Procesos para la declaración de incobrables, prescripciones y otras causas de

Biblical scholars have also assum ed that the land o f these Phili­ stines com prised the Gaza coastlands. T h e y have taken it for g ranted that it included no territory outside coastal Palestine, particularly as this c o un try clearly carries their nam e (for the Syrian Palestine and Canaan, see C h ap ter i). T he m ention o f G erar in Genesis 26 in association w ith plstym (invariably taken to be ‘the Philistines’), in addition to its m en tio n in Genesis 10 in connection w ith ‘z h or ‘Gaza’, seemed to th em sufficient p r o o f that this place could only have been located in coastal Palestine.

Further, apart from the fact that the sydn and ‘zh o f Genesis 10 appeared to be readily identifiable w ith the Syrian Sidon and Gaza, m o st scholars have also assum ed th at the Biblical h-ngb was non e other than the Palestinian N eg eb desert (Arabic

al-Naqab, or nqb), th o u g h som etim es adm itting that the H e ­

b rew ’rs h-ngb in the context o f Genesis 20 could have m eant quite sim ply ‘the so uth c o u n try ’, w hich they nonetheless take to be sou th ern Palestine. Beersheba, o r b’r sb‘ (alias sb'h, or ‘Shibah’), seem ed to refer to no th in g oth er than present-day B ir al-Sab‘, in the sam e area. H o w ev er, w h e n Biblical archaeo­ logists excavated the Palestinian Bir al-Sab‘ - a distinctly Arabic nam e - the earliest rem ains they found on the exact site, as already noted, came fro m the relatively late R o m an or B yzan­ tine period, w hen m o st parts o f rural Syria w ere already becom ­ ing rapidly Arabicised. Fortifications tenuously claimed to be Israelite, and dating perhaps fro m Biblical times, were recently discovered in the area, b u t only at a distance o f several kilo­ m etres fro m the tow n.

In Arabic, Bir al-Sab‘ m eans ‘Well o f the W ild Beast’, although it can also be u n d ersto o d to m ean ‘Well o f the Seven’. W ith the latter m eaning, it can be taken to be an A rabic rendering o f the H e b re w b’r sb‘, w hich in an aw k w ard w ay can m ean ‘Well o f Seven’ (not ‘Well o f the Seven’, w hich w o u ld be b’r h-sb1). M o re plausibly, the H e b re w nam e w o u ld m ean ‘Well o f A bundance’. T h e alternative nam e given to the same place in Genesis 26, w hich is sb‘h (in the fem inine form ), w o u ld also m ean ‘A b u n ­ dance, Satiety’. T o m ean ‘Well o f A b un d ance’, the Arabic fo rm o f b’r sb‘ w o u ld have to be Bir Shaba1 (b’r sb‘) o r Bir Shaba'ah

(b’r sb‘h) rather than B ir al-Sab‘ (b’r sb‘). This, added to the

negative archaeological evidence, argues against the Palestinian HIr al-Sab‘ being the Biblical Beersheba.

T o be fair, how ever, m o st Biblical scholars adm it that locat­ ing G erar betw een the Palestinian Gaza and Blr al-Sab‘ is problem atical. A standard w o rk o f Biblical geography (Krae- ling, p. 80) describes the situation as follows:

Ju st w h ere G erar was situated is still uncertain and depends on h o w one locates oth er tow ns in this general area . . . In late R o m a n tim es there was a district Geraritike, evidently so n am ed because it was com posed prim arily o f the old Gerar territory , and at that tim e Beersheba was included in it. Tell

Jemmeh, an im p o rta n t m o u n d south o f Gaza, w hich was

partly excavated by Flinders Petrie in 1927, was identified by h im w ith Gerar. Som e scholars do u b ted this . . . and favoured Tell esh-SherVa n o rth w est o f Beersheba. A ccording to a 1961 report, how ever, Israeli archaeologists have found that a m o u n d n o t far from there, on the road fro m Beersheba to Gaza, Tell Abu Hureira, w ith pre-H y k so s remains, has greater im portance th an either o f these tw o tells, and m erits equation w ith G erar (cf. Simons, par. 369).

