NEGEB (2330, lit. ‘the dry’; LXX vdye8, ἡ ἔρημος) was a name specially applied to that district south of Judah which in comparison with the rest of Pal. was waterless.* From the fact that this region did lie to the south of Judea rose the later use of the word to indicate that point of the compass.+ This use became so habitual, the original sense of Negeb as a geographical term so obscured, that AV ignored the distinction. Wilton (The Negeb, London, 1863) was among the first to call attention to its exact sense, and RV has restored the more accurate tr®. About forty passages in OT can be understood only when this is remembered. Thus, e.g., Abraham is represented (Gn 13!) as going up from Egypt into the land of the Negeb, while of course the direction of his march was not south- wards but northwards.
The hill-country (197) of Judah near Hebron marks the limit of the Negebon the north. On the E. its mountains form steep and barren precipices above the Southern Ghor and the apabate W. it descends more gradually and with wider wadis toward the sandy tract along the Mediterranean. On the S. the plateau of Jebel el-Magrah, ‘about 70 miles long and 40 to 50 broad,’ marks the natural boundary, Sante it is probable that, when the inhabitants were able to possess themselves of what are now the mountains of the Azazimeh, the name of Negeb may have extended to these also.
The entire district is mountainous, composed of ridges, which run in general from E. to W. and which rise from el-Magrah towards the ‘hill’ of Judah in a succession of great terraces. These are drained by a number of wadis, shorter and more abrupt on the E., wider and more gradual on the west. One result of this characteristic of the Negeb was that no great road ever ran through it from north to south. Trade and war flowed be- tween Pal. and Egypt along ‘the way of the sea,’ the shore-road by Gaza and the Wady el- Arish. The peoples of the N. and N.E, would seek Egypt
* Cf. the modern Daroma with the same meaning and applied to part of the same region.
+ Cf. the use of 7) (lit. ‘ seawards,’ i.¢. Mediterrancanwards) in the sense of west.
NEGEB
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by what is the modern Hajj road, which leaves the ΝΑ το precipices well to the W. of it. Traders fron Gaza to Akabah and Arabia could avoid the worst of these mountains by skirting them on the W. and crossing into the Arabah to the south- ward of Jebel el-Magrah. Only the men of Hebron and 5, Judah, in order to reach these points, would probably be forced to climb one of the steep passes of Magrah—Yemen, Sufah, or Fikreh.* The country was always isolated. A further consequence of this character belonging to the district was that the Negeb formed a natural frontier to Judah on thesouth. Noarmy, especiall if it possessed cavalry or chariots, could reac Hebron and Jerus. in this direction. Only once do we read of an invasion entering by this route, when Chedorlaomer (Gn 14), after rounding the S. end of the Dead Sea, led his army across the ‘ plateau of the Amalekites,’ and so fell on Hazazon- tamar.t
In comparison with Judah the country is barren and waterless, though in comparison with the desert et-Tih it is fertile. ‘Almost sudden was the transition to the upland wilderness, the Negeb, a series of rolling hills clad with scanty herbage here and there, especially on their northern faces. Nothing can be barer than the south-country of Judah, neither grand desolation, nor wild, but utter barrenness—not a tree nor shrub, but stunted herbage covered with myriads of white snails which afford food to thousands of birds.’ So writes Tristram (Land of Israel, p. 360 f.), and he adds that the suddenness of the transition (he was travelling northwards) has a geological cause, because the soft limestone covers on these hills the hard crystalline which makes the south wilder- ness hopeless. But Palmer (Desert of Exodus, vol. ii.) states that there are abundant signs that this region in earlier times was GAL wad main- tained a large population. Toward the S. there are many rude cairns from a prehistoric period, and hdzérim or stone enclosures for folding sheep. Toward the N., and especially the N. W., the ruins of towns are frequent, the hillsides are covered with flint-heaps over which to train vines, many of the wadis show signs of cultivation in terraces and dams which would keep and use the winter torrents that stream through these. This latter feature of the cultivation largely determined the fate of the Negeb. The artificial character of the irrigation, without which cultivation was impossible, depended for its continuance upon
e and settled order among the ulation. Vhenever this was granted to the Negeb, its towns bloomed into a fitful importance; but, whenever this ceased, the neglected works fell into ruin, the desert reasse itself, the Bedawin swarmed in from the south, or the people reverted to that earlier condition. And what has always aided that reversion has been that the country when in its natural condition is stated to be the very ground for browsing camels.
Thus the Negeb was the favourite home of the early Israelites, while they were still nomads. Here their forefathers are represented as wander- ing between the more settled Egypt and Palestine (Abraham Gn 20', Isaac 24", Jacob 37! 46°). The gine home of the traditional Avvim may be looked for in this district (Jos 13+), and of them the chief characteristic which is noted (Dt 2%) is that they ‘dwelt’ in Adzérim, those stone en- closures of a nomad-race which depends on its tlocks. But, when Israel approached this border