Borders matter when a nation is about to settle, and Scripture is careful about them. Maaleh-acrabbim, or the ascent of Akrabbim, is a marker on the southern edge of the land. Numbers 34 lists it as the border turns from the south, Joshua 15 repeats it for the tribe of Judah, and Judges 1 mentions the Amorites’ territory reaching up to Akrabbim. The name means little on its own, but together these lines show how exactly the land was described before anyone lived in it. Read Numbers 34 to see the whole boundary laid out, point by point.
3 verses
And your border shall turn from the south to the ascent of Akrabbim, and pass on to Zin: and the going forth thereof shall be from the south to Kadeshbarnea, and shall go on to Hazaraddar, and pass on to Azmon:
And it went out to the south side to Maalehacrabbim, and passed along to Zin, and ascended up on the south side unto Kadeshbarnea, and passed along to Hezron, and went up to Adar, and fetched a compass to Karkaa:
And the coast of the Amorites was from the going up to Akrabbim, from the rock, and upward.
Matthew George Easton, 1897
Ascent of the scorpions; i.e., “scorpion-hill”, a pass on the south-eastern border of Palestine (Num. 34:4; Josh. 15:3). It is identified with the pass of Sufah, entering Palestine from the great Wady el-Fikreh, south of the Dead Sea. (See AKRABBIM.)
William Smith, 1884
(ascent of scorpions), the full form of the name given as AKRABBIM in (Joshua 15:3) [AKRABBIM]