Deuteronomy 1

Literally the Arabah. The Arabah looks like a massive trench cut into the earth, from the Sea of Galilee to the Gulf of Aqaba at the north tip of the Red Sea. The Sea of Galilee, the Jordan River, and the Dead Sea are all located in that basin, well below sea level. In more modern times, the term “Arabah” became identified mainly with the wasteland basin south of the Dead Sea.

The locations mentioned here are uncertain. Some scholars place them in the vicinity of Mount Nebo. Paran and Hazeroth were locations passed earlier in the trip, on the road to Moab in what is now the country of Jordan (Numbers 11:35; 12:16). The other towns aren’t mentioned again in the Old Testament.

Literally Horeb, a Hebrew word that can mean “dry,” “desolate,” or “desert.” But here, it reads more like a name. Most Bible scholars say it’s an alternate name for Mount Sinai—much like “Zion” is another name for “Jerusalem.” The Bible doesn’t pinpoint which mountain it was that Moses met with God, first at a burning bush and later to receive the Ten Commandments. But ancient traditions locate Mount Sinai in the southern part of the Sinai Peninsula. Egyptians since ancient times have called it Mount Moses, Jabal Musa in Arabic. Elevation is more than a mile high, at 7,497 feet (2,285 meters).

Scholars most often identify Kadesh-barnea, also called Kadesh, as the spring-fed oasis at Tel el-Qudeirat, on Egypt’s side of the border with Israel. Another contender is Ain Qadeis, also on Egypt’s side of the border. Bible writers put the location in different deserts: Zin Desert (Numbers 20:1) and Paran Desert (Numbers 13:26). Some theorize there were two Kadesh oases. West Kadesh and East Kadesh. But not many scholars seem to buy into that.

As a raven flies, the distance from Mount Sinai to what many identify as Kadesh-barnea is about 170 miles (275 km). The meandering trade routes on the ground, however, lengthen the trip by at least a few miles. Travelers in Bible times seemed to consider a fair day’s journey to be about 20 miles (32 km). At that rate, it would take a person about nine days to make the trip. Ten for anyone stopping to observe the Sabbath.

Mount Seir isn’t a mountain. It’s a region of mountains. The territory stretches from the Dead Sea southward along the Rift Valley to the Red Sea’s Gulf of Aqaba. Moses may have led the Israelites toward those mountains at the northern tip of the Gulf, before turning west toward the Mediterranean Sea.

This seems to refer to Canaanites, some scholars say. In Genesis 15:16, “the sinful Amorites” were people who settled in Canaan. God promised that Abraham’s descendants would return from a “foreign land” and punish them. It’s unclear where the native Amorite homeland was. Herders like the Amorites and many of the time, tended to follow the good grazing pastures. The Amorite language was like the Canaanite language. Partly for that reason, some scholars say Amorites were Canaanites or Canaan’s neighbor. Some place their native homeland mainly in a hilly region called Mount Bishri (Jebel Bishri), in what is now central Syria. Others place them anywhere between the Euphrates River and the Mediterranean Sea—from modern Iraq in the east to Israel and Lebanon in the west.

In Hebrew, it’s literally the valley of Eschol, a word that means “cluster,” as in cluster of grapes. Location of the ancient valley is unknown. Some have guessed Beit Ishkahil, about four miles (6 km) northwest of Hebron. But that location is uncertain. Scouts would have had to carry those grapes about 75 miles (120 km) to reach the Israelite camp, just beyond the southern border of what is now Israel. Typically, 20 miles (32 km) was a reasonable day’s walk.

Descendants of Anak—the Anakites—are described as giants (Deuteronomy 2:10-11, see also Numbers 13:22).

From a Hebrew word that means “audacity.” As in, “you have the nerve.”

The Hebrew word is ʽānān. It can mean “cloud,” “smoke,” or “mist.”

Many Bibles say “Red Sea.” But the Hebrew words are yam suph, “sea reeds.” It can mean any body of water where reeds grow along the banks. Moses and the Hebrew refugees escaped from the Egyptian army through a path God made in one of these mysterious bodies of water. Scholars usually track Moses and the Hebrews escaping Egypt by walking southeast, out of the Nile Delta fields and toward the Red Sea and the Sinai Peninsula. They would have passed through lake regions along what is now the Suez Canal, which connects the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. These lakes and ponds reportedly had reeds growing along the banks, like the ones the Bible says grew along the Nile River and helped anchor Baby Moses in a basket (Exodus 2:3).

Amorites apparently repelled the invaders from the hills of Seir, a mountainous stretch south of the Dead Sea, also known as Edom. Amorites pushed them as far south as Hormah, whose location remains uncertain. But it sounds as though the attackers pushed them away from the highlands and back southward. Some have placed Hormah in or around the Negev badlands. Contenders include three ruin mounds within a dozen miles (16 km) of Beersheba: Tell el-Meshash, Tell esh-Sheri‘ah and Tell el-Milh. A “tell” is usually a mound of earth covering the ruins of a city. They sometimes look like an odd bump on the ground, a village-size speedbump.