In the poetical books "desert" is foand as the trans- lation of Midbar in Deut xxxii, 10 ; Job xxiv, 5 ; Isa. xxi, 1 ; Jer. xxv, 24. See Midbas.
2. Arabah^ C^??^ Sept *Apa/3a and dvafxii), from n;^9, arab% to dr^ up (Gesenius, Tkes, p. 1060), i. e. parched ('* desert" in Isa. xxxv, 1, 6 ; xl, 8 ; xK, 19 ; li, 8; Jer. ii, 6; xvii, 6; 1, 12; Ezek. xlvH, 8; else- where usually ** plain**), which is either applied to any arid tracts in general, or specially to the Arabah (as it is still called), or lone desert tract or plain of the Jot- dan and Dead Sea, shut in by mountains, and extend- ing from the lake orTiberias to the Elanitic Gulf; called by the Greeks A{rX(6v (Euseb. Onomcut.), The more extended application of the name by the He- brews is successfilly traced by professor Robinson from Gesenius : ** In connection with the Red Sea and Elath" (Deut i, 1 ; ii, 8). " As extending to the lake of Tiberias" (Josh, xii, 8; 2 Sam. iv, 7 ; 2 Kings xxv, 4). *' Sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea" (Josh, iii, 16 ; xii, 3; Deut iv, 49). **The arboth (plains) of Jeri- cho" (Josh. V, 10 ; 2 Kings xxv, 6). " Plains (arboth) of Moab,** i. e. opposite Jericho, probably pastured by the Moabites, though not within their proper territory (Deut xxiv, 1, 8 ; Num. xxii, 1). In the East, wide, extended plains are usually liable to drought, and con- sequently to barrenness. Hence the Hebrew language describes aplain, a detert^ and an unfinmtful waste by this same word. Occasionally, indeed, this term is em- ployed to denote any dry or sterile region, as in Job xxiv, 5, and Isa. xl, 8. It is thus used, however, only in poetry, and is equivalent to Midbar^ to which it ia the poetic parallel in Isa. xxxv, 1 : ** The wilderness (Midbar) shall be glad for them, and the desert (Ara- bah) shfdl rejoice, etc. ;" also in xii, 19. Midbar may be regarked as describing a region hi relation to its use by man — ^a pastoral region ; Arabah^ in relation to its physical qualities — a wilderness (Stanley, Palest. p. 481). But in the vast majority of cases in which it occurs in the Bible, Arabah is the specific name given either to the whole, or a part of the deep valley ex- tending from Tiberias to the Gulf of Akabah. With the article h2*^^n, it denotes, in the historical por- tions of Scripturej the whole of the valley, or at least that part of it included in the territory of the Israel- ites (Deut. i, 7 ; iii, 17 ; Josh, xii, 1 ; etc.) ; when the word is applied to other districts, or to distinct sections of the valley, the -article is omitted, and the plural number is used. Thus we find ^*ihe plains of Moab*'
DESERT
758
DESK
(ni3'l5, Nam. xxii, 1, etc); ''(he plaint of Jericho" (Josh! It, W);''the plaint of the wilderness" (2 Sam. xvii, 16). The soatiiem section of ttiis sterile valley still rotoins its ancient name, el'Arabah (Robinson, Bib, Ret, i, 169; ii, 186; SUnley, Palett, p. 84). It appears, therefore, that this term, when osed, as it in- Tariably is in the topographical records of the Bible, with the definite article, means that very depressed and enclosed region — the deepest and the hottest chasm in the world— the sunken valley north and south of the Dead Sea, but more particularly the former. True, in the present depopulated and neglected state of Pal- estine, the Jordan Valley is as arid and desolate a re- gion as can be met with, but it was not always so. On the contrary, we have direct testimony to the fact that when €he Israelites were flourishing, and later in the Roman times, the case was emphatically the re- verse. Jericho (q. v.), "the city of palm-trees," at the lower end of the valley, Bethshean (q. v.) at the upper, and Phasaelis in the centre, were famed both in Jewish and pro&ne history for the luxuriance of their vegetation (Joseph.il fit xviii, 2, 2; xvi, 6,2). When the abundant water-resources of the valley were prop* erly husbanded and distributed, the tropical heat caused not barrenness, but tropical fertility, and here grew the balsam, the sugar-cane, and other plants re- quiring great heat, but also rich soil, for their culture. Arabah^ in the sense of the Jordan Valley, is transla- ted by the word " desert" only in Ezek. xlvii, 8. In a more general sense of waste, deserted country — a meaning easily suggested by the idea of excessive heat contained in the root— '^desert," as the rendering of Arabahy occurs in the prophets and poetical books ; as Isa. XXXV, 1, 6; xl, 8; xli, 19; 11, 8; Jer. ii, 6; v, 6; xvii, 6 ; 1, 12 ; but this general sense is never found in the historical books. In these, to repeat once more, Arabah always denotes the Jordan Valley, the Gh^ of the modem Arabs. See Ababah.
8. Ybshtmon', "ji^'^^J (Sept. awSpoc and <pi;/ioc), from D^^, to lie tocute ("wilderness," Deut. xxxii, 10 ; Psa. lxviii,7 ; "solitaiy," Psa. cvii, 4), in the historical books is used with the definite article, apparently to denote the waste tracts on both sides of the Dead Sea. In all these cases it is treated as a proper name in the A. V. : thus in Num. xxi, 20, " The top of Pisgah, which looketh towards Jeshimon.^^ See also Beth- Jesimoth. Without the article it occurs in a few passages of poetry, in the following of which it is ren- dered "desert:" Psa. Ixxviii, 40; cvi,14; Isa. xliii, 19, 20. This term expresses a greater extent of uncul- tivated country than the others (1 Sam. xxiii, 19, 24 ; Isa. xliii, 19, 20). It is especially applied to that des- ert of peninsular Arabia in which the Israelites so- journed under Moses (Num. xxi, 20 ; xxiii, 28). This was the most terrible of the deserts with which the Israelites were acquainted, and the only recU desert in their immediate neighborhood. It is described under Arabia, as is also that Eastern desert extending from the eastern border of the country beyond Judiea to the Euphrates. It is emphatically called "the Desert," without any proper name, in Exod. xxiii, 31 ; Deut. xi, 24. To this latter the term is equally applicable in the following poetical passages : Deut. xxxii, 10 ; Psa. Ixviii, 7 ; Ixxviii, 40 ; cvi, 14, It would appear fit)m the reference in Deuteronomy — "waste, howling wilderness," that this word was intended to be more expressive of utter wasteness than any of the others. In 1 Sam. xxiii, 19, and xxvi, 1, it evidently means the wilderness of Judah.— Kitto, 8. v. ; Smith, s. v. See Jeshimon.