O n e p ro b le m w ith the search for G erar betw een Beersheba and Gaza arises from the fact that the to w n is described in Genesis 20 as falling betw een Kadesh (qds) and Shur (swr). N o places having such nam es can be identified in the G aza- Beersheba area today, i f w e assume that this area could have been the G eraritike o f late R o m an times. In fact, the identifica­ tions o f the tw o places indicated w ith sites in southern Palestine and the Sinai peninsula are particularly lame. Kraeling su m m a r­ ises:

T h e p o in t Kadesh is p robably a fixed one (p. 69) . . . Kadesh lay in the eVArish - Raphia - Q o seim eh triangle, w hich, indeed, is the only district in the w h o le Sinaitic region in w hich a n o m ad g ro u p o f any size could have existed for any length o f tim e. T h e survey o f the Israeli N egeb by N elson G lueck . . . since 1951, has established the fact that there was

considerable occupation o f this region in the M iddle B ronze period and again in Iron Age II, and thereafter in N abataean and late R o m an times . . . A place called ‘A in Qedeis was discovered in the appropriate area in 1842 by J. Row lands . . . It w as rediscovered by H. C. T ru m b u ll w h o publicized it in 1884. A t nearb y ‘A in el-Qudeirat, w h ich is a far m ore copious spring, lies a m o u n d representing a settlem ent w ith Iron A ge sherds. A ccording to Glueck, this is the chief Iron Age site in the w hole area (p. 117) . . . Shur is believed to be the H e b re w term for the E g y ptian defense line o f the Isthm us o f Suez, th o u g h that w o rd , w h ich means ‘w all’, does n o t quite accurately describe these defenses. A ccording to the French archaeologist Cledat, w h o explored the region, they seem to have consisted rather o f disconnected fortification posts. H o w e v er that m ay be, the w a y to Shur (drk swr, Genesis 16:7) is probably the ancient tran sp o rt route to E g y p t fro m Beersheba, nam ed Darb el Shur b y W oolley and Law ­ rence, and going via Khalasa, Ruheibeh, Bir Birein’, Muweileh to the so uth (p. 69).

In short, the location o f Kadesh and Shu r in southern Palestine and Sinai is no m o re than a guess, and a w ild one at that. It should also be noted that there is no G erar to be found anyw here b etw een ‘A y n Q u day s and the isthm us o f Suez. Even if G erar had been there, it w o u ld in any case have been a considerable distance fro m Gaza and BTr al-Sab‘, w h ich w o uld leave us w h ere w e started.

T h e p ro blem o f locating G erar in Palestine is further co m ­ p o u n d e d by the reference to it in 2 Chronicles 14. H ere the to w n appears to belong to the ‘C u sh ites’ (h-kwsym), traditionally identified as being the ‘E thiopians’, principally because the Biblical texts frequently associate C ush, o r kws, w ith msrym, w hich is taken invariably to m ean ‘E g y p t’ (considering that E thiopia is the sou thern n e igh b o u r o f E g yp t). In the Greek Septuagint, the H e b re w kws is som etim es rendered in transliteration, and at oth er times m o re freely interpreted as

Aithiopia o r Aithiopes, and this has fu rth er encouraged m odern

Biblical scholars to identify the place as being Ethiopia. G ranted

that the Cushites w ere Ethiopians, one m ig h t reasonably ask how they w ere able to control a territory in distant Palestine? ( k)uld these Ethiopians have been Egyptians o f the tim e o f the tw enty-fifth or ‘E th io p ian ’ dynasty (716-656 B . C . ) ? This is unlikely, considering that they m ade w ar against Asa, w hose reign as king o f Ju d ah had ended about a century and a h alf earlier. H ere is K raeling again (p. 272), describing the w ay this problem has so far been resolved:

