contrary, however ingenious and learned, seems too much like a piece of special pleading for a foregone and favorite theory, and parts of it are clearly defective, especially as to the conquering march of Joshua (Jos 15:19, where “from Kadesh-barnea even unto Gaza,” evidently marks the eastern and the western limits respectively), the alleged contradiction between the refusal of a passage by Edom to the Israelites, and their burial of Aaron on the traditional Mount Hor (for they did not thereby acquire any title or cross the territory), and the imaginary “Wall Road.” SEE SHUR.
We cannot help thinking that more thorough exploration of the north- eastern part of the Sinaitic desert will yet bring to light other oases of a similar character, and among them one still bearing the not uncommon name of Kadesh, or perhaps some trace of the distinctive term Barnea. Lieut. Conder expresses a similar conviction (Quar. Statement of the “Pal. Explor. Fund,” January 1885, page 21 sq.).
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Kadesh Barnea
Ain el Weibeh in the Arabah, 10 miles N. of the place where Mount Hor abuts on that valley. Three fountains issue from the chalky rock. Here wady el Ghuweir affords access northwestwards through mountainous Edom; from here accordingly Moses sent to ask a passage through Edom by “the king’s highway.” Barnea = “son of wandering”, i.e. Bedouin (Furst). “Country of convulsion,” compare Psa 29:8 (Speaker’s Commentary). “The wilderness of Kadesh,” i.e. the desert adjoining Kadesh; the northern part of the Paran wilderness was called Zin (Num 10:12; Num 13:21). The encampment from which the spies were sent and to which they returned (Num 13:26; Num 32:8); sometimes called Kadesh alone. Meribah Kadesh is the same (Eze 47:19; Eze 48:28 margin; Jos 15:3; Jos 15:23). The encampment at Kadesh is called Rithmah from retem, “the broom,” the most conspicuous shrub of the desert (Num 33:18).
Probably the encampment at Rithmah was during Israel’s first march toward Canaan; that at Kadesh was in the same locality, though on a different spot, 38 years afterward, in the 40th year, when they were about entering Canaan. The ancient name of Kadesh was En Mishpat (Gen 14:7). El Ain (identified by some with Kadesh because this site is called Gadis and the neighbouring plain, Abu Retemet, is like Rithmah) is too far N.W., 70 miles from Mount Hor and 60 from Mount Seir; but Kadesh was only one march from Mount Hor (Num 20:16; Num 20:22; Num 33:37), “on the edge of Edom,” “on its uttermost border”; on low ground (whereas El Ain is on high ground) from whence the spies “go up” to Canaan. A line drawn from E1 Ain to the river of Egypt (Jos 15:21-27) would cut the middle of the Negeb, and so cut away part of Judah’s inheritance. The true Kadesh must be more S.; Petra or Selah was too far in the heart of Edom to be Judah’s frontier, and “in the uttermost border of Edom.”
However, Palmer identifies Kadesh with El Ain as “one of the natural borders of the country; the Tih, a comparative desert, the Negeb or South, Palestine, and Syria forming an ascending scale of fertility.” The encampment at Rithmah (Num 33:18-19) was in summer the second year after the Exodus (Num 13:20), that at Kadesh in the same district the first month of the 40th year (Num 20:1). At the first encampment Israel stayed probably for months; they waited for the spies 40 days (Num 13:25); Moses and the tabernacle remained (Num 14:44), while the people vainly tried to reverse God’s sentence and to occupy Canaan (Deu 1:34-46): “ye abode in Kadesh many days” (a long indefinite time). Then Israel “compassed Mount Seir,” i.e. wandered in the desert of Paran, until all that generation died (Deu 2:1).
In this period were the 17 stages, Num 33:19-36. Lastly, Israel again was at Kadesh in the first month of the 40th year, and stayed for three or four months (Num 20:1-22-28; Num 33:38). Here Miriam died and was buried. Here water failed, and Moses by impatient striking of the rock, attribution of the miracle to himself and Aaron (“must we fetch,” etc.), and unbelief (“ye believed Me not, to sanctify Me”) in the goodness of God to an unworthy people, dishonoured God, and he and Aaron were adjudged the penalty of not entering Canaan (Num 20:12-13; compare Psa 106:32-33). From hence Moses sent to the king of Edom (Num 20:14, etc.).
