Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

KINGS HIGHWAY

A major route (Heb. dereḵ hammeleḵ, “King’s Highway” or “royal way”), the “main road” by which Moses sought to lead the Hebrews through Edom and Moab (Num. 20:17; 21:22; cf. Deut. 2:27). Many scholars understand the Hebrew term as a proper name for the international route that connected Damascus with Aqabah (on the Red Sea) and associate it with the itinerary mentioned in Gen. 14:5-6. A route must have traversed Transjordan from north to south, but it simply followed the passable contours and was not necessarily a well-made and officially maintained highway. In the 9th-century b.c. Moabite Stone, King Mesha claims that he repaired the highway that crossed the Arnon (Wadi Môjib). Early in the 2nd century b.c., the Romans established a road through this same region, and sections of its pavement and a few milestones survive to this day. Indeed, one of modern Jordan’s north-south highways serves the same purpose, though the topography that automobiles and trucks can negotiate often varies from what pedestrians, horses, and/or beasts of burden might require. Like the ancient route, the modern “King’s Highway” connects the cities of Amman, Madaba, Dhiban, Karak, Buseirah, and Aqabah.

Bibliography. D. A. Dorsey, The Roads and Highways of Ancient Israel (Baltimore, 1991).

Gerald L. Mattingly

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

KINGS HIGHWAY

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)