Kadesh Barnea
קָדֵשׁ בַּרְנֵעַ · רֶקֶם
Where was biblical Kadesh Barnea? At Ein el-Qudeirat in northern Sinai, or Petra in Jordan. I mark it debated. The case for the main rival site is below.
Kadesh was Israel's home base in the wilderness. The twelve spies set out from here. Miriam died and was buried here. And here Moses struck the rock when G-d told him to speak to it, the act that kept him out of the Land.
By Aaron Shaffier, licensed Israel tour guide and mapmaker · About the mapmaker
- Site today
- Ein el-Qudeirat in northern Sinai, or Petra in Jordan
- How sure
- Debated Two or more serious candidates.
- Other names
- Kadesh Barnea and Rekem, Kadesh-barnea, Qadesh Barnea, En-mishpat, Meribath-kadesh, Ein el-Qudeirat, Tell el-Qudeirat, Ein Qadis
- Location
- 30.5833° N, 34.4842° E (Google Maps)
How we know where it was
The map carries two labels for it, because there are two serious traditions.
Kadesh Barnea, in Sinai. The Torah runs the southern border of the Land past Kadesh Barnea and on west to the Brook of Egypt. So modern scholars went looking for a big spring in northeastern Sinai, on that line. They found two, about six miles apart. Ein Qadis still carries the name. Ein el-Qudeirat, beside it, is the richest spring in the region. Excavations there uncovered a chain of Judean forts from the time of the kings, guarding the same southern frontier the Bible describes. The map's label covers both springs.
Rekem, at Petra. The Jewish tradition points somewhere else. When Onkelos translated the Torah into Aramaic, every time the text says Kadesh he wrote Rekem, and for Kadesh Barnea he wrote Rekem Geah. Rekem is no mystery. Josephus tells us it was the local name of the city the Greeks called Petra, and an inscription found at Petra names a man "born in Raqmu."
The Torah's own details fit. Moses sends word to the king of Edom from "Kadesh, a city on the edge of your border." The next stop is Mount Hor, "on the edge of the land of Edom," where Aaron dies. Petra sits in the heart of Edom, and the mountain above it is still called Jebel Harun, the mountain of Aaron!
The border lists favor Sinai. The Targum, Josephus and the Edom verses favor Petra. Some scholars solve it with two places of the same name: Kadesh Barnea in the west, where the spies set out, and a second Kadesh near Edom at the end of the forty years.
I think both are possible, which is why the map carries two labels. But I find it less likely that the springs in Sinai are the Kadesh where Israel lived for so many years. For that long stay, Rekem fits better.
Visiting today
Ein el-Qudeirat is in Egyptian Sinai and closed to visitors. Petra is a day trip from Eilat, and a long hike climbs Jebel Harun to the traditional tomb of Aaron.
Read it in the Bible
Verse numbers follow the Hebrew Bible. In a handful of chapters English Bibles count one verse off.
See Kadesh on the interactive map →
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