On the messengers’ return Israel turned from Edom, leaving Kadesh finally, and after Aaron’s death at Mount Hor marched around Edom to Moab (Num 33:41-49). Kadesh (“holy”) may have been named from the long presence of the sanctuary and priests. En Mishpat, “fountain of judgment,” corresponds, judgment and sanctity emanating from the one divine source. Meribah Kadesh, “strife,” is a perversion of judgment; the opposites in the one name marking graphically the sad events connected with Kadesh. Kadesh gradually sank to its original obscurity as a watering place for the nomads of the desert. The cliffs at the mouth of wady el Ghuweir near Ain el Weibeh, and in front of the host in marching eastward through Mount Seir, may have been the scene of Moses’ striking the rock (cela, not tsuwr) (Num 20:7 ff). Merely certain occurrences and enactments are recorded of the 38 years’ wandering, in Num 15:1-19:22.
Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary
KADESH-BARNEA
The town of Kadesh-barnea (or Kadesh) was the main settlement in the far south of Palestine. It was an oasis town between the Wilderness of Zin to the north, the Wilderness of Paran to the south, the Wilderness of Shur to the west, and the Arabah to the east (Gen 16:7; Gen 16:14; Gen 20:1; Num 13:26; Num 20:1; see PALESTINE).
Kadesh appears to have been the Israelites main base during their forty years in the wilderness. It was the place where the twelve spies reported to the people after their fact-finding mission to Canaan, and where Moses planned the final journey to Canaan about forty years later (Num 13:25-26; Num 14:32-34; Num 20:14-21). Little is known of events at Kadesh during the intervening years. Two recorded incidents were Miriams death and Moses striking of the rock in search of water (Num 20:1-14; Num 27:14).
Moses intended that after the conquest of Canaan, Israels southern border would run from the Dead Sea through Kadesh-barnea to the Brook of Egypt, which it would follow to the Mediterranean Sea (Num 34:1-5). Though Israels conquest reached Kadesh, the town that later generations usually recognized as marking Israels southern border was Beersheba, almost fifty kilometres to the north. The wilderness of Zin lay between the two towns (Jos 10:40-41; Jos 15:1-3; 2Sa 17:11; 2Sa 24:2).
Fuente: Bridgeway Bible Dictionary
Kadesh-Barnea
Travellers are at a loss to determine whether the original Kabesh we read of Gen 14:7 is the same with the Kadesh, Num 13:26. And it is not clearly accounted for, wherefore Barnea was added to it. The term Kadesh means holy. Barnea is a compound of Bar, a son-and Nuah, one who is moving about. Perhaps Barnea might have been given to Kadesh, from the frequent movings about of Israel while in the wilderness state. And in this sense the name was well-termed, and may be said of the church always on earth. Oh! that our journeyings might be ever to Kadesh, and always as Kadesh; for surely Moses said, so in Jesus it may be said of the church now, “ye are an holy people unto the Lord thy God.” (Deu 7:6) It. was at Kadesh Miriam died. Here also was the memorable rebellion of Israel concerning water; and here the Lord’s grace notwithstanding that rebellion. (See Num 20:1-13; Psa 106:32-33)
Fuente: The Poor Mans Concordance and Dictionary to the Sacred Scriptures
Kadesh-Barnea
kadesh-barne-a ( , kadhesh barnea; , Kades): Mentioned 10 times; called also Kadesh simply. The name perhaps means the holy place of the desert of wandering. There are references to Kadesh in early history. At En-mishpat (the same is Kadesh) Chedorlaomer and his allies smote the Amalekite and Amorite. Abraham dwelt near Kadesh, and it was at Beer-lahai-roi between Kadesh and Bered that the Angel of Yahweh appeared to Hagar (Gen 14:7; Gen 16:14; Gen 20:1). It was an important camp of the Israelites during their wanderings, and seems to have been their headquarters for 38 years (Deu 1:2; Deu 2:14; Judith 5:14). There the returning spies found the camp (Num 13:26); there Miriam died and was buried (Num 20:1); from thence messengers were sent to the king of Edom (Num 20:14; Jdg 11:16 ff). There the people rebelled because of the want of water, and Moses brought water from the rock (Num 20:2 ff); it was called therefore Meribath – or Meriboth-Kadesh (Num 27:14; Eze 47:19; Eze 48:28). It was situated in the wilderness of Zin (Num 20:1; Num 33:36, Num 33:37) in the hill country of the Amorites (Deu 1:19), 11 days’ journey from Horeb, by the way of Mt. Seir (Deu 1:2), in the uttermost of the border of Edom (Num 20:16), and on the southern border, probably the Southeast corner, of Judah (Eze 47:19; compare Judith 19). See Cobern, Homiletic Review, April and May, 1914.
