The Septuagint and the classical writers rendered Paran, as Pharan, and Ptolemy, the geographer, named a village (κώμη) Pharan, the position of which corresponds with the seat of the later Christian bishopric in the Wadi Feiran. He also named the southernmost point of the peninsula, the present Ras Mohammad, as the promontory of Pharan, and included the Pharanites among the inhabitants of Sinai.
Again, Pliny († a.d. 79) mentioned a variety of precious stone as sapenos or pharanites, so called from the country where it is found (xxvii. 40). Perhaps turquoise is meant, in which case Sapenos, a word otherwise unknown, may be connected with the name Sopd; Pharanites would refer to Pharan or to Pharaoh.
The Egyptologist Ebers was the first to suggest that the name Paran shows Egyptian influence, and may be the place-name Rahan plus the Egyptian article Pa, in the same way as Pa-kesem is the land of Kesem, i.e. Goshen.[70]
The word Rahan occurs in an Egyptian inscription of the Twelfth Dynasty, according to which an envoy coming from Egypt crossed Desher to the Rahan country.[71]
The word Raha as a place continues in different parts of the peninsula to the present day. The north-western part of the Tîh is called Gebel er Raha, and the wide sandy plain that extends north of the Gebel Musa is the Plain of Raha.[72]
According to the Bible, Ishmael “a wild man and an archer,” dwelt in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother, who was an Egyptian, “took him a wife out of Egypt.” The Septuagint rendered this as “out of Pharan of Egypt” (Gen. xvi. 12; xxi. 21). The Ishmaelites in the Bible are referred to Abraham himself, which shows that they were regarded as an allied stock by the Hebrews, a certain inferiority being implied by their having Egyptian blood in their veins. The acceptance of a joint divinity El seems to have made a bond of union between the twelve tribes of Ishmael, as it did between the tribes of Israel. According to Genesis the Ishmaelites dwelt from Havilah unto Shur, “living in houses and castles,” or rather in “tents and booths,” as the Septuagint rendered the passage (Gen. xxv. 16).
While Paran in the Bible was associated with Ishmael the adjoining land of Edom was connected with Esau, the incidents of whose story are more or less mythical, but a clue to them is yielded by the word Edom which signifies red in Aramaic.
Esau was red-haired at birth. “And the first came out red, all over like a hairy garment; and they called his name Esau” (Gen. xxv. 25). Again, Esau, in exchange for his birthright, i.e. herds and flocks and precedence after his father’s death, took “very red food,” literally the “red, red thing,” which the Septuagint rendered as “fiery red” (πυῤῥοῦ). In the further development of the story, the red thing is described as a pottage of red lentils. “And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom” (Gen. xxv. 30). The hairiness of Esau has been connected with Mount Seir, a word signifying rough;[73] on the same basis the idea of redness conveyed by the word Edom, is referable to the red sandstone of the district.
The Edomites, according to the Bible, took possession of the land of Uz (Lam. iv. 21), which was the land of Job (Job i. 1). Uz was described as the son of Aram, the son of Shem (Gen. x. 23), or, according to Masudi († 957), “Aud, the son of Aram, the son of Shem.”[74]
Uz and Aud are thus identified, and in keeping with this, Septuagint described Job as dwelling in the land “Ausitis.”