written, Numb. xxi. 24. that Israel conquered the land of Sehon from Arnon unto Jaboc, even unto the children of Ammon; so as at this time the river of Jaboc was the south bound of Ammon, within the mountains; when as anciently they had also possessions over Jaboc, which at length the Gadites possessed; as in the 13th chapter of Joshua, ver. 25. it appears.

§. 2.

Of the memorable places of the Reubenites.

THE chief cities belonging to Reuben were these; Kademoth, for which the Vulgar, without any show of warrant, readeth Jethsony. The Vulgar, or Jerome, followed the Septuagint; those two verses, 36 and 37, of Joshua xxi. being wanting in the old Hebrew copies, and the Septuagint read Kedson for Kedmoth, which Kedson by writing slipt into Jethson.

This city, which they gave to the Levites, imparts her name to the desert adjoining; from whence Moses sent his embassage to Sehon. In the same place of Joshua, where this Kedemoth is mentioned, the Vulgar, for Betser et villa ejus, reads Bosor in solitudine Misor, without any ground from the Hebrew; whence Adrichomius makes a town called a Misor, in the border between Reuben and Gad. Further from Kedemoth, near the Dead sea, (for the country between being mountainous hath few cities,) they place two towns of note, Lasa, or Leshah, of which Genesis x. 19. the b Greeks call it Callirrhoe; near which there is a hill, from whence there floweth springs both of hot and cold, bitter and sweet water, all which, soon after their rising, being joined in one stream, do make a very wholesome bath, especially for all contractions of sinews; to which Herod the elder, when he was desperate of all other help, repaired, but in vain. c Others say, that these springs arise out of the hills of Machærus in this tribe. The like foun

y Josh. xxi. 37.

z Deut. ii. 26.

It was a marginal note out of Deut. iii. where the Seventy kept the word Misor, signifying a plain, which

after crept into the text.

b Joseph. 17. Ant. c. 9. et Hieron. in Quæst. Heb. in Gen. Acosta, 1. 3.

d

tains are found in the Pyrenees and in Peru, called, the baths of the ingas, or kings. The other town is Macharus, the next between Lasa and Jordan, of all that part of the world the strongest inland city and castle, standing upon a mountain, every way unaccessible. It was first fortified by Alexander Jannæus, who made it a frontier against the Arabians; but it was demolished by Gabinius in the war with Aristobulus, saith & Josephus. It was thither, saith Josephus, that Herod sent John Baptist, and wherein he was slain; his army soon after being utterly overthrown by Aretas king of Arabia, and himself after this murder never prospering. Not far from Macharus was e Bosor, or Bozra, a town of refuge, and belonging to the Levites, and near it f Livias upon Jordan, which Herod built in honour of Livia, the mother of Tiberius Cæsar.

To the north of Livias is Setim, or 8 Sittim, where the children of Israel embraced the daughters of Midian and Moab, and where Phinehas pierced the body of Zimri and Cosbi with his spear, bringing due vengeance upon them, when they were in the midst of their sin and from hence Joshua sent the discoverers to view Jericho, staying here until he went over Jordan. As for the torrent h Setim, which in this place Adrichomius dreams of, reading Joel iii. 18. irrigabit torrentem Setim: the Vulgar hath torrentem spinarum; and Junius vallem cedrorum; expounding it, not for any particular place in Canaan, but for the church, in which the just being placed, grow as the cedars, as it is Psalm xcii. 13.

The plain country hereabout, by i Moses called the plains of Moab, where he expounded the book of Deuteronomy to the people a little before his death, is in the beginning of the same book precisely bounded by Moses. On the south, it had the great desert of Paran, where they had long wandered. On the east, it had Chatseroth and Dizahab, (of

d Joseph. 13. Ant. c. 24. et 14. Ant. c. 10. et alibi. Joseph. Bell. Jud.

1. 7. c. 25.

Deut. iv. 43. Josh. xx. 8.
Euseb. in Chron. Hier. in loc.

Heb.

8 Numb. xxv. I.

h Josh. iii. I.

i Deut. xxxiv. 1.

which two the former is that Gazorus, of which Ptolomy in Palæstina; the latter was a tract belonging to the Nabathæi in Arabia Petræa, where was k Mezahab, of which Gen. xxxvi. 39.) by the geographers called Medava and Medaba. On the west it had Jordan, and on the north it had Laban, (in Junius's edition, by the fault of the print, Lamban, Deut. i. 1.) the same which the geographers call Libias; and some confound it with Livias, of which even now we spake.

Also on the same north side, towards the confines of Cœlesyria, it had Thophel, whereabout sometime Pella of Cœlesyria stood; which was in the region of Decapolis, and, as Stephanus saith, was sometime called Butis. It is also noted in Moses to be over against, or near unto Suph, for which the Vulgar hath the Red sea; as also Numb. ii. 14. it translateth the word Suphah in like manner; whereas in this place of Deuteronomy there is no addition of any word in the Hebrew to signify the sea; and yet the scripture, when this word is so to be taken, useth the addition of Mara, thereby to distinguish it from the region of Suph, or Suphah, which doubtless was about these plains of Moab, towards the Dead sea; where the country being full of reeds, was therefore thus called; as also the Red sea was called Mare Suph, for like reason.

