[220]. Trumbull, Kadesh-barnea (1884).
[221]. Numb. xiii. 21 seems to be a later exaggeration when compared with the following verse. No argument, however, can be drawn from the statement that the spies were absent only ‘forty days,’ since here, as elsewhere, ‘forty’ merely means an unknown length of time.
[222]. Eshcol, however, was already the name of an Amorite chieftain of Mamre in the time of Abraham (Gen. xiv. 13).
[223]. Numb. xxi. 1-3 is a combination of this abortive attempt and the subsequent conquest of Arad and Zephath by Judah and Simeon (Judg. i. 16, 17), and is intended to resume the thread of the history which had been broken by the insertion of chapter xv.
[224]. In Numb. xx. 1-13 a tradition about the waters of Meribah takes the place of a history of the long period that elapsed between the first and the second arrival at Kadesh, during which the numerous series of stations mentioned in Numb. xxxiii. 19-36 was passed. A comparison with Exod. xvii. 1-7 and Deut. xxxiii. 8 seems to show that the story of ‘the water of Meribah’ has been transferred from Rephidim to Kadesh. At Kadesh, indeed, there would have been no want of water (see Gen. xiv. 7), and it may be that the meaning of the word Meribah, ‘contention,’ has been the cause of the transference. En-Mishpat, ‘the Spring of Judgment,’ where contentions were decided, had been for centuries the name of the spring at Kadesh-barnea. As for the name of Zin, it possibly signifies ‘the dry place.’
[225]. Gen. xxxvi. 27; 1 Chron. i. 42.
[226]. In Deut. x. 6, 7 (which has been interpolated in the middle of the narrative of the legislation at Mount Sinai), the order of events is: (1) Departure from Beeroth of Beni-Yaakan to Mosera, (2) death of Aaron at Mosera, (3) departure to Gudgodah, (4) departure to Yotbath. In Numb. xx., xxxiii. 30-39 it is, on the contrary: (1) Departure from Hashmonah to Moseroth, (2) departure to Beni-Yaakan, (3) departure to Hor-hagidgad, the Gudgodah of Deuteronomy, (4) departure to Yotbathah, (5) departure to Ebronah, (6) departure to Ezion-geber, (7) departure to Kadesh, (8) departure to Mount Hor, (9) death of Aaron on Mount Hor.
[227]. The passage was already corrupt in the time of the Septuagint translators. But instead of eth-wâhab, their text reads eth-zâhâb. If this was correct, the reference would probably be to Dhi-Zahab, ‘(the mines) of gold’ which, according to Deut. i. 1, was not far from Sûph.
[228]. Zeitschrift des Palästina Vereins, xiv. pp. 142 sq. Tell ’Ashtereh is the Ashteroth-Karnaim of Gen. xiv. 5.
[229]. Professor Erman reads them Akna-Zapn, perhaps Yakin-Zephon, ‘Jachin of the North.’ Above the figures is the winged solar disk (Erman, Der Hiobstein in the Zeitschrift des Palästina Vereins, xiv. pp. 210, 211).