atad Summary and Overview

buckthorn, a place where Joseph and his brethren, when on their way from Egypt to Hebron with the remains of their father Jacob, made for seven days a "great and very sore lamentation." On this account the Canaanites called it "Abel-mizraim" (Gen. 50:10, 11). It was probably near Hebron. The word is rendered "bramble" in Judg. 9:14, 15, and "thorns" in Ps. 58:9.

(thorn), The threshing-floor of, called also Abel-mizraim, #Ge 50:10,11| afterwards called Beth-hogla, and known to have lain between the Jordan and Jericho, therefore on the west side of Jordan.

THE THRESHING FLOOR OF A'TAD Gen 50:10, Rev 1:11. Its name was changed to Abel-mizraim, which see.

("the floor of the thorn".) A trodden space for threshing, beyond Jordan, where Joseph and his brethren and the Egyptian retinue made for seven days "great and very sore lamentation" over the body of Jacob, whence the Canaanites called the place Abel Mizraim, "the mourning of the Egyptians." Canaan being the central standpoint of the sacred history, the E. of Jordan is naturally called "beyond Jordan." The same route by which Joseph had been led captive was that by which the grand Egyptian procession doing honor to his deceased father proceeded. Grove however makes Atad W. of Jordan, as Jerome identifies it with Beth Hogla (the house of gyratory dances, or movements attendant on the funeral ceremony), known to lie between the Jordan and Jericho. The Canaanites, "the inhabitants of the land," were on the W. of Jordan (compare Genesis 50:13; Numbers 13:29). "Beyond Jordan" will thus be from the standpoint of the E. of Jordan, where Moses the writer was (Genesis 50:10-11).