And it went out to the south side to Maaleh-acrabbim. Or, perhaps, and it went to the southward of Maaleh-acrabbim, translated in Numbers 34:4, "the ascent of Acrabbim." The literal meaning of Maaleh-acrabbim is Scorpion Rise (see 1:36).
Keil thinks that it was a pass in the Mount Halak, or the Smooth Mountain, mentioned in Joshua 11:17, Joshua 12:7. "De Saulcy suggests the Wady Zouara, and testifies to the scorpions found under every pebble".
And Ainsworth, 'Travels in Asia Minor,' 2.354, says that some spots are almost uninhabitable in consequence. Knobel supposes it to be the pass es-Sufah on the road between Petra and Hebron. But the border of Judah seems to have gone in a southwesterly direction.
To Zin. Rather, in the direction of Zin. On the south side unto Kadesh-barnea. Or, as above, southward of Kadesh-barnea. The exact position of Kadesh-Burnea has not been ascertained. It was between the wilderness of Zin and that of Paran (Numbers 13:26; Numbers 20:1).
Dean Stanley identifies it with Petra, which was about 30 miles in a northeasterly direction from the Gulf of Akaba on the Red Sea, and close to Mount Her. A more recent traveller identifies it with Ain Gadis, about 60 miles to the westward of Petra, and he claims Winer, Kurz, Kalisch, and Knobel as supporters of his view.
The latter founds his view on the discovery of Ain Gadis by Rowlands, and supports it by the authority of Ritter. Ritter, however, as his translator informs us, embodied the results of the investigations of Mr.
Rowlands' while his work was preparing for the press, and did not give the matter that full consideration which he was accustomed to do. The chief objection to it is that (see vex. 1) Ain Gadis can hardly be described as on "the border of Edom."
The general view is that it lay somewhat to the northeast of Hezron and to the northwest of Petra, at the foot of the range of mountains which form the southern boundary of Judesa. Here the spies brought their report to Moses (Joshua 14:6, Joshua 14:7; Numbers 13:26).
Here Miriam was buried, and where Moses incurred the wrath of God from his mode of working the miracle which supplied the Israelites with water (Num, 20). It was "a city in the uttermost border" of Edom (Numbers 20:16), and it was some distance from Mount Hor, for we find it described as a journey (Numbers 20:22); and by passing from Kadesh to Mount Hor and thence by the way of the Red Sea, the Israelites "compassed the land of Edom" (Numbers 21:4), a fact which seems to prove that Petra and Kadesh-barnea were not the same place.
Kadesh is supposed by M. Chabas to be the "Qodesh of the country of the Amaor," or Amorites, in the monuments of Seti I. and Rameses II. It is depicted as "on a hillside with a stream on one side," and is thus distinguished from Qodesh of the Kheta or Hittites, which is in a flat country beside a lake.
Fetched a compass to Karkaa. Rather, was deflected in the direction of Karkaa. Nothing is known of the places here mentioned. Cf. Numbers 34:4, where Karkaa is not mentioned, but the deflection in the neighbourhood of Asmon is.