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Kadesh-barnea

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History

Kadesh, also called Kadesh-barnea, was an oasis on the southern edge of Canaan, where the Negev meets the Sinai desert. Most scholars identify it with Ain el-Qudeirat, the richest spring of northern Sinai, and the mound beside it, Tell el-Qudeirat, in today's Egypt, about 75 km south-southwest of Beersheba. The identification is not certain: nineteenth-century explorers had pointed to another spring, Ain Qedeis, which keeps the old name; Qudeirat won favour in the twentieth century, after Leonard Woolley and T. E. Lawrence surveyed the area in 1914.

Genesis calls it En-mishpat, the spring of judgment, where the kings who came with Chedorlaomer smote the Amalekites, and says that Abraham dwelt between Kadesh and Shur. In Numbers and Deuteronomy it is Israel's chief station in the wilderness. From Kadesh Moses sent the spies to search the land, Caleb among them; here Miriam died and was buried; here the people strove for water, and the water was called Meribah; and from here Moses sent messengers to the king of Edom before moving on to Mount Hor. Deuteronomy counts thirty-eight years from Kadesh-barnea to the brook Zered. Numbers and Joshua make Kadesh-barnea a point on the southern border of the land and of Judah.

Moshe Dothan dug at the tell in 1956 and Rudolph Cohen in 1976–1982. They found Iron Age remains: in Cohen's reading an oval fortress of the tenth century BC and rectangular forts of the eighth to early sixth, with Hebrew ostraca; others see first an open settlement and then a single fort built in the later eighth century and destroyed about 600 BC. No remains older than about the twelfth century BC have been found at the tell, and nothing from the fifteenth or the thirteenth century BC, the dates usually given for the wilderness years. Some take this as a problem for the identification or for the narrative; others answer that a camp in the desert would leave no trace, or that Kadesh meant the whole group of springs.

After the fort fell, people lived at the site in the Persian period, probably until the fourth century BC. Ancient tradition looked for Kadesh elsewhere. Josephus says that Miriam was buried on a mountain called Sin before Israel came near Petra, and in the fourth century AD Eusebius placed Kadesh-barnea in the desert that reaches to Petra, where the tomb of Miriam was still shown.

Scripture: Gen 14:5–7; Gen 20:1; Num 13:26; Num 32:8; Josh 14:6–7; Num 20:1; Num 20:13; Num 27:14; Num 20:14–16; Num 20:22; Deut 1:46; Deut 2:14; Num 34:4; Josh 15:3

Checked against its sources; not yet read by a historian.

Verses (24)

Gen 14:7

And they returned, and came to En-mishpat, which is Kadesh, and smote all the country of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites, that dwelt in Hazezon-tamar.

Gen 16:14

Wherefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered.

Gen 20:1

And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south country, and dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned in Gerar.

Num 13:26

And they went and came to Moses, and to Aaron, and to all the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh; and brought back word unto them, and unto all the congregation, and shewed them the fruit of the land.

Num 20:1

Then came the children of Israel, even the whole congregation, into the desert of Zin in the first month: and the people abode in Kadesh; and Miriam died there, and was buried there.

Num 20:14

And Moses sent messengers from Kadesh unto the king of Edom, Thus saith thy brother Israel, Thou knowest all the travail that hath befallen us:

Num 20:16

And when we cried unto the LORD, he heard our voice, and sent an angel, and hath brought us forth out of Egypt: and, behold, we are in Kadesh, a city in the uttermost of thy border:

Num 20:22

And the children of Israel, even the whole congregation, journeyed from Kadesh, and came unto mount Hor.

Num 27:14

For ye rebelled against my commandment in the desert of Zin, in the strife of the congregation, to sanctify me at the water before their eyes: that is the water of Meribah in Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin.

Num 32:8

Thus did your fathers, when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to see the land.

Num 33:36

And they removed from Ezion-gaber, and pitched in the wilderness of Zin, which is Kadesh.

Num 33:37

And they removed from Kadesh, and pitched in mount Hor, in the edge of the land of Edom.

Num 34:4

And your border shall turn from the south to the ascent of Akrabbim, and pass on to Zin: and the going forth thereof shall be from the south to Kadesh-barnea, and shall go on to Hazar-addar, and pass on to Azmon:

Deut 1:2

( There are eleven days’ journey from Horeb by the way of mount Seir unto Kadesh-barnea.)

Deut 1:19

And when we departed from Horeb, we went through all that great and terrible wilderness, which ye saw by the way of the mountain of the Amorites, as the LORD our God commanded us; and we came to Kadesh-barnea.

Deut 1:46

So ye abode in Kadesh many days, according unto the days that ye abode there.

Deut 2:14

And the space in which we came from Kadesh-barnea, until we were come over the brook Zered, was thirty and eight years; until all the generation of the men of war were wasted out from among the host, as the LORD sware unto them.

Deut 9:23

Likewise when the LORD sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, Go up and possess the land which I have given you; then ye rebelled against the commandment of the LORD your God, and ye believed him not, nor hearkened to his voice.

Josh 10:41

And Joshua smote them from Kadesh-barnea even unto Gaza, and all the country of Goshen, even unto Gibeon.

Josh 14:6

Then the children of Judah came unto Joshua in Gilgal: and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite said unto him, Thou knowest the thing that the LORD said unto Moses the man of God concerning me and thee in Kadesh-barnea.

Josh 14:7

Forty years old was I when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadesh-barnea to espy out the land; and I brought him word again as it was in mine heart.

Josh 15:3

And it went out to the south side to Maaleh-acrabbim, and passed along to Zin, and ascended up on the south side unto Kadesh-barnea, and passed along to Hezron, and went up to Adar, and fetched a compass to Karkaa:

Judg 11:16

But when Israel came up from Egypt, and walked through the wilderness unto the Red sea, and came to Kadesh;

Judg 11:17

Then Israel sent messengers unto the king of Edom, saying, Let me, I pray thee, pass through thy land: but the king of Edom would not hearken thereto. And in like manner they sent unto the king of Moab: but he would not consent: and Israel abode in Kadesh.

King James Version

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