- Desert of Paran
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Abraham Sends Hagar and Ishmael into the Desert (woodcut by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld from the 1860 Bible in Pictures)
The Desert of Paran or Wilderness of Paran (Hebrew מדבר פארן Midbar Par'an; Douay-Rheims: Pharan), is the place in which the Hebrew Bible says the Israelites spent part of their 40 years of wandering:
Then the Israelites set out from the Desert of Sinai and traveled from place to place until the cloud came to rest in the Desert of Paran. (Numbers 10:12)
Associated with Mount Sinai in Egypt, there is some evidence that it may originally have referred to the southern portion of the Arabian peninsula.[1]
Paran is also said to be the place where Abraham's wife Hagar and his first son Ishmael were taken (Genesis 21):
Then God opened her [Hagar] eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer. While he was living in the Desert of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from Egypt. At that time Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his forces said to Abraham, "God is with you in everything you do." (Genesis 21:19-22)
Paran features in the opening lines of the Book of Deuteronomy:
These are the words Moses spoke to all Israel in the desert east of the Jordan--that is, in the Arabah--opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth and Dizahab. (Deuteronomy 1:1)
He said: "The LORD came from Sinai and dawned over them from Seir; he shone forth from Mount Paran. He came with myriads of holy ones from the south, from his mountain slopes." (Deuteronomy 33:2)
King David spent some time in the wilderness of Paran after Samuel died (I Samuel 25:1).
The Arabic form of Paran is Faran (also transliterated Pharan). This name is used by Eastern geographers to refer to three different locales: the wilderness and mountains where Mecca is situated, mountains and a village in Eastern Egypt, and a province in Samarkand.[2] Arab and Islamic tradition holds that the wilderness of Paran is broadly speaking the Hijaz, and the site where Ishmael settled is that of Mecca. An 1851 Arabic translation of the Samaritan Pentateuch includes a footnote also equating Paran with the Hijaz.[2] Yaqut al-Hamawi, the 12th century Syrian geographer, writes that Faran is "an arabized Hebrew word. One of the names of Mecca mentioned in the Torah."[3] There is a Tal Faran ("Hill of Faran") on the outskirts of Mecca.[3]
References
- ^ Geoffrey W. Bromiley (1982). Geoffrey W. Bromiley. ed. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: E-J (Revised ed.). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 241. ISBN 0802837824, 9780802837820. http://books.google.ca/books?id=yklDk6Vv0l4C&pg=PA241&dq=paran+hebrew+desert+arabia&hl=en&ei=6IBRTqXSIKPR4QSG7_C3Bw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CEAQ6AEwBDgy#v=onepage&q=paran&f=false.
- ^ a b Sir Sayyid Aḥmad Khān (1870). A series of essays on the life of Mohammad: and subjects subsidiary thereto. London: Trübner & co.. pp. 74–76. http://books.google.com/books?id=NeoOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA75&dq=arabic+pharan&hl=en&ei=OgpSTqmfHO7P4QTShNi-Bw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=arabic%20pharan&f=false.
- ^ a b Reuven Firestone (1990). Title Journeys in holy lands: the evolution of the Abraham-Ishmael legends in Islamic exegesis. SUNY Press. pp. 65, 205. ISBN 0791403319, 9780791403310. http://books.google.com/books?id=O69zjVnjL10C&pg=PA205&dq=paran+etymology&hl=en&ei=OARSTsCGPO-Q4gS3u-XXBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC0Q6AEwATgo#v=onepage&q=faran&f=false.
External links
Coordinates: 30°18′12″N 34°46′36″E / 30.30333°N 34.77667°E
Categories:- Hebrew Bible places
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