The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 173

oan hardly be Mount Seir in itB ordinary reBtrict~d Bense. If the name Seir haB to be sought anywhere outBide of Edom proper, it would Beem more natural to find it in the northern part of the wilderness of Paran, where it iB said to be still common, than anywhere else. And if thiB extension of Edom can be established, there appears t& be no further objection of any moment to the western Bite. Mount Hor would BtiH be on the coaBt or edge of the land of Edom, because it would be the meeting-point 'of the two boundarieB, the one Btriking westwardB acrosB the Arabah, the other ·southwardB down the Arabah. The abBence of any name between Kadesh and Hor is not concluBive, because the people certainly made journeys of several days withont ony regular halt (see note on eh. x. 33). Upon the whole the question may fairly be stated thus:- 1. The general tenor of the narrative would lead us to suppose that the host of Israel had marched from Sinai through the midst of the desert of Paran, by the ronta which led most directly to the extreme south of Palestine ; and if they did this, they muBt have passed near to Rowland's Kadesh. 2. The natural features of this site, its position with regard to the desert of et-Tih and the Wady Murreh, its distance from Sinai (Dent. i. 2), and its proximity to the Negeb and the plateau of Rakhmah, seem to harmonise better with all that we read about Kadesh than the corresponding characteristics of the rival site. 3. The general effect 0£ the various mentions of Kadesh, both before and after, is undeniably, though not decidedly, in favour of the western site. 4. The minor arguments which are urged on one side or the other may be allowed to balance one another, for it is certain that neither is free from difficulty. 5. The difficulty with respect to Edom is a very serious one, and with many will be decisive against Rowland's Kadesh. 6. What must tum the scale one way or the other is the independent evidence that the border of Edom extended at this time across the Arabah, and included the north- east portion of the desert of Paran, viz., the mountain mass which fronted the southern edge of Canaan. There is some evidence that this was the case, and it cannot be met by the simple assertion that the territory of Edom consisted only of Mount Seir, and that Mount Seir lay wholly to the east of the Arabah. It is to be expected that travel and research in these regions now so inaccessible, and, after all said and written, BO little known, will before long bring fresh and more decisive evidence to light. In the mean time that view is consistently maintained in these notes whicl1, if it had apparently the greatest difficulty to surmount, yet receives the greatest amount of positive support from the general and incidental testimony of the Scripture record. One lesson emerges clearly from the obscurity involving this question, which appe1us to us BO important to the understanding of God's holy word: the geography of the Bible must be of very small importance indeed as compared with its moral and religiouB teachings. These are not n:ffected by any ignorance of localities and routes. The rebellion of Kadesh h11s exactly the s11me moral for us (Heh. iii. 19; iv. 11) whether Kadesh was in the Azazimat or the Arabah; and the very uncertainty in which its site is involved mny be deBigned to remind us that it is very eaBy to exaggerate the nlue of theBe outward det11ils to the neglect of those .inwnrd teachings which alone are in the highest sense important.  154 THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. [CBB, ltIJI. 1 XIV.