0 10 March from Kadesh to the plains of Moab........ Total 18 § 2. Had the object been to lead them by the shortest route out of Egypt into Canaan, it might have been accomplished in a few days' journey along the shore of the Mediterranean. But they were not thus to evade the moral discipline of the wilderness. Besides that their first destination was fixed for "the mount of God," they were quite unprepared to meet the armies of the Philistines, and so God led the people about through the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea." 9919 66 20 At the very outset, we are met by a great difficulty about their point of departure. It is a simple and attractive theory which carries them straight along the valley, now called the Wady et-Tih, running eastward from the fork of the Delta to the Red Sea, between two parallel offshoots of the hills which skirt the Nile, and of which the northern range bears the name of Jebel-Atakah (the mountain of deliverance)." But this route is too simple: it could hardly fill up three days, even for such a host, and it was inconsistent with the final movements by which they became "entangled in the land," for they would have been so already, and they would have had no turning" to make to encamp by the sea." Nor can this view be reconciled with their probable startingpoint. It is evident that they were gathered together in Goshen before their departure; and they are expressly said to have started from RAMESES.22 Now whether Rameses be the city named in Exodus i. 11, or the district so called in Genesis xlvii. 11, it must be sought along the east branch of the Nile lower down than Heliopolis." 66 21 From this starting-point they made two days' journey be fore reaching the edge of the wilderness at Etham." Thence, making a turn, which can only have been southward, they reached the Red Sea in one day's journey." There seems to 18 For the list of the forty-two journeys in Num. xxxiii. see Notes and Illustrations (A). 19 Ex. xiii. 17, 18. 20 See the Map on p. 162. 25 21 Ex. xiv. 2, 3. 12 Ex. xii. 37; Num. xxxiii. 3, 5. 23 See p. 117. 24 Ex. xii. 37, xiii. 20. 25 Ex. xiv. 2. be only one route that satisfies these conditions, that namely by the Wady et-Tumeylat, through which ran the ancient canal ascribed to the Pharaohs. The mound called El-Abbaseyeh in that valley offers a probable site for RAMESES; and the distance from it to the head of the Red Sea, about thirty miles in a direct line, answers very well to the threedays journey of the vast, mixed, and encumbered troop, especially when an allowance is made for the deviation already mentioned. As to the further details, the name of the first resting place, SUCCOTH, affords no help, as it only means booths. ETHAM, the second stage, being on the edge of the wilderness, may very well correspond to Seba Biar (the Sev en Wells), which occupies such a position, about three miles from the western side of the ancient head of the Gulf of Suez, which extended much farther to the north than it does now. Thence their natural route into the Peninsula of Sinai would have been round the head of the gulf, but, by the express command of God, "they turned and encamped before PIHAHIROTH, between Migdol and the sea, over against Baalzephon "-localities evidently on the west side of the Gulf of Suez. 26 This incomprehensible movement led Pharaon to exclaim, "They are entangled in the wilderness, the sea hath shut them in." And well might he say so, if their position was enclosed between the sea on their east, the Jebel Atakah, which borders the north side of the Wady-t-Tih, on their south and west, and the wilderness in their rear, with the pursuing army pressing on to cut off their retreat. Add to this that the sea, where they encamped by it, must have been shallow enough for its bed to be laid bare by the "strong east wind," narrow enough for the host to pass over in a single night, and yet broad enough to receive the whole army of Pharaoh; and lastly, that the opposite bank must not be rocky or precipitous. These conditions seem to exclude any place in the mouth of the Wady-t-Tih, south of Jebel Atakah, as well as the traditional line of passage opposite Ayun Mousa (the Spring of Moses), and to restrict the place of passage to the neighborhood of Suez. 9927 § 3. The great miracle itself, by which a way was cloven for the people through the sea, was a proof to them, to the Egyptians, and to all the neighboring nations, that the hand of Jehovah was with them, leading them by His own way, and ready to deliver them in every strait through all their future course. In this light it is celebrated in that sublime hymn of triumph, which furnishes the earliest example of responsive choral music. In this light it is looked back upon by the sacred writers in every age, as the great miracle which inaugurated their history as a nation. The King of Egypt and his servants, with hearts hardened even against the lesson taught by the death of the first-born, repented of letting their slaves depart." With six hundred chosen chariots, and all his military array, he pursued and overtook them at Pi-hahiroth. The frightened people began to raise the cry, with which they so often assailed Moses, "Better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should 66 die in the wilderness."30 