i.e., by the side of) the Arnon, which is in the desert, and that cometh out of the territory of the Amorites.” The Arnon, i.e., the present Wady Mojeb, is formed by the union of the Seyl (i.e., brook or river) Saïde, which comes from the south-east, not far from Katrane, on the pilgrim road, and the Lejum from the north-east, which receives the small rivers el Makhreys and Balua, the latter flowing from the pilgrim station Kalaat Balua, and then continues its course to the Dead Sea, through a deep and narrow valley, shut in by very steep and lofty cliffs, and covered with blocks of stone, that have been brought down from the loftier ground (Burckhardt, pp. 633ff.), so that there are only a few places where it is passable; and consequently a wandering people like the Israelites could not have crossed the Mojeb itself to force an entrance into the territory of the hostile Amorites.[1]
For the Arnon formed the boundary between Moab and the country of the Amorites. The spot where Israel encamped on the Arnon must be sought for in the upper part of its course, where it is still flowing “in the desert;” not at Wady Zaïde, however, although Burckhardt calls this the main source of the Mojeb, but at the Balua, which flows into the Lejum. In all probability these streams, of which the Lejum came from the north, already bore the name of Arnon; as we may gather from the expression, “that cometh out of the coasts of the Amorites.” The place of Israel's encampment, “beyond the Arnon in the desert,” is to be sought for, therefore, in the neighbourhood of Kalaat Balua, and on the south side of the Arnon (Balua). This is evident enough from Deu 2:24, Deu 2:26., where the Israelites are represented as entering the territory of the Amoritish king Sihon, when they crossed the Arnon, having first of all sent a deputation, with a peaceable request for permission to pass through his land (cf. Num 21:21.). Although this took place, according to Deu 2:26, “out of the wilderness of Kedemoth,” an Amoritish town, it by no means follows that the Israelites had already crossed the Arnon and entered the territory of the Amorites, but only that they were standing on the border of it, and in the desert which took its name from Kedemoth, and ran up to this, the most easterly town, as the name seems to imply, of the country of the Amorites. After the conquest of the country, Kedemoth was
- ↑ It is utterly inconceivable that a whole people, travelling with all their possessions as well as with their flocks, should have been exposed without necessity to the dangers and enormous difficulties that would attend the crossing of so dreadfully wild and so deep a valley, and that merely for the purpose of forcing an entrance into an enemy's country. - Ritter, Erdk. xv. p. 1207.
