Mount Hor
In an earlier article in this series, I identified the Thirty-Third Station of the Exodus, Kadesh, with the ancient city of Petra in Jordan. According to the reconstruction being proposed in these articles, the Israelites proceeded with the invasion of Canaan shortly after reaching Kadesh for the first time. This hypothesis regards as fictional the thirty-eight years of Wandering in the Wilderness that are alleged to have occurred between these two events. I am not breaking any new ground by suggesting such a thing: no less a person than Johann Wolfgang von Goethe proposed the very same scenario over two centuries ago (Goethe 207-225).
Before embarking upon the invasion, Moses sends out twelve spies to reconnoitre the approaches to Canaan. When they return, ten of these spies advise against the invasion. Only Caleb and Joshua exhort the Israelites to proceed with the invasion as planned. According to the Biblical account, the Israelites take the advice of the ten faint-hearted spies. For this, they are condemned by God to wander in the wilderness for a further thirty-eight years. This is to ensure that of those that came out of Egypt only Caleb and Joshua enter the Promised Land. According to Goethe’s theory, this story is a later interpolation. In reality, the invasion went ahead as planned without any delay.
The story of the final departure from Kadesh is recounted in Numbers 20:
Then came the children of Israel, even the whole congregation, into the desert of Zin in the first month: and the people abode in Kadesh; and Miriam died there, and was buried there ... And Moses sent messengers from Kadesh unto the king of Edom, Thus saith thy brother Israel, Thou knowest all the travail that hath befallen us: How our fathers went down into Egypt, and we have dwelt in Egypt a long time; and the Egyptians vexed us, and our fathers: And when we cried unto the Lord, he heard our voice, and sent an angel, and hath brought us forth out of Egypt: and, behold, we are in Kadesh, a city in the uttermost of thy border: Let us pass, I pray thee, through thy country: we will not pass through the fields, or through the vineyards, neither will we drink of the water of the wells: we will go by the king's high way, we will not turn to the right hand nor to the left, until we have passed thy borders. And Edom said unto him, Thou shalt not pass by me, lest I come out against thee with the sword. And the children of Israel said unto him, We will go by the high way: and if I and my cattle drink of thy water, then I will pay for it: I will only, without doing anything else, go through on my feet. And he said, Thou shalt not go through. And Edom came out against him with much people, and with a strong hand. Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his border: wherefore Israel turned away from him. And the children of Israel, even the whole congregation, journeyed from Kadesh, and came unto mount Hor. (Numbers 1 ... 14-22)
Clearly, it was Moses’ intention to cross the Kingdom of Edom and enter Canaan from the south, passing to the west of the Dead Sea. But when he was refused permission to cross Edom, he was obliged to travel north from Kadesh, passing to the east of the Dead Sea, in order to invade Canaan from across the River Jordan.
Mount Hor
The first Station of the Exodus after Kadesh is called Mount Hor. According to tradition, it was here that Moses’ brother Aaron died:
And the children of Israel, even the whole congregation, journeyed from Kadesh, and came unto mount Hor. And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in mount Hor, by the coast of the land of Edom, saying, Aaron shall be gathered unto his people: for he shall not enter into the land which I have given unto the children of Israel, because ye rebelled against my word at the water of Meribah. Take Aaron and Eleazar his son, and bring them up unto mount Hor: And strip Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his son: and Aaron shall be gathered unto his people, and shall die there. And Moses did as the Lord commanded: and they went up into mount Hor in the sight of all the congregation. And Moses stripped Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his son; and Aaron died there in the top of the mount: and Moses and Eleazar came down from the mount. And when all the congregation saw that Aaron was dead, they mourned for Aaron thirty days, even all the house of Israel. (Numbers 22-29)
In the Jewish Antiquities, the Romano-Jewish historian Josephus identifies this as a high mountain in the vicinity of Petra:
After a purification held in such wise in consequence of the mourning for the sister of their chief, he led his forces away through the desert and came to a place in Arabia which the Arabs have deemed their metropolis, formerly called Arce, and today named Petra. There Aaron ascended a lofty mountain range that encloses the spot, Moses having revealed to him that he was about to die, and, in the sight of the whole army—for the ground was steep—he divested himself of his high priestly robes and, after delivering them to Eleazar his son, upon whom by right of age the high priesthood descended, he died with the eyes of the multitude upon him. (Josephus 517)
The peak in question is identified by Islamic tradition with Jebel Nebi Harun, or Mountain of the Prophet Aaron. This mountain is twin-peaked, which could explain the Biblical name Hor Ha-Har, or a mountain on a mountain (Singer 6:461). Louis Ginzberg’s The Legends of the Jews describes Mount Hor as consisting of a twin mountain (Ginzberg 316).
