PHARAN. - A desert of Arabia Petraea, today called Badjet et-Tih. It consists of a broad plain bounded on the east by the valley of the 'Arabah, extending from the south of the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Elanitico; on the west by the desert of Sur or Etham (Gen. 16, 7); on the south by Gebel et-Tih; on the north by the desert of Sin and by the mountains of the Amorrites, or the southern borders of the land of Canaan. It is called a “terrible and vast desert” (Deut. 1, 17), in which there are “fiery serpents, scorpions, arid ground, without water” (ibid. 8, 15).
Modern travellers describe it as a horribly wild place, without vegetation, with bare clay hills, plains covered with black flints, broad expanses of shifting sands, interrupted only here and there by rare oases. It is first mentioned in Gen. 14, 6, as the extreme southern limit of Chodorlahomor’s expedition.
Ismaele dwelt in this desert (Gen. 21, 10, 21). It owes its particular renown, however, to the 38 years spent there by the Hebrews who had left Egypt: the 19 stages of the Hebrews recorded in Num. 22, 18-36 are to be sought within II. CALDEA (v.) was situated in the northern part of the desert, a part also called the “desert of Sin.”
David, persecuted by Saul, took refuge there after the death of Samuele (I Sam. 25, 1); likewise the Idumean Adad, fleeing from Ioab toward Egypt, crossed the desert and took with him many inhabitants of the land (I Reg. 11, 17 sg.).
Vincenzo M. Jacono