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Kadesh-barnea
Ka’desh-bar’ne-a. (Kadesh means holy; it is the same word as the Arabic name of Jerusalem, el-Khuds. Barnea means desert of wandering). This place, the scene of Miriam’s death, was the farthest point which the Israelites reached in their direct road to Canaan; it was also that whence the spies were sent, and where, on their return, the people broke out into murmuring, upon which their strictly penal term of wandering began. Num 13:3; Num 13:26; Num 14:29-33; Num 20:1; Deu 2:14.
It is probable that the term “Kadesh,” though applied to signify a “city,” yet had also a wider application to a region in which Kadesh-meribah certainly, and Kadesh-barnea probably, indicates a precise spot. In Gen 14:7, Kadesh is identified with En-mishpat, the “fountain of judgment”. It has been supposed, from Num 13:21; Num 13:26 and Num 20:1 that there were two places of the name of Kadesh, one in the wilderness of Paran and the other in that of Zin; but it is more probable that only one place is meant, and that Zin is but a part of the great desert of Paran.
(There has been much doubt as to the exact site of Kadesh; but Rev. H. Clay Trumbull of Philadelphia, visiting the spot in 1881, succeeded in rendering almost certain that the site of Kadesh is Ain Kadis (spelled also Gadis and Quadis); “the very same name, letter for letter in Arabic and Hebrew, with the scriptural fountain of Kadesh — the ‘holy fountain’, as the name means — which gushed forth when Moses smote the rock.” It lies 40 miles south of Beersheba and 165 northeast of Horeb, immediately below the southern border of Palestine. It was discovered in 1842 by the Rev. J. Rowlands of Queen’s College, Cambridge, England, whose discovery was endorsed by the great German geographer Ritter, by E.S. Palmer in his “Desert of the Exodus,” and by the “Imperial Bible Dictionary.”
Dr. Trumbull thus describes it: — “It is an extensive oasis, a series of wells, the water of which flows out from under such an overhanging cliff as is mentioned in the Bible story; and it opens into a vast plain or wadi large enough to have furnished a camping-ground for the whole host of Israel. Extensive primitive ruins are on the hills near it. The plain or wadi, also called Quadis, is shut in by surrounding hills so as to make it a most desirable position for such a people as the Israelites on the borders of hostile territory — such a position as leaders like Moses and Joshua would have been likely to select.”
(“It was carpeted with grass and flowers. Fig trees laden with fruit were against its limestone hillsides. Shrubs in richness and variety abounded. Standing out from the mountain range at the northward of the beautiful oasis amphitheater was the ‘large single mass or small hill of solid rock’ which Rowlands looked at as the cliff (sela) smitten by Moses to cause it to ‘give forth its water’ when its flowing had ceased. From beneath this cliff came the abundant stream. A well, walled up with timeworn limestone blocks, was the first receptacle of the water. Not far from this was a second well similarly walled, supplied from the same source. Around both these wells were ancient watering-troughs of limestone. Several pools, not walled up, where also supplied from the stream. The water was clear and sweet and abundant. Two of the pools were ample for bathing.” — Editor).
Fuente: Smith’s Bible Dictionary
KADESH-BARNEA
a town on the southern frontier of Canaan
Num 13:26; Num 32:8; Num 34:4; Deu 1:19; Deu 2:14; Jos 10:41; Jos 14:6
Fuente: Thompson Chain-Reference Bible
Kadesh-Barnea
a station of the Israelites, to which they returned again after thirty-eight years, is said to be in the wilderness of Zin, Num 13:21; Num 20:1; Deu 32:51; but in the wilderness of Paran, Num 12:16. In the Itinerary it is simply called Rithmah, the wilderness. Dr. Hales observes, that Wells, Shaw, the authors of the Universal History, &c, have greatly perplexed and obscured the geography of this Itinerary, by supporting that there were two places of this name distinct from each other. They consider the latter of them as situated on the western side of Mount Hor, toward the land of Canaan, and thus confound it with that Kadesh in the land of the Philistines, where Abraham sojourned, Gen 16:13; Gen 20:1. But that it lay on the east side of Mount Hor, is evident; for why should Moses send messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom, requesting permission to pass through his territories in the way to Canaan, if they were already at the verge of Palestine Num 20:14? This application, however, was necessary if his territories were situated between Canaan and the Israelites. The true situation of Kadesh is ascertained beyond a doubt, from its lying between Mount Hor and Ezion-Geber, on the Elanitic Gulf, Num 33:35-37.