Jebel Nebi Harun is about 5 km to the west of Petra as the crow flies—equivalent to approximately 10 km on foot. It makes sense that the Israelites would have descended from Petra to the lowlying Arabah, before turning north. But if they were travelling at 24-32 km per day (Hoffmeier 120), they would hardly have halted after just 10 km or so—unless, of course, something unexpected happened, such as the sudden death of Moses’ brother.
The historicity of Aaron is questionable (but see Singer 1:4-5), so the story of his death and burial at Mount Hor could be a later interpolation. But even if the story is based on a true event, it does not necessarily follow that the event took place at Jebel Nebi Harun. The identification of this particular peak with Mount Hor could reflect a late tradition. The shrine on its summit, identified as Aaron’s Tomb, is essentially an Islamic mosque.
An alternative candidate, Jebel Madara, is favoured by those who place Kadesh much further to the west—at Tell el-Qudeirat, for example, or at Ein el-Qedeis. But in an earlier article, we rejected these locations on the grounds that the Israelites would not have had to pass through Edom in order to reach Canaan from them. In fact, these places are actually in Canaan.
The same line of reasoning rules out other candidates in the Negeb, such as Mount Zin in the Zin Valley, or Jebel el-Muweilah, which lies about 10 km west of Ein el-Qedeis.
The Death of Aaron
In Deuteronomy 10, we read the following words of Moses:
And I turned myself and came down from the mount [the Mountain of God], and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they be, as the Lord commanded me. And the children of Israel took their journey from Beeroth of the children of Jaakan to Mosera: there Aaron died, and there he was buried; and Eleazar his son ministered in the priest’s office in his stead. From thence they journeyed unto Gudgodah; and from Gudgodah to Jotbath, a land of rivers of waters. (Deuteronomy 10:5-7)
Mosera, or Moseroth (Numbers 33), has sometimes been identified with el-Tayibeh, a small spring at the foot of Jebel Nebi Harun. But the Catalogue of Stations in Numbers 33 lists seven stations between Moseroth and Mount Hor.
These verses, together with another passage in the same book, have led some commentators to suggest that the Mountain of God on which Moses received the Ten Commandments was located at Kadesh, not Sinai:
Hur and Aaron were left in charge of the Israelites when Moses and Joshua ascended the mount to receive the Tables of the Law ([Exodus] xxiv. 12-15), and when the people, in dismay at the prolonged absence of their leader, demanded a god, it was at the instigation of Aaron that the golden calf was made (see CALF, GOLDEN). This was regarded as an act of apostasy which, according to one tradition, led to the consecration of the Levites, and almost cost Aaron his life (cp. Deut. ix. 20). The incident paves the way for the account of the preparation of the new tables of stone which contain a series of laws quite distinct from the Decalogue (q.v.) (Ex. xxxiii. seq.). Kadesh, and not Sinai or Horeb, appears to have been originally the scene of these incidents (Deut. xxxiii. 8 seq. compared with Ex. xxxii. 26 sqq.), and it was for some obscure offence at this place that both Aaron and Moses were prohibited from entering the Promised Land (Num. xx.). (Chisholm 4)
Is Mount Hor the same as Mount Horeb. Is the Wilderness of Sinai the same as the Wilderness of Zin? Is this why Kadesh—a name which probably means holy or sacred (Strong 102)—is so called? Did the Golden Calf episode take place in the vicinity of Petra? Did Aaron die there of old age or was he executed there for his apostasy? Is Mount Hor the same as Hor Haggidgad, the 29th Station of the Exodus?
