have their Ard el-Mejâdîn, “region of battle-fields,” may also have contributed to the confusion; thus, for example, the country sloping to the west from the Phiala towards the Hûle, between Gubbâtâ ez-zêt and Za'ûra, is called, perhaps on account of the murderous encounters which took place there, both in the time of the Crusades and also in more ancient times. It is certainly the ground on which the battle narrated in the book of Joshua, Jos 11:1, took place, and also the battle in which Antiochus the Great slew the Egyptian army about 200 b.c.)
What we have gained for our special purpose from this information (by which not a few statements of Ritter, K. v. Raumer, and others, are substantiated), is not merely the fact that the tradition which places Job's home in the region of Muzêrîb existed even in the middle ages (which the quotation given above from Makdeshî, who lived before the time of the Crusades, also confirms), and even came to the ears of the foreigners who settled in the country as they then passed through the land, but also the certainty that this tradition was then, as now, common to the Christians and the Mussulmans, for the three writers previously mentioned would hardly have recorded it on the testimony of the latter only.[1]
- ↑ Estôri ha-Parchi, the most renowned Jewish topographer of Palestine, in his work Caftor wa-ferach, completed in 1322 (newly edited by Edelmann, published by Asher, Berlin, 1852, S. 49), says דאר איוב lies one hour south of נבו, since he identifies Nawâ with the Reubenitish Nebô, Num 32:38, as Zora with יעזר, Num 32:35; so that he explains ארץ עוץ by ארץ יעזר, although he at the same time considers the name, according to Saadia, as one with אלגוטה (el Ghuta). His statements moreover are exact, as one might expect from a man who had travelled for seven years in all directions in Palestine; and his conclusion, ארץ עוץ היא ארץ קדם לארץ ישׂראל כנגד טבריא, perfectly accords with the above treatise. - Del.
