Desert of Paran

The Desert of Paran or Wilderness of Paran (also sometimes spelled Pharan or Faran; Hebrew מדבר פארן Midbar Pa'ran), is a location mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. It is one of the places where the Israelites spent part of their 40 years of wandering after the Exodus, and was also a home to Ishmael, and a place of refuge for David.

In Arabic tradition it has often been equated with an area of the Hejaz, around Mecca, linked to Ishmael and Abraham.

The Wilderness or Desert of Paran is said to be the place where Abraham's wife Sarai and her Egyptian servant girl Hagar (Genesis 16:1) by permission bore him a son Ishmael were sent into exile from Abraham's dwelling in Beersheba, as a result of which Hagar "departed, and strayed in the wilderness of Beer-sheba" (Genesis 21):

Then God opened her [Hagar's] eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer. While he was living in the Desert of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from Egypt. (Genesis 21:19-22)

Paran is later mentioned in the Book of Numbers as a place where the Israelites temporarily settled during the Exodus:

Then the Israelites set out from the Desert of Sinai and traveled from place to place until the cloud came to rest in the Desert of Paran. (Numbers 10:12)

Paran again features in the opening lines of the Book of Deuteronomy:

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