These are interesting questions, which I will not pursue her. They remind us that the Biblical text which has come down to us has passed through many different hands and has probably been revised and rewritten many times over the centuries. Making sense of it is no easy task, and failure is always an option.
Conclusions
As usual, I cannot draw any firm conclusions. I am intrigued by the possibility that Kadesh was the true location of all the epochal events that are generally associated with the Mountain of God: the Ten Commandments, the Ark of the Covenant, the Tent of Meeting, and the Golden Calf. In an earlier article in this series, I tentatively identified Serabit el-Khadim with the Mountain of God, but I may have to revisit that hypothesis.
It is curious that the Catalogue of the Stations of the Exodus in Numbers 33 does not mention the Mountain of God or any of the epochal events that took place there, whereas it does mention less important events, such as the lack of water at Rephidim:
And they took their journey out of the wilderness of Sin, and encamped in Dophkah. And they departed from Dophkah, and encamped in Alush. And they removed from Alush, and encamped at Rephidim, where was no water for the people to drink. And they departed from Rephidim, and pitched in the wilderness of Sinai. And they removed from the desert of Sinai, and pitched at Kibrothhattaavah. And they departed from Kibrothhattaavah, and encamped at Hazeroth. (Numbers 33:12-17)
The wilderness of Sinai is the Station at the foot of the Mountain of God, but one could be forgiven for not realizing this if one had only this bare Catalogue to go on. Contrast this with the details we are given in the same Catalogue concerning Mount Hor:
And they removed from Eziongaber, and pitched in the wilderness of Zin, which is Kadesh. And they removed from Kadesh, and pitched in mount Hor, in the edge of the land of Edom. And Aaron the priest went up into mount Hor at the commandment of the Lord, and died there, in the fortieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the first day of the fifth month. And Aaron was an hundred and twenty and three years old when he died in mount Hor. And king Arad the Canaanite, which dwelt in the south in the land of Canaan, heard of the coming of the children of Israel. And they departed from mount Hor, and pitched in Zalmonah. (Numbers 33:36-41)
Note also that Kadesh is in the wilderness of Zin, which is similar in name to the wilderness of Sinai. Have two different places been confused or has one place been mistakenly represented as two different places?
For the time being, however, I will tentatively adhere to the itinerary that I have traced out in the preceding articles in this series, and accept the traditional identification of Mount Hor with Jebel Nebi Harun. In the next article we will follow the Israelites as they make their way northwards through the Arabah.
To be continued ...
References
- Hugh Chisholm (editor), The Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, Volume 1, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1911)
- Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, Volume 3, Translated from the German by Paul Radin, The Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia (1911)
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Israel in der Wüste, Noten und Abhandlungen zu besserem Verständnis des west-östlichen Divans, West-östlicher Divan, in Erich Trunz (editor), Goethes Werke, Band 2, Fifth Edition, Christian Wegner Verlag, Hamburg (1960)
- James K Hoffmeier, Ancient Israel in Sinai: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Tradition, Oxford University Press, Oxford (2005)
- Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, in Henry St John Thackeray (translator), Josephus, Volume IV, Loeb Classical Library L242, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA (1961)
- Isidore Singer (managing editor), The Jewish Encyclopedia, Volume 1, Volume 6, Funk & Wagnalls Co, New York (1901)
- James Strong, Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary, in The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Eaton & Mains, New York (1890)
Image Credits
- Travellers at the Tomb of Aaron on the Summit of Mount Hor: David Roberts & Louis Haghe (artists), Wellcome Images, Creative Commons License
- Jebel Nebi Harun: © 2020 Dr. David L Turner, Fair Use
- The Death of Aaron: James Tissot (artist), The Jewish Museum, Manhattan, Public Domain
- Aaron’s Tomb, Jebel Nebi Harun: © Jordan Group Tours, Fair Use
Cuddles 🐈 and chuckles. 😂