PARAN pâr’ ən (פָּארָ֑ן). A broad central area of desert in the Sinai Peninsula. It is to be distinguished from three smaller peripheral districts: the wilderness of Shur in the NW, bordering Egypt; the wilderness of Sinai, in the southern tip of the peninsula; and the wilderness of Zin, in the NE between Kadesh-barnea and the Arabah trough.

Consequently, there is some overlap in the rather vaguely defined boundaries of Paran. The whole area is some 23,000 square m., divisible into three main topographical sections. In the wilderness of Shur, to the N, lie wide open sandy plains and the dune-fringed coast. Paran is bordered to the S by ranges of hills or isolated groups such as the Moghara, Jelleg, and Hellal. The central area consists of elevated sedimentary tablelands, collectively called the “Jebel at Tih.” This is the great “desert of the wanderings,” rising from 3,900 to 5,290 ft. above sea level, terminating in the S in the high plateau of Egma. All this area, over half of the total drainage area of the Sinai Peninsula, is drained by the Wadi al’Arish and its seasonal tributaries into the Mediterranean. To the S of these tablelands are the crystalline mountains of southern Sinai (see Mount Sinai), a deeply dissected landscape of gorges and mountain blocks. The eastern edge of the Sinai peninsula is intensely broken up into dissected hills, trough faults, and wadi floors—a wild assortment of landforms impossible to describe in detail.

Paran thus has been associated with wild desert conditions of both relief and climate, astride the trade routes and also as an inhospitable refuge to those seeking isolation. It was the district settled by Ishmael (Gen 21:21) and crossed by the Israelites at the Exodus (Num 10:12; 12:16; 13:3-26). From it the Israelites sent their spies into Pal. (Num 13:26). David fled into Paran after the death of Samuel (1 Sam 25:1), possibly to the northern sector of the area, though the Gr. rendering in the LXX reads “wilderness of Maon.” El-paran, referred to as on the border of the wilderness (Gen 14:6), has been identified by some scholars with Elath, just N of Aqaba. Mt. Paran (Deut 33:2 and Hab 3:3) has been identified with Jebel M’aqrah, some twenty-nine m. S of ’Ain Qedeis. This is a guess for Mt. Paran could refer to any one of a number of prominent peaks in the mountains in the southern Sinai Peninsula.

Bibliography N. Glueck, Rivers in the Desert (1959); Y. Aharoni and M. Avi-Yonah, The Macmillan Bible Atlas (1968), Map No. 48.