to the Hamites. The phrase “from which Gerar can be reached” does not seem appropriate in this interpretation, because the territory of the men of Simeon was also traversed by a road leading to Gerar. Their dwelling places were located to the east of the border valley, which, furthermore, was generally known as “Nahal,” not “Gai’.” For a distance of seventy kilometers eastward from the border valley the bulk of the region is covered with sand and contains but scanty water or pasture. It is difficult, therefore, to understand why the men of Simeon should have migrated to so poor a country. Moreover, according to this interpretation a part of the men of Simeon left their new dwelling place near the border valley and proceeded to the Seʻîr mountain range, which is at least two hundred kilometers to the southeast, although from the context it would appear that Seʻîr was near the new settlements of the men of Simeon.
The Hebrew text of the Septuagint translators had also Gedor, but, as frequently elsewhere, they read r instead of d. The Hebrew text contains the place names Gedor, Gai’, and Seʻir. Gedor I propose to identify with the Arabic Keḏâr (al-Masʻûdi, Tanbîh [De Goeje], p. 338), the modern Kḏûr. (The Arabic k is often transliterated in Hebrew as g.) This is the name of the southeastern portion of the aš-Šera’ mountain range, the ancient Seʻîr, and also of the ruins of al-Mṛejjera. Thus, according to our interpretation, Gedor borders on Seʻîr or is located in its southeastern portion. I connect the place name Gai’ with the reference in Ptolemy’s Geography, VI, 7: 29, where the place is recorded as Gaia. Ptolemy locates it, however, in Arabia Felix instead of in Arabia Petraea; but this is not the only occasion on which he confuses the two Arabias. The territory to the north of Tejma, where Ptolemy places the town of Gaia, is a complete wilderness in which no town was ever built. Glaucus in his Arabic Antiquities refers to the town of Gea as being near Petra in Arabia (Stephen of Byzantium, Ethnica [Meineke], Vol. 1, p. 200). Thus both Ptolemy and Glaucus would seem to bring us to the southern half of the Seîr mountain range, where, amid the very ruins of the town of Petra, has been preserved the settlement of al-Ǧi, which must be identical with the Biblical Gai’. At a distance of twenty-seven kilometers east of al-Ǧi is the oasis of Maʻân, the inhabitants of which we identify with the people of Meʻûn, and which tallies exactly with the situation of the other localities mentioned.
Our view is corroborated also by the interpretation of an Assyrian inscription which has been preserved. During the reign of King Hezekiah an attempt was made by the great Assyrian king Sargon II to subdue Egypt. Frequent battles ensued in the neighborhood of Gerar and the Egyptian border valley. Consequently the men of Simeon who migrated could not have found any safe and peaceful dwelling places there. A different state of affairs prevailed in southern Seʻîr and in the Gedor region. In the year 715 B. C. Sargon II had dispatched his army into southern Seʻîr and thence to the south along the great transport route leading from Syria to southwestern Arabia (Cyl. Inscr. [Rawlinson, Cuneiform, Vol. 1, pl. 36], 1. 20; Lyon, Keilschrift., p. 4; Peiser in: Schrader, Keilinschr. Bib., Vol. 2, p. 42). The army destroyed the camps and settlements of the tribes there, took many of the people prisoners, and transported them to Samaria. Many settlements and territories lost all their inhabitants. It is certain that the men of Simeon heard about this and for that reason