AKRABBIM (n+nhry 1-6vn, Scorpion height; . _ Sept. 'Avcigacrcs 'Avcri3ip), an ascent, hill, or chain of hills, which, from the name, would appear to have been much infested by scorpions and serpents, as some districts in that quarter certainly were (Deut. viii. 15 ; comp. Volney, ii. 256). It was one of the points which are only mentioned in describing the frontier-line of the Promised Land southward (Judg. i. 36). Shaw conjectures that Akrabbim may probably be the same with the mountains of Akabah, by which he understands the easternmost range of the brgXapa bps, `black mountains' of Ptolemy, extending from Paran to Judaea. This range has lately become well known as the mountains of Edom, being those which bound the great valley of Arabah on the east (Travels, ii. 120). More specifically, he seems to refer Akrabbim to the southernmost portion of this range, near the fortress of Akabah, and the extremity of the eastern gulf of the Red Sea ; where, as he observes, ' from the badness of the roads, and many rocky passes that are to be surmounted, the Mohammedan pilgrims lose a number of camels, and are no less fatigued than the Israelites were formerly in getting over them.'
Burckhardt (Syria, p. 509) reaches nearly the same conclusion, except that he rather refers ' the ascent of Akrabbim,' to the acclivity of the western moun tains from the plain of Akabah. This ascent is very steep, `and has probably given to the place its name of Akabah, which means a cliff, or steep declivity.' The probability of this identification depends upon the whether the south eastern frontier of Judah would he laid down so far to the south in the time of Moses and Joshua. If so, the identification is fair enough ; but if not, it is of no weight or value in itself. The apparent analogy of names can he little else than accidental, when the signification in the two languages is altogether different.—J. K