T h e account in Chronicles . . . claims know ledge (sic) o f an invasion in A sa’s tim e by the C ushite or Ethiopian Zerah . . . T h e Ethiopians did n o t com e to po w e r in E g y p t until the n ex t century, so this C ushite cannot be a Pharaoh. H e m ay, how ever, have been an E gyptian g o v erno r o f the colony o f the ‘b ro o k o f E g y p t’2 and E gyptian-held territory to the n o rth o f it as far as Gerar. W e hear elsewhere, too, that the ‘children o f H a m ’ (i.e., Cushites) lived adjacent to the tribe o f S im eon3 in the so u th coun try (1 C h ro n . 4:39), and the G edor there m entioned is to be read Gerar (for disagreem ent on the last point, see Simons, par. 322).

It m u st be added here that the M areshah (or mrsh) w hich 'Z erah the E th io pian ’ reached in his invasion o f Ju d ah has been identified w ith a Tall Sandahannah in southern Palestine, ‘w hich also represents the G reco -R om an M arisa . . . im m ediately east o f hirbet mer'ash, w h ere the ancient nam e survives’ (Simons, par. 318). Actually, ‘M e r'a s h ’ (mr‘s) and ‘M areshah’ (mrsh) are not the sam e nam e at all, and can only appear to be so to ‘n o n-S em itic’ speakers, w h o w o u ld ignore the voiced phary n­ geal fricative in the first nam e because they cannot pronounce it. T h e ‘valley o f Z e p h a th a h ’ (gy} spth) has defied identification in Palestine to such an extent that no guess as to its location - 110 m atter h o w w ild - has been attem pted. O n e explanation is that the H e b re w fo rm o f the nam e m ay be no m ore than a textual obscurity (Simons, par. 254), w hich is hardly a satisfac­ tory solution to the problem .

T o sum m arise, w e m ay conclude the following:

1 T h e site o f th e B ib lic al G e r a r in P ale stin e h as n o t y e t b e e n

54 T H E BI BLE C A M E F R O M A R A B I A s a tis fa c to rily id e n tifie d , a n d n o p lace th e re c o n tin u e s to c a r ry a n y th in g r e s e m b lin g this n a m e .

2 It h as b e e n a s s u m e d th a t G e r a r m u s t h a v e b ee n lo c a te d in s o u t h e r n P ale stin e , b e c a u s e G enesis 10 m e n tio n s th e place in associa­ t i o n w i t h a ‘zh, w h ic h is t h o u g h t to b e th e P a le stin ia n G aza, w h ile G en e sis 26 m e n tio n s it in a s so c ia tio n w ith a sb‘h o r b’r sb‘, t h o u g h t to b e th e P a le stin ia n B ir a l-S a b ‘, n o w c o m m o n l y called B e ersh e b a.

3 A s s u m i n g th a t th e B iblical K a d e sh is th e oasis o f ‘A y n Q u d a y s , n e a r W a d i a l- ‘A rish , a n d th a t S h u r m u s t h a v e b ee n lo c a te d f u r th e r w e s t in Sinai, n e a r th e is th m u s o f Suez, G e r a r c o u ld n o t h a v e b e e n lo c a te d b e t w e e n B e e r s h e b a a n d G aza, a n d also b e tw e e n K a d e sh a n d S h u r, w h ic h is w h a t G enesis 20 asserts.

4 I f th e ‘C u s h ite s ’ w e r e rea lly E th io p ia n s , a n d G e ra r w a s in s o u t h e r n P ale stin e , th e c o n t r o l o f G e ra r b y th e ‘C u s h ite s ’, w h ic h is clea rly im p lie d in 2 C h r o n ic le s 14, c a n n o t easily b e ex p lain e d .

