Gen. l. 11. צרן עטרATAD, Atad’s Threshing-Floor. This is the place where the Sons of Jacob, and the Egyptians who accompanied them, mourned for this Patriarch; and which was afterwards called Abel-mizraim, the mourning of the Egyptians. Some there are who place it beyond Jordan; but others think it was on this side the River. St. Jerom1 fixes it between the Jordan and Jericho, two miles from the river, and three from Jericho, in the place where afterwards Beth-agla was built. Procopius of Gaza does the same2. They who place it Eastward beyond Jordan, seem to have been led into this mistake by St. Jerom’s words, who says that Abel-mizraim, or the Mourning of the Egyptians, or the Threshing-floor of Atad, is beyond Jordan; but these words, beyond Jordan, he understood with respect to those who came from Egypt, with regard to whom the Threshing-floor of Atad was beyond this river, supposing they took the same way which the Israelites did afterwards, in their journey to the land of Canaan; which is not at all certain.
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