Biblical Geography

The Negev

Region · Old Testament · The Negev

Scripture first

Genesis 12:9 · WEBU

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Abram journeys on, stage by stage, toward the Negev.

The Negev was pastureland in good years and in bad, the grazing country of the patriarchs around Beersheba. It was the threshold of Canaan: the spies entered the land through it.

The dry southland of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, between Hebron and the wilderness of Sinai.

Biblical names
the Negev, the South
Modern identification
The Negev · Israel

The Negev depends on a few inches of rain and on wells. Beersheba's well is a site precisely because water there is life or death.

  • Abram journeys on, stage by stage, toward the Negev.
  • Abraham sojourns in the Negev, between Kadesh and Shur
  • Isaac dwells in the Negev when Rebekah arrives
  • The spies sent up through the Negev into the hill country

What we know

Certain

  • Scripture places the patriarchs' sojourning in the Negev around Beersheba.