But the way was made clear by faith and obedience. "Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of Jehovah..... He shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace," was the answer of Moses to the people, while God's word to him was that which generally opens a way out of danger and distress :- Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward." At the signal of the uplifted rod of Moses, a strong east wind blew all that night, and divided the waters as a wall on the right hand and on the left, while the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry land." The guiding pillar of fire (with the angel of Jehovah himself) moved from their van into their rear, casting its beams along their column, but creating behind them a darkness amid which the host of Pharaoh went after them into the bed of the sea. But, at the morning watch, Jehovah looked out of the pillar of fire and cloud, and troubled the Egyptians. Panic-stricken, they sought to fly; but their chariot-wheels were broken the host of Israel had now reached the bank : the rod of Moses waved again over the gulf: "and the sea returned to his strength when the morning appeared; and the Egyptians fled against it;" but not one of them was left alive. "And the people feared Jehovah, and believed his servant Moses." The waters of the Red Sea were thenceforth a moral, as well as a physical gulf between them and Egypt. Its passage initiated a new dispensation: "they were all baptized to Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 9933 § 4. Their route now lay southward down the east side of the Gulf of Suez, and at first along the shore. The station of Ayun Mousa (the Wells of Moses), with its tamarisks and seventeen wells, may have served for their gathering after the passage. They marched for three days through the wilderness of SHUR OF ETHAM, on the south-west margin of the great desert of Paran (et-Tih), where they found no water. The tract is still proverbial for its storms of wind and sand. It is a part of the belt of gravel which surrounds the mountains of the peninsula, and is crossed by several wadys, whose sides are fringed with tamarisks, acacias, and a few palm-trees. Near one of these, the Wady el-'Amarah, is a 34 30 Ex. xiv. 10-12. 31 While the Scripture narrative recognizes a physical agency, called forth by the special power of God, as the instrument of the miracle, it quite excludes the idea of a mere retirement of the water from the head of the sea, which, besides, an east wind would not have effected. 32 This seems to dispose of every theory which makes the Pharaoh of the Exodus survive this catastrophe (comp. Ps. cxxxvi. 15). 331 Cor. x. 2. 34 Ex. xv. 22; Jur. xxxii. 8. spring called Ain Awárah, not only in the position of MARAH, but with the bitter taste which gave it the name. The people, tormented with thirst, murmured against Moses, who, at the command of God, cast a certain tree into the waters which made them sweet. This was the first great trial of their patience; and God, who had healed the waters, promised to deliver them from all the diseases of Egypt if they would obey Him, and confirmed the promise by the name of "Jehovah the Healer. "35 They must have been cheered at reaching the oasis of ELIM, whose twelve wells and threescore palm-trees mark it as one of the wadys that break the desert; either the Wady Ghurundel or the Wady Useit. After passing the Wady Taiyibeh, the route descends through a defile on to a beautiful pebbly beach, where Dean Stanley places the ENCAMPMENT BY THE RED SEA, which is mentioned in Numbers3 next to Elim, but is omitted in Exodus. Here the Israelites had their last view of the Red Sea and the shores of Egypt. 38 37 § 5. Striking inland from this point, they entered the WILDERNESS OF SIN" (probably the plain of Murkhah), which leads up from the shore to the entrance to the mountains of Sinai. Here occurred their second great trial since leaving Egypt. Their unleavened bread was exhausted; and they began to murmur that they had better have died by the fleshpots of Egypt than have been led out to be killed with hunger in the wilderness. But God was teaching them to look to him for their " daily bread," which He now rained down from heaven in the form of manna, and continued the supply till they reached Canaan.39 The truth was most emphatically enforced by the impossibility of gathering more or less than the prescribed portion of the manna, or of keeping it over the day.' But the manna was designed to teach them a deeper lesson. They had not only distrusted God's providence as to their food, but were regarding that food itself as the chief thing they were to live for; and so "God humbled them and suffered them to hunger, and fed them with a food unknown to them, that He might make them know that man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word 40 35 Ex. xv. 26. 36 Num. xxxiii. 10. 39 Ex. xvi. 4, 35. The details are 37 This must be carefully distin- discussed in the Notes and Illustraguished not only from the wilderness tions (C). The quails, which were sent of Sinai, but also from the wilderness at the same time (Ex. xvi. 8, 13), seem of Zin, which lies north of the Gulf only to have been a temporary supply of Akaba. comp. Num. xi. 31). 38 Ex. xvi. 1. 40 Ex. xvi. 16-21. |