In his recent discussion of the tomb and nefesh of the Benei Ḥezir at Jerusalem, D. Barag described and identified palpable Nabataean elements in the architecture and decorations of this monument from first-century BCE Jerusalem. As evidenced by a scatter of finds, ‘Nabataeanising’ was fashionable among at least some Judaean families. Jewish–Nabataean contacts in the first centuries BCE/CE operated on the levels of politics, trade, and settlement, and are inscribed within the larger context of Judaean/Jewish presence in Transjordan and North Arabia from Achaemenid times to the coming of Islam.

Political relations between the Jewish and Nabataean principalities might briefly be summarised, although for a rich family like the Benei Ḥezir (whose wealth, based on trade and land leasing, is evidenced by the splendour of their tomb) they were largely irrelevant. As the biblical book of Ruth demonstrates so well, there had always been emigration from Judah to Moab, and immigration from Moab to Judah. Most scholars date Ruth to the fifth century BCE, but the basic situation of the protagonists is timeless and applies to the whole ‘pre-modern world’ from the beginnings of settled life to the end of the Ottoman period. The Moabite plateau is 200 m higher than the mountains of Judah, thus receiving more precipitation than any area south of Hebron, and becomes an area of refuge in times of drought. It is, from the point of view of the geography of traffic, fairly isolated and less accessible from the north, west and south, and becomes an area of refuge in times of crisis and instability, especially if the aggressors come from the north, west or south.