T o unravel the m ystery o f Gerar, it m ig h t be best to start w ith evidence provided in 2 Chronicles 14, by trying to deter­ m ine w h o these ‘C u sh ites’ really were. ‘C u s h ’, as already m en ­ tioned, is associated in the Biblical texts w ith msrym, w hich certainly denotes E g y p t in som e Biblical passages (e.g. 1 Kings 14:25^ 2 Chronicles I2:2f; also 2 Kings 23:29; 2 Chronicles 35:2of; Jerem iah 46:2). Elsew here in the Bible, as will be seen (Chapters 13 and 14), the nam e msrym denotes any o f several locations in W est Arabia, including the village o f M isram ah

(msrm) in the Asir heights, betw een Abha and Kham is M ushait,

o r that o f M asr (msr) in W adi Bishah, in inland Asir. Searching for a kws (or ‘C u s h ’) in that general vicinity, one readily finds it as K uth ah (kwt), near Kham is M ushait. This is an oasis lying a sh o rt distance east o f Abha, and hence o f M isram ah; also, it is located at the headw aters o f W adi Bishah, and therefore o f the region w h ere M asr is found. In the same Kham is M ushait vicinity lie the oases o f Q ararah (qrr) and G hurayrah (gryr, or

grr), one o f w hich m u st have been the Biblical Gerar (or one o f

the Biblical Gerars). N e a rb y is also the oasis o f Shaba‘ah (sb‘h, or sb*), w hich m u st have been the Biblical ‘Shibah’, o r ‘Beer­ sheba’.* I f the reader thinks this is ju s t too neat to be true, con­ sider the follow ing, w hich seems to clinch m y argum ent.

* O f th e th r e e w ells (s in g u la r b’r) m e n tio n e d a lo n g s id e S h ib a h (alias B e e rsh e b a , o r b’r sb1) in G en e sis 26, E sek (‘sq) su rv iv e s b y n a m e to d a y as ‘A k a s ( ‘ks), n e a r A b h a , w e s t o f K h a m is M u s h a it. T h e o th e r t w o

I HE S E A R C H F OR G ERAR 55

As already m entioned, the H eb rew b’r sb' probably means 'Well o f A b u n d an ce’, b u t it can also be m istaken to m ean ‘Well o f Seven’. In his account o f the return jo u rn e y o f the R om an general Aelius Gallus from his Arabian expedition in 24 B . C . ,

Strabo (16:4:24) carefully describes the stages by w hich Gallus proceeded o u t o f ‘N e g ra n a ’ (Najran) to reach the h arbour o f ‘N eg ra’ (N ujayrah, near the present port o f U m m Lajj) on the Red Sea. There, the R o m an forces boarded the ships w hich look th em back to E gypt. Strabo reports that eleven days after leaving N ajran, Gallus reached a place called the ‘Seven Wells’, ( learly an attem pted translation o f b’r sb‘ or b’r sb‘h. Studying 1 lie text o f Strabo in the light o f his Arabian explorations, H. St J. B. Philby (Arabian Highlands, Ithaca, N .Y ., 1952, p. 257; hereafter referred to as Philby) estimated that the ‘Seven W ells’ m ust have been K ham is M ushait, w hich lies at a road distance o f about 260 kilom etres fro m N ajran. Philby noted the existence o f Shaba‘ah am o n g the villages d o w n stream from Kham is M ushait, in an area ‘partly irrigated by the floods and partly from wells, w h ich are for the m ost part w ide-m ou thed . . . ’ (p. 132). W hat he did n o t notice, how ever, was that the nam e Shaba‘ah is the Biblical sb'h, identified in Genesis 26 as being 1 he sam e place as b’r sb‘. His guess was that K ham is M ushait itself could once have been called ‘Bir Saba‘ ’ (p. 257).

