Pa'ran. (peace of caverns). A desert or wilderness, bounded on the north by Palestine, on the east by the valley of Arabah, on the south by the desert of Sinai, and on the west by the wilderness of Etham, which separated it from the Gulf of Suez and Egypt. The first notice of Paran is in connection with the invasion of the confederate kings. Genesis 14:6. The detailed itinerary of the children of Israel in Numbers 33:1, does not mention Paran because it was the name of a wide region; but the many stations in Paran are recorded, Numbers 17-36, and probably, all the eighteen stations were mentioned between Hazeroth and Kadesh were in Paran.
Through this very wide wilderness, from pasture to pasture, as do modern Arab tribes, the Israelites wandered in irregular lines of march. This region through which the Israelites journeyed so long is now called by the name it has borne for ages - Bedu et-Tih, "the wilderness of wandering". ("Bible Geography," Whitney).
"Mount" Paran occurs only in two poetic passages, Deuteronomy 33:2; Habakkuk 3:3. It probably denotes the northwestern member of the Sinaitic mountain group, which lies adjacent to the Wady Teiran. (It is probably the ridge, or series of ridges, lying on the northeastern part of the desert of Paran, not far from Kadesh. - Editor).