The place in these large plains of Moab, where Moses made those divine exhortations, some say, was 'Bethabara, where John baptized, which in the story of Gideon is called Beth-bara. m Josephus says, it was where after the city Abila stood, near Jordan, in a place set with palmtrees, which sure was the same as Abel-sittim, in the plains of Moab, Numbers xxxiii. 49. that some call Abelsathaim, and Bel-sathaim, which is reckoned by Moses in that place of Numbers for the forty-second and last place of the Israelites encamping in the time of Moses. This

k The same as it seems which Numb. xxi. 30. is called Medeba, whence we read of the plains of Medeba, Josh. xiii. 9, 16. of which also we read in the wars of David against

Hanum the Ammonite 1 Chron. xix. 7.
Also 1 Macc. ix. 36. Isai. xvi. 2. See
before, c. 5. §. 7.

1 John i. 28. Judges vii. 24.
m Joseph. Ant. iv. 7.

place is also called m Sittim; which word, if we should interpret, we should rather bring it from cedars than from thorns, with Adrichomius and others. It was the wood of which the ark of the tabernacle was made.

Toward the east of these plains of Moab, they place the cities n Nebo, Baal-meon, Sibma, and Hesbon, the chief city of Sehon and Elealeh, and Kirjathaim, the seat of the giant Emim. Of the two first of these Moses seems to give a note, that the names were to be changed, because they tasted of the Moabites' idolatry. For Nebo (instead of which Junius, Isai. xlvi. 1. reads Deus vaticinus) was the name of their idol-oracle, and Baal-meon is the habitation of Baal. Of the same idol was the hill Nebo in these parts denominated, from whose top, which the common translators call Phasgah, Moses, before his death, saw all the land of Canaan beyond Jordan. In which story Junius doth not take Phasgah, or Pisgah, for any proper name, but for an appellative signifying a hill: and so also Vatablus, in some places, as Numb. xxi. 20, where he noteth, that some call Pisgah that top which looketh to Jericho and Hair, as it looketh to Moab; which opinion may be somewhat strengthened by the name of the city of Reuben, mentioned Josh. xiii. 20, called Ashdoth-Pisgah, which is as much as Decursus Pisgæ, to wit, where the waters did run down from Pisgah. In the same place of Joshua there is also named Beth-peor, as belonging to Reuben; so called from the hill Peor, from whence also Baal, the idol, was called Baal-peor, which, they say, was the same as Priapus; the chief place of whose worship seems to have been Bamothbaal; of which also Josh. xiii. in the cities of Reuben; for which, Numb. xxii. 41. they read the high places of Baal, (for so the word signifieth,) to which place Balak first brought Balaam, to curse the Israelites.

in Numb. xxv. i. Exod. xxv. 10. n Numb. xxxii. 37. Gen. xiv. 5. Numb. xxxii.

• Exod. xxiii. 13. Nomen deorum alienorum ne recordamini, ne audiatur in ore tuo. Psal. xvi. 4. Non assumpturus sum nomina eorum in

labeis meis. Hosea ii. 17. Amovebo nomina Bahalimorum ab ore ejus. What name they used for Nebo, it doth not appear; Baalmeon it seems they named sometime Baiith, as Isai. xv. 2. and sometime Bethmeon, Isai. lviii. 23.

§. 3.

Of divers places bordering Reuben, belonging to Midian, Moab, or Edom.

THERE were besides these divers places of note over Arnon, which adjoined to Reuben; among which they place Gallim, the city of Phalti, to whom Saul gave his daughter ꞌ Michal from David: but Junius thinks this town to be in Benjamin, gathering so much out of Isaiah x. 29. where it is named among the cities of Benjamin. With better reason, perhaps, out of Numb. xxi. 19. we may say, that Mathana and Nahaliel were in these confines of Reuben, through which places the Israelites passed, after they had left the well called Beer. Then Diblathaim, which the prophet 9 Jeremiah threatened with the rest of the cities of Moab.

Madian also is found in these parts, the chief city of the Madianites in Moab; but not that Midian, or Madian, by the Red sea, wherein Jethro inhabited for of the Madianites there were two nations, of which these of Moab became idolaters, and received an exceeding overthrow by a regiment of twelve thousand Israelites, sent by Moses out of the plains of Moab, at such time as Israel began to accompany their daughters. Their five kings, with Balaam the soothsayer, were then slain, and their regal city, with the rest, destroyed. The other Madianites, over whom Jethro was prince, or priest, forgat not the God of Abraham their ancestor, but relieved and assisted the Israelites in their painful travels through the deserts, and were in all that passage their guides. In the south border of Moab, adjoining to Edom, and sometime reckoned as the chief city of Edom, there is that Petra, which in the scriptures is called Selah, which is as much as Rupes or Petra. It was also called Jochtheel, as appears by the place, 2 Reg. xiv. It was built (saith Josephus) by Recem, one of those five kings of the Madianites, slain, as before is said; after whom it was called Recem. Now they say it is called Crac and Mozera.

r

The soldans of Egypt, for the exceeding strength there

PI Sam. xviii.

Jerem. xlviii.

r Isai. xvi. 1.

S

Lib. 4. Ant. 7.