A ccording to Strabo, Gallus to o k forty days to com plete the journey fro m the ‘Seven W ells’ to ‘N e g ra ’, w hich he described as being close to the sea; the road he to o k passed th ro u g h ‘Chaalla’ and ‘M alothas’, the latter being located on a ‘river’. N ot taking into account the fact that ‘N e g ra ’ could only have been located along the Red Sea coast, considering that the returning R o m a n forces boarded their ships there, Philby iden­ tified it tentatively w ith inland M ad a’in Salih n o rth o f M edina, missing the p ro p er identification o f ‘Chaalla’ and ‘M alothas’.

w ells a p p e a r to h a v e b e e n lo c a te d across th e e s c a rp m e n t, o n th e m a ritim e side o f A s ir w a te r d iv id e . T h e r e o n e fin d s to this d a y a R e h o b o th (rhbwt) w h ic h is R a h a b a t (rhbt), in th e B a n i S h a h r re g io n ; ilso a S itn a h (stnh) w h ic h is U m m S h a ta n (stn, A ra b ic fo r ‘r o p e o f .1 w a te r w e ll’), in th e n e a r b y M a ja r id a h reg io n .

T h e first he to ok to be Q a l‘at Bishah, in W adi Bishah, and the second T u rab ah o r K hurm a, in the inland Hijaz (p. 257). Actually, the road fro m Kham is M ushait to the coast follows the course o f the ‘riv e r’ o f W adi al-Dila1, in the region o f Rijal A lm a ‘, w h ere tw o villages called Q a l‘ah (Chaalla) and M aladhah (Malothas) are still to be found. This road continues dow nhill to D arb; there it connects w ith another road w hich proceeds n o rth w ard s across the W est Arabian coastal desert as far as U m m Lajj and N ujay rah (Negra). This is exactly w hat Strabo says: ‘His road thence lay th ro u g h a desert country, w hich had only a few w atering places.’ A long the road described, the total distance from the K ham is M ushait vicinity to U m m Lajj or N u ja y ra h is ap pro xim ately 1,100 kilom etres, w hich can easily be covered in a m arch o f forty days.

In short, the ‘C ushites’ (certainly those o f 2 Chronicles 14) w ere n o t ‘E thiopians’ b u t the tribesm en o f the K uthah vicinity

(i.e., the K ham is M ushait highlands), in the upper reaches o f

W adi Bishah, n o t far d o w nstream from Shaba'ah, the Biblical

b’r sb‘, or Beersheba. T h e ‘Ju d a h ’ they invaded, as w e shall see

in C hapter 8, com prised the w estern slopes o f Asir. A dvancing against this ‘J u d a h ’, Z erah o f K uthah reached a ‘M areshah’ or

mrsh w hich is tod ay either M ashar (msr) or M ashari (msr), in the

Q u n fu d h a h hinterland. In the same reg io n lies the valley o f W adi Hall, w h ere there is at least one village called Sifah (with the fem inine suffix, spt), one gazetteer listing tw o , perhaps by m istake. T hus, the Biblical ‘valley o f Z ep h ath ah ’ (gy’ spth) w o u ld be a reference either to the m ain course o f W adi Hall, o r to the tributary o f this valley w here the present village o f Sifah is located. Z erah had to cross the m ain Asir escarpm ent from W adi Bishah to reach M ashar (or Mashari) and W adi Hall in the Q u n fu d h a h hinterland. Defeated there, he retreated across the escarpm ent to W adi Bishah, King Asa and his forces p ursu­ ing him: they plundered G erar and its rich surroundings.

A ccording to Genesis 20, as already noted, Gerar was located betw een Kadesh and Shur. This Gerar (which appears to be also that o f Genesis 26 and 2 Chronicles 14) m ust have been Q ararah, n o t G hurayrah, in the Kham is M ushait vicinity, as this Q ararah actually falls along the main road betw een Kadas

