Rithmah - The name of this station is derived from retem, the broom-plant, the "juniper" of the King James Version. This must be the same encampment as that which is said in Numbers 13:26 to have been at Kadesh.

Rithmah - This place lay somewhere in the wilderness of Paran, through which the Israelites were now passing. See Numbers 13:1, Numbers 13:3. The name signifies the juniper tree; and the place probably had its name from the great number of those trees growing in that district.
Stat. 15.

And they departed from Hazeroth, and pitched at Rithmah. Eight miles from Hazeroth: Rethem, from whence this place seems to have had its name, is generally rendered by "juniper", 1-Kings 19:4 and the Targum of Jonathan here adds, where the juniper trees grew; and, perhaps, it is the same with the valley of Retheme, of which some travellers (e) thus write, "this valley", called in the Hebrew Retheme, and commonly Ritma, derives its name from a yellow flower, with which the valley is covered; we found here, on the left hand, two cisterns of excellent water; and water being to be had here, might be the reason of the Israelites pitching in this place. Some learned men (f) think it is the same with Kadeshbarnea, from whence the spies were sent, that being the next remove from Hazeroth, as this was; see Numbers 12:16, with which agrees the remark of Jarchi, that this place was so called, because of the evil tongue of the spies, as it is said, Psalm 120:3 "what shall be done unto thee, thou false tongue? sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of juniper"; alluding to the signification of Rithmah; perhaps this is the same place, which by Josephus (g) is called Dathema, and so in the Apocrypha:"Then the heathen that were at Galaad assembled themselves together against the Israelites that were in their quarters, to destroy them; but they fled to the fortress of Dathema.'' (1 Maccabees 5:9)
(e) Egmont and Heyman's Travels, vol. 2. p. 154. (f) Dr. Lightfoot, vol. 1. p. 35. Dr. Clayton's Chronology of the Hebrew Bible, p. 382, 383. (g) Antiqu. l. 12. c. 8. sect. 4.

Rithmah ("the place of the broom")--a station possibly in some wady extending westward of the Ghor.