Biblical Geography

The Wilderness of Paran

Wilderness · Old Testament · The central Sinai plateau (et-Tih fringe)

Scripture first

Genesis 21:20-21 · WEBU

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Ishmael grows up in of Paran, an archer, and his mother finds him a wife from Egypt.

Paran covers the central plateau of the Sinai peninsula. Hagar and Ishmael's survival there and Israel's long encampments there belong to the same country: open, dry, survivable only at its scattered springs.

The high desert plateau of the central Sinai where Hagar wandered and where Israel camped on the march from Sinai to Kadesh.

Biblical names
the wilderness of Paran
Modern identification
The central Sinai plateau (et-Tih fringe) · Egypt

Paran is crossed by the old routes between Egypt and Edom. Its openness explains both Hagar's wandering and Israel's manoeuvring: this is movement country, not settlement country.

  • Ishmael grows up in the wilderness of Paran, an archer, and his mother finds him a wife from Egypt.
  • Israel sets out from Sinai and the cloud settles in the wilderness of Paran
  • The Lord dawned from Seir, shone forth from Mount Paran

What we know

Certain

  • Scripture places Paran between Sinai and the southern border of Canaan.