Kadesh

Kadesh (meaning holy or sacred) designates two distinct sites in the biblical record. Kadesh-barnea, the more prominent, was the oasis in the Wilderness of Paran where Israel camped for extended periods during the Exodus. It was from here that Moses sent the twelve spies into Canaan (Numbers 13), and the faithless report of ten of them condemned a generation to forty years of wilderness wandering. Miriam died and was buried at Kadesh (Numbers 20:1), and it was also the scene of Moses's failure at the waters of Meribah, which cost him entry into the promised land. The site is identified with Ain el-Qudeirat in the northeastern Sinai.

A second Kadesh, known as Kadesh on the Orontes, was the sacred city of the Hittites on the left bank of the Orontes River in Syria, site of the famous Battle of Kadesh (c. 1274 BC) between Pharaoh Ramesses II and the Hittite king Muwatalli II—one of the earliest recorded pitched battles in history and the occasion of one of antiquity's first known peace treaties. This northern Kadesh is distinct from the Israelite Kadesh-barnea but shares the same root meaning of holiness, suggesting both sites were regarded as sacred in their respective traditions.