(kds, cf. H e b re w qds), in Rijal A lm a‘, and Al A bu T h a w r (twr,

i f. H e b re w sur), in W adi Bishah. There is no confusion about the co-ordination here, n o r is there the least p ro b lem in identifying Kadesh and Shur by their respective names. Certainly, one does not have to resort to conjecture or the forced interpretation o f inadequate archaeological findings in an effort to prove the point. M oreover, in bo th Genesis 20 and 26, a ‘k in g ’ o f Gerar is m entio ned called A bim elech (’by mlk), w h o is described in Genesis 26 as being the king o f the ‘Philistines’ (plstym, singular

plsty, the genitive o f plst). H ere tw o observations m ust be made,

first, the w ho le region straddling the w ater divide n o rth w est o f Kham is M ushait, including the part o f Wadi Bishah w here Q ararah is located, carries the tribal nam e Ban! M alik (mlk). So does one village in this same region. This could mean that the ‘Abim elech’ (literally, ‘Father o f M alik’) o f Genesis 20 and 26 was n o t necessarily the nam e, but perhaps the designation, o f .1 succession o f chiefs o f the M alik tribe o f the region, w ho were also ‘k in g s’ o f Q ararah. Considering the generation gap betw een the stories told in Genesis 20 and 26, the ‘A bim elech’ o f b o th stories could hardly have been the same person. M y second observation is w ith respect to G erar (or Qararah) and t lie ‘Philistines’ (see C hapter 14). N o rth o f Q ararah in the W adi Bishah basin, there is still a village called Falsah (plst), w hose inhabitants w o u ld have been called plstym in H ebrew . This l-'alsah could easily have been part o f the territo ry o f Q ararah at one tim e o r another, w hich w o u ld explain w h y the ‘A bim e- lechs’ o f Genesis are described as ‘kin g s’ o f G erar as well as o f the ‘Philistines’.

T u rn in g to Genesis 10, one finds that the co-ordinates cited tor G erar there are entirely different from those cited for the Gerar o f Genesis 20, Genesis 26 and 2 Chronicles 14. Here, ( ierar is m en tio ned as, the direction o f one bo rd er o f the land o f the Canaanites o r kn'ny, extending from sydn to ‘zh, while .mother border, again starting from sydn, extended ‘in the direction o f sdm (Sodom), ‘mrh (G om orrah), ’dmh (Admah) and

\bym (Zeboiim ) to ls‘ (Lasha)’.

T h e sydn in question here is certainly n o t the Lebanese port o f Sidon (today Sayda, or syd’) . O f four ‘Sidons’ called Z aydan

o r Al Z ay d an (zyd n ) w hich are found to this day in different parts o f Asir, that o f Genesis 10 m ust be Al Zaydan, in the heights o f ja b a l Shahdan - a peak o f ja b a l Bani Malik, in the hinterland o f Jizan, w hich controls a strategic m ountain pass along the present frontier betw een th e jiz a n region and the Ye­ m en. F ro m this Al Z aydan, the second border o f the C anaan­ ite land m entioned in Genesis 10 extended w estw ards in the direction o f the Red Sea coast, ending at the last line o f villages at the edge o f the coastal desert, betw een W adi Sabya and the B ahr region n o rth o f W adi ‘Itwad. As will be seen in C hapter 7, the n am e o f the vanished city o f Sodom (sdm) survives today as that o f W adi D am is (dms), a tributary o f W adi Sabya, w hich runs directly n o rth o f the tw in volcanoes o fja b a l ‘A kw ah, and w ithin their lava field. G o m o rrah (‘mrh) was either another vanished city o f W adi D am is lying, like Sodom , underneath the local lava, o r else present-day G h am r (gmr), w hich is located on the slopes o fja b a l H arub, uphill from W adi Dam is. Facing one an o th er across the m ain course o f W adi Sabya, the present tw in to w n s o f Sabya (sby', H eb rew sby, ‘gazelle’, w ith the suffixed Aram aic definite article) and al-Zabyah (zby, Arabic form o f the same nam e, w ith the prefixed definite article) m u st have been the Biblical Z eboiim (sbym, dual or plural o f sby). F urther n o rth is Lasha (Is) in the basin o f W adi Baysh, its nam e c o rrupted in its present Arabic form to al-‘Ashshah (’l-‘s, w ith the initial / pro nou n ced as an Arabic definite article). Still further north, an A d m a h (’dmh) lies across Wadi ‘Itw ad in the Bahr