Question II. What [is] to be noted in the borders of Judaea?

First: the “desert of Sin” (v. 1) is not the same as that into which, in the second month from the departure from Egypt, the children of Israel came (Exod. 16). For although both [are] “σίν [sin]” in Greek, and we call [both] “Sin,” yet there is a manifest distinction in the Hebrew, since the one begins with “ts” [tsade], the other with “s” [samech]. And here indeed [it is] first written through “tsade,” “Tsin,” just as also a little after (v. 3), for “tsena,” or in Greek “σενά [sena],” [it] is in Hebrew “Tsinah” — lest anyone here think of Mount Sinai. But that desert “Tsin” seems to have been outside the lot of Judaea, nearest to the southern border of the Asphaltite lake [the Dead Sea]. And this — as some express [it] — they say [means] the border of Juda is contiguous to the land of Edom, and to the sons of Sin.

Second: the “most salt sea” is called in Hebrew “the sea of Salt,” or “the salt sea.” Yet the Interpreter [Vulgate] uses a superlative, to distinguish this from the other seas, which also are salt — and so [salt] that [they] are sometimes called “Salt,” as in Maro [Virgil] (Aeneid 1): “Joyfully they gave the sails, and swept the foam of the salt [sea] with [their] bronze [prows].” But this sea in Judaea [is] much more salt than all the others — concerning which I already said [more], both on Genesis and on this book. Whence yet [it is] to be repeated here, [that] its length, which is from South to North, is handed down by Josephus (bk. 5 of the Antiquities, ch. 5) [as] 580 stadia, [its] breadth 150. And the same is called the “Asphaltite lake.” But just as, from “Adria,” a certain sea is called “Adriatic,” so Beroaldus — of the Innovators — thinks (bk. 3 Chron., ch. 3) [that] this salt sea [was] named from the city of “Salt,” concerning which below (v. 62); but the truer cause [is] handed down in Genesis, from the Sodomitic conflagration.

Third: “the tongue of the sea” is wont to be called some bay of it, as [in] Isaiah 11:15. Yet the Septuagint here render [it] “λοφιάν [lophian]” [ridge], and the Thargum “Cepha,” that is, “Peter” or “a Rock” — either because the Hebrew word signifies not only waters, but also lands and crags which have a likeness of a tongue; or because for it they put another [word], which would signify the same border and place by a mark then very notable, and known to all — namely, from some overhanging or neighboring rock.

Fourth: the Meridian and Southern coast the 70 here mostly call “λίβα [liba],” which is the wind from the Southern coast. And the same [70] often here put “κάδης [kadēs]” [Cades], as [in] vv. 1 & 4. And again “Addar” is by the 70 called “σάραβα [saraba].” But that “s” [of “saraba”] seems to have accrued from the intervening preposition “εἰς [eis]” [to]: so that [it] seems [it is] to be read “εἰς ἄραβα [eis araba]” [to Araba], or rather “ἄδαρα [adara]” [Adara].

Fifth: the “Ascent of the Scorpion” is a slope or mountain, in which [there is] either an abundance of Scorpions, or a certain figure and likeness [of one]. Some place it [more to the north] at the extreme southern border of the Asphaltite [lake], as Arias [Montanus does] in [his] “Phaleg,” or the map of the whole land of Israel. But that by no means pleases Masius.

(col. 1159)

Sixth: the “torrent of Egypt” is called by some the Nile — but in two ways. First: so that that part of it, or mouth, is signified which is at Pelusium. And this does not displease Masius here. Second: so that [it] be the river “Rhinocolura,” which is also called by another name “Nilus” — either because it is [derived] from it [the Nile] through, as it were, subterranean passages and channels, or because [it is] not very far from it.

Seventh: [the words] “those [things] which look toward the North” (v. 5) have a threefold explanation. The first is [that] of Junius: [that] from the Northern border of the Asphaltite [lake] the portion of Judaea is extended through that part of the Jordan river which [extends] thence as far as the lake of Genezareth; and so (below ch. 19:34) he says the borders of the tribe of Nephthali are co-terminous with the borders of Judaea. The second is [that] of Arias: [that] the Northern border of Judaea in this place begins from the tongue, namely, of the Mediterranean or western sea, [and goes] up to the eastern [limit], [namely] the same Jordan river. The third: [that] it be a repetition of the former middle, and an exegesis, in this manner: “This border, from the Southern Tongue of the same sea toward the Northern angle or part, is the very extremity of the Jordan river, where, namely, it sinks into the Asphaltites.” The first extends the borders of Judaea too much, nor [is it] sufficiently consonant to the text. The middle [second] is very easy, as also the third; but that [second] is closer to the Latin text, this [third] to the Hebrew.

Eighth: “Iebneel” (v. 11). “But that [it] is one of the two Jamnias, I nothing doubt,” says Masius. For the Greeks are wont often to convert the letter “beth” into their own “mi” [μ]. The same seems [right] to Arias too, here and in [his] “Caleb,” where [he treats] of the tribe of Dan; and both [Masius and Arias] will [have it] to be a maritime [coastal] city.

Ninth: “[the border] is concluded by the end of the great sea toward the west.” The Interpreter [Vulgate] concluded briefly [that] which in the Hebrew is said with more [words], thus: “And the goings-out of this border were to the sea, or toward the west. And the border of the sea [is] toward the great sea.” And this latter clause could be taken thus — as if this border were from the eastern or salt sea to the western, or “great,” sea — because, since the somewhat larger gatherings of waters were called “seas” by the Hebrews (Gen. 1:10, and in Pliny bk. 3 ch. 16, [and] Virgil Aeneid 1), and [since] thence, in those places, “the sea of Genezareth” [and] “the salt sea” were [so] named, the Mediterranean would far surpass all [of them] there in magnitude and mass of waters.

Tenth: the “Stone of Boen” (v. 6), or “Even Bohan,” is said [to be the stone] “of the son of Ruben.” [Is it] because [there] was among the Canaanites some “Ruben”? or rather because — [being] of the Rubenites who were still campaigning under Joshua — that “Bohan” did something illustrious at that stone? this [is] more likely; but the name would then [have been] very recent.

Eleventh: “Galgala” (v. 7) seems to some [to be] different from that in which we fixed the Israelites’ camp (above ch. 5). For this [Galgala is] near the slope “Adommin,” which (as St. Jerome attests in Paula’s Epitaph) was between Jerusalem and Jericho; but those camp-[places were] nearer to Jericho and the Jordan; and these (below ch. 18) are called not “Gilgal,” as [in] ch. 5, but “Geliboth.”

Twelfth: in these expositions of places, these words frequently occur — “to ascend, to pass over, to tend, to look toward, to go out, to incline, to go around, to descend” — which Arias briefly indicates by one line of this kind:

(— i.e. a single undulating line through the points A · B · C · D · E · F · G, tracing the border’s course: rising, dipping, and turning from one landmark to the next.)

Add [that], by our Interpreter, “contra [over against]” is quite often taken for “versus [toward],” or “ex adverso,” “è regione [opposite].”