Numbers 13:26 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

To Kadesh— Or Kadesh Barnea: thus the place is marked out from whence they were sent; see the note on chap. Numbers 12:16 and Numbers 20:1. "A late ingenious author," says Dr. Shaw, "has situated Kadesh Barnea at eight hours, or twenty miles, distance only from Mount Sinai; which, I presume, cannot be admitted, for various reasons: because several texts in Scripture insinuate, that Kadesh lay at a much greater distance: thus, in Deuteronomy 1:19 it is said, they departed from Horeb through that great and terrible wilderness, (which supposes by far a greater extent of time and place,) and came to Kadesh Barnea; and in Deuteronomy 9:23. When the Lord sent you from Kadesh Barnea to possess the land, which (Numbers 20:16.) is described to be a city in the utmost part of the border of Edom; the border of the land of Edom and that of the land of promise being contiguous, and, in fact, the very same; and farther Deuteronomy 1:2 it is expressly said, that there are eleven days journey from Horeb by the way of mount Seir to Kadeash Barnea, which, from the context, cannot be otherwise understood, than of marching along the direct road; for Moses here intimates how soon the Israelites might have entered upon the borders of the land of promise, if they had not been a stubborn and rebellious people; whereas a number of their stations betwixt Sinai and Kadesh, as they are particularly enumerated, Numbers 33. (each of which must have been at least one day's journey) appear to be twice as many, or twenty-one, in which they are said with great truth and propriety, Psalms 107:4 to have wandered in the wilderness out of the way, and in Deuteronomy 2:1 to have encompassed mount Seir, rather than to have travelled directly through it. If then we allow ten miles for each of these eleven days journey, (and fewer, I presume, cannot well be insisted upon) the distance of Kadesh from mount Sinai will be about an hundred and ten miles. That ten miles a day (I mean in a direct line, without considering the deviations which are every where more or less) were equivalent to one day's journey, may be further proved from the history of these spies, who searched the land from Kadesh to Rehob, as men come to Haramath, and return in forty days. Rehob then, the farthest point of this expedition to the northward, may well be conceived to have been twenty days journey from Kadesh; and, therefore, to know the true position of Rehob will be a material point in this disquisition. Now, from Judges 19:29-30 and Joshua 1:31 it appears, that Rehob was one of the maritime cities of the tribe of Asher, and lay, in travelling, as we may suppose, by the common or nearest way, along the sea coast (המת לבא —), not, as we render it, as men come to Hamath, but as men go towards Hamath; in going to Hamath, or in the way or road to Hamath; for, to have searched the land as far as Hamath, and to have returned to Kadesh in forty days, would have been altogether impossible. Moreover, as the tribe of Asher did not reach beyond Sidon (for that was its northern boundary), Joshua 19:28. Rehob must have been situated to the southward of Sidon, upon or (being a derivative, perhaps, from רחב rachab, latum esse) below in the plain, under a long chain of mountains, which runs east and west through the midst of that tribe; and as these mountains, called by some the mountains of Saron, are all along, except in the narrow which I have mentioned near the sea, very rugged and difficult to pass over; the spies, who could not well take another way, might imagine they should run too great a risk of being discovered, in attempting to pass through it; in these eastern countries a watchful eye was always, as it is still, kept upon strangers, as we may collect from the history of the two angels at Sodom, Genesis 19:5 and of the spies at Jericho, Judges 2:2 and from other instances. If, then, we fix Rehob upon the skirts of the plains of Acre, a little to the south of this narrow road, (the Schala Tyriorum, as it was afterwards named,) somewhere near Egdippa, the distance betwixt Kadesh and Rehob will be about two hundred and ten miles; whereas by placing Kadesh twenty miles only from Sinai or Horeb, the distance will be three hundred and thirty; and, instead of ten miles a day, according to the former computation, the spies must have travelled near seventeen, which for forty days successively seems to have been too difficult an expedition in this hot and consequently fatiguing climate, especially as they were on foot, or footpads, as מרגלים meragelim, their appellation in the original, may probably import. These geographical circumstances, therefore, thus corresponding with what is actually known of those countries at this time, should induce us to situate Kadesh, as I have already done, one hundred and ten miles to the northward of mount Sinai, and forty-two miles to the westward of Eloth, near Callah Nahar, i.e. the castle of the river or fountain, (probably the Ain Mishpat) a noted station of the Mahometans in their pilgrimage to Mecca;" see Travels, p. 318.