tain near it on the way into Canaan.' The nearest mountains are westward, and they are not in the direction of Canaan. The southern mountain-wall of Canaan, up which ascends the Pass es-Sufah (suggested as the mountain clambered by the rebellious Israelites), is nearly or quite a day's journey northward, and a deep wady intervenes between that and 'Ayn el-Waybeh. There is no trace of the ancient name of Kadesh, or of its meaning, in 'Ayn el-Waybeh or its vicinity. Nor is there a single site identified in that region, of any place which was near Kadesh-barnea. The site of Zephath, for which Es-Sufâh was suggested, has been identified, with a correspondent name, at some distance to the westward; and that is the only site for which any claim was made, except that of a possible identification in case 'Ayn el-Waybeh were accepted for Kadesh-barnea.

As a boundary-line landmark, 'Ayn el-Waybeh does not in any degree conform to the requirements of the Bible mentions of Kadesh-barnea. The latter place is named as on the southern border of Judah, at several removes from the Dead Sea. By all analogy, this would indicate its location as well to the westward of that sea. Again it is named as the central one of three main landmarks between the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean; which would seem to fix it midway, or approximately so, between those two seas. Yet 'Ayn el-Waybeh is well to the southward of the Dead Sea; and the only way of adapting it to a place in the boundary line would be by running a southern line, for some distance, from northerly to southerly, instead of from easterly to westerly, and then making an abrupt turn, almost at a right angle, and passing westward over mountain ranges instead of between them, in a

1 Deut. 1: 19-24.

2 See the photograph of 'Ayn el-Waybeh accompanying this. The hills there shown in the distance are westward, not Canaanward.

3 Num. 14: 39-45.

5 Josh. 15: 1-3.

4 Comp. Num. 21: 3, and Judges 1: 17.

6 Ezek. 47: 19; 48: 28.