Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom, saying:

“Thus says your brother Israel: You know all the travail that has happened to us: how our fathers went down into Egypt, and we lived in Egypt a long time; and the Egyptians dealt ill with us, and our fathers: and when we cried to Yahweh, he heard our voice, and sent an angel, and brought us forth out of Egypt: and behold, we are in Kadesh, a city in the uttermost of your border.

“Please let us pass through your land: we will not pass through field or through vineyard, neither will we drink of the water of the wells: we will go along the king’s highway; we will not turn aside to the right hand nor to the left, until we have passed your border.”

Edom said to him, “You shall not pass through me, lest I come out with the sword against you.”

The children of Israel said to him, “We will go up by the highway; and if we drink of your water, I and my livestock, then will I give its price: let me only, without doing anything else, pass through on my feet.”

He said, “You shall not pass through.” Edom came out against him with many people, and with a strong hand. Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his border, so Israel turned away from him. 

A road, in the time of the First Testament, was an unpaved path broad enough to take wagons and chariots. Because there were no milestones, we cannot know the exact course a road took. We can make a reasoned conjecture, however, based on the assumption that travelers would have preferred level ground near water sources. Proximity to a road also helped determine the location of cities, of which we do find remains. Putting the elements together, we may assume that the central part of the King's Way followed the plateau on the watershed linking Rabbath Ammon (Amman of today), Heshbon (see photo, right), Madaba (later famous for its mosaics), and Dibon (where the Moabite Mesha stele was found). There are water sources along this route, and erosion has leveled it out. We can see how part of it looks today with the help of a tilted satellite photo:



Below, facing east, is a satellite view of the whole road system, including the King's Highway:



From Dibon (see photo on right), the King's Way would have continued south to Karak , known for its Crusader castle. Next, crossing a wadi, it entered a fertile region today called At-Tafila, watered with hundreds of springs; just west of the road, at Dana, is a nature reserve. Figs, olives and grapes grow here in profusion.

Further west, 2000 feet down in the Arava, the name Feinan preserves the Biblical name Punon. In Numbers 21: 6-10, we hear of the bronze serpent Moses made to cure the people of snakebite. In the next verse (10) we hear that "the children of Israel traveled, and encamped in Oboth." If we put this together with Numbers 33:43, we may locate the creation of the bronze serpent at Punon. In fact there are copper mines here. They correspond to the mines at Timna on the west side of the Arava, 60 miles to the south. Because of the shifting tectonic plates of Africa and Asia, the east side of the rift valley has moved that far north, relative to the west.

South of Dana, overlooking the road, is an impressive 12th-century castle, built by the Crusaders but largely redone by the Mamlukes; it is called Shobak or, in Crusader parlance, Montreal. Continuing southward, today's traveler finds, tucked among the mountains, the Nabataean city of Petra, counted today among the world's seven wonders.

During the First Testament period, however, there were no major cities in the difficult stretch between Kir of Moab and the Red Sea port of Ezion Geber (Aqaba).

Let us switch to the highway's northern section, between Rabbath Ammon (Amman) and Damascus, Here Ramoth Gilead stood out as a city in First Testament times. This was the main battleground in Israel's quest for empire during the 9th century BC. The Omrides had the requisite alliance with Phoenicia. They had also allied with Judah, thus gaining control over the Great Trunk Road. For a time they also subdued Moab, giving them a hold on the central part of the King's Way.

Their problem was its northern section: At Damascus, city of the Arameans, both trunk roads met, continuing north and east as a single route into Mesopotamia.  Damascus was therefore Israel's natural rival for domination of the land bridge. Ramoth Gilead sat south of Damascus on the King's Way, and so it was here that the armies engaged, as recorded in 1 Kings 22: 1-29 and 2 Kings 8:28.

In terms of the Second Testament, the northern section of the highway includes most of the Decapolis. Between Damascus and Philadelphia (Amman) was Gerasa, today's Jerash, second only to Petra as a major attraction in Jordan today.

North and east of Gerasa, as early as the 2nd century BC, the Nabataeans used their skills for gathering water in arid land to develop Bostra, today in Syria. (See the satellite photo of the Land Bridge above.) The Roman Emperor Trajan annexed the Nabataean realm in 106 AD, and five years later he began paving a road from the Red Sea port of Aela, the former Ezion Geber, along the King's Way for a distance of 250 miles. At Gerasa, however, he left the old route, branching north and east to Bostra, which became the northernmost point on this "Via Nova Traiana." The cutting edge of technology, Trajan's new road revolutionized the political economy of the day: commerce from Arabia and India found it faster than the older routes.

For centuries, then, merchants plied the King's or Trajan's Way. Its cities provided them with security from marauders, in turn growing wealthy from commerce. Along it spread the intangible as well: Christianity and Islam.  The King's Way remained the preferred north-south route as late as the Mamluke period. When the Ottomans took over in the 16th century, they developed a new road, east of it on the desert edge. This became part of the Darb el Haj, the pilgrimage route from Damascus to Mecca. According to legend, an Ottoman princess preferred it to the King's Way, so it also got the name of the "Maiden's Way," Tariq al-Bint. On its line, at the start of the 20th century, the Hejaz Railway was built for Muslim pilgrims. Today's modern Desert Highway, indicated above in the satellite photo, follows this course. It is faster than the King's Way, but with far less to see.