Saul also and his men went to seek him. And they told David: wherefore he came down into a rock, and abode in the wilderness of Maon. And when Saul heard that, he pursued after David in the wilderness of Maon.
David ... came down into a rock, and abode in the wilderness of Maon. Tell Ma'in, the hillock on which was situated the ancient Maon (Joshua 15:55), and from which the adjoining wilderness took its name, is one mile north, ten east, from Carmel. The mountain plateau seems here to end. It is true the summit ridge of the southern hills runs out a long way further toward the southwest; but toward the southeast the ground sinks more and more down to a table-land of a lower level, which is called 'the plain to the right hand (i:e., to the south) of the wilderness' (Van de Velde). 'On descending,' says Dr. Robinson ('Biblical Researches,' 1:, p.
275), the hills southeast of Maon, a wide prospect is opened up before us over the country toward the Dead Sea and on the south. The extensive tract we now overlooked had much of the general character of that around Beer-sheba, with which, indeed, it is connected, stretching off in that direction around the southwestern termination of the long ridge which we were now crossing. This tract has apparently a lower level than the enclosed plain behind us around Carmel. This is the country now occupied by the Jehalin, who are sometimes called the Hebron Arabs' (cf. Wilson's 'Lands of the Bible,' 2:, p. 710).