A. M. 2514. A. C. 1490; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3764. A. C. 1647. EXOD. xxxiv. 28—NUM. xviii, Hiroth; which extended through the mountains all the way to the valley of the Nile. It was also in front of Migdol, which we have the strongest reasons to believe was a fortress at the opening of the valley, at the northern angle of the mountains, to defend it on the side of the Arabian Desert, for from the south there was no approach. Something remains yet to be said in illustration of the topography of this interesting spot. Thus far the Israelites had advanced without meeting with any obstacle; but how came they to be stopped at this precise spot, without the possibility of proceeding another mile? How came they just here to be so "entangled in the land” that, without a miracle, they must have fallen an immediate prey to their enemies? for neither in the maps, nor in the general accounts given of this miracle, is there any explanation of this difficulty. After quitting Etham, they entered a lengthened defile, in which they advanced about thirty miles, having the mountains on their right hand and the sea on their left-both impassable. Arrived thus far, their further progress southward was arrested, either by the impracticable nature of the country beyond, or by an estuary of the Red Sea, which ran up into the valley of Hiroth; from which inlet, it appears by the above cited passage from Harduin, a canal of communication was, in the time of the Ptolemies, carried on to the Nile. The latter opinion the reader will find ably maintained by Mr Bryant, in the work already referred to. This estuary probably came so close to the foot of the mountains, as to admit only of a difficult passage in that direction; which was guarded by the fortress of Migdol. Besides, if it had been free of access, the Israelites could have had no inclination to take such a course, which would only have led them back again into the heart of Egypt. They were accordingly hemmed in, in a kind of cul de sac, which rendered the subsequent miracle for their deliverance as necessary as it was signal. The place of this estuary is now dry; having been, in the course of ages, partly filled up by the fallen materials of the mountains, and partly left dry by the retreat of the sea itself: it is called Bedea by the Arabs -a name which may be referred to the same origin with the Phrygian word Beov, water. The inlet itself, some remnant of which perhaps existed in the time of the Greeks, was by them denominated Clysma; which likewise signifies water, or an inundation, and might refer either to the place or the miracle. From the inlet, the name was transferred to a town and fortress on its borders; which was probably in the same situation as the Migdol of the Egyptians, and was subsequently the Kolsum of the Arabs, a word denoting drowning, and which gave its name to the adjoining sea, which is still called Bayer-al-Colsum. of Kolsum at Suez, would thus be obviated. But with deference to the learned authorities who have espoused this opinion, the grounds on which it is formed are not to be depended upon; and new and equal difficulties will be found to attach to them. Mr Bryant, confiding in the astronomical observations of Ptolemy and Ulug Beg, makes a distance of seventy miles from Heroum to Clysma, but of only twenty-two or twenty-three to Kolsum; thus separating them by nearly fifty miles of latitude. According to Ptolemy, the latitude of Heroum was 29° 50', and that of Clysma 28° 50′. According to Ulug Beg, the latitude of Kolsum was 29° 30′. Now if the reader will take the trouble to consult a map, he will perceive that these positions are impossible; that of Heroum would be 7' south of the present head of the gulf at Suez, while that of Clysma would be far down the gulf, where no town and no communication with the interior ever existed. These observations of Ptolemy then must be erroneous, and permit no well-founded argument to be derived from them. But the position assigned to Kolsum by Ulug Beg is, in fact, within a few minutes of a degree of that of Clysma, and the difference is on the south instead of the north. Whether Heroum ever stood on the gulf, as Mr Bryant infers, or, in other words, whether the gulf ever extended up to that city, is not here of consequence. The canal of Ptolemy Philadelphus passed by it in its way to the Red Sea; but it cannot be shown that it ever stood on its shores. Whether it did or not, does not, in fact, affect the calculations in question; the latitudes are evidently erroneous, and all conclusions derived from them must be erroneous also. The actual distance, however, given by Ptolemy, between Heroum and Clysma, may be correct, though not on the meridian. This distance is, in fact, corroborated by Antoninus, who makes it sixty-eight miles; but then it is not in a direct line from north to south, but in a south-eastern one, which diminishes the amount in point of latitude one-half, or to thirty-four miles, equal as near as may be to half a degree. D'Anville has placed Clysma in 29° 40′ north latitude, and Heroum, or Heroopolis, in 30° 17'; difference 37', equal to about forty-three English, or forty-seven Roman miles; to which, if half of the amount, or 231⁄2 miles be added for the easting, it comes as near the distance of Antoninus as can be expected. Nothing, then, in these calculations affects the true position of either Clysma or Kolsum, or the arguments founded on their identity. One thing, indeed, is clear: that no measurement from Heroum, on the Trajanus Amnis, to Kolsum at Suez, will give the required distance between the former and Clysma; and as to the difficulties which have been supposed to have arisen out of the identity of the two places, they may, it is hoped, The position and agreement of these places are, how-be shown to be far from formidable. These difficulties ever, not so clear, but that some authors of eminence have entertained a different opinion. Mr Bryant, and more recently Mr Horne, adopting the arguments of the former, contend that Clysma and Kolsum were not the same place; and that the mistakes of former writers from confounding the two, and thereby embarrassing the attempts to fix the precise place of passage, may by this means be rectified. It is possible, indeed, that they might not have been the same place; and the difficulties arising out of their supposed identity, and the situation have chiefly arisen from the frivolous and sceptical arguments of the celebrated traveller Niebuhr; which are altogether founded in misconception, and in a culpable inattention to the scope and letter of the sacred history; and which from a writer of less repute would be totally undeserving of notice. In the first place, then, this author, overlooking the obvious route of the Israelites round by Etham, which he himself places at the head of the gulf, makes them pass through the valley of Bedea to the sea; and then A. M. 2514. A. C. 1490; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3764. A. C. 1647. EXOD. xxxiv. 28-NUM. xviii. sceptical queries proposed by the celebrated critic Michaelis; namely, "Whether there were not some ridges of rocks where the water was shallow, so that an army at particular times may pass over? Secondly, Whether the Etesian winds, which blow strongly from the northwest, could not blow so violently against the sea, as to keep it back on a heap, so that the Israelites might have passed without a miracle?" How different to those of Niebuhr are the observations of the sensible Bruce, to whom the same queries were proposed! These observations are indeed inimitable; and the author quotes them at length with the greater pleasure as he has more than once, in the course of the present work, found occasion to dissent from his opinions. "I must confess," says Mr Bruce, "however learned the gentlemen were who proposed these doubts, I did not think they merited any attention to solve them. This passage is told us by Scripture to be a miraculous one; and if so, we have nothing to do with natural causes. If we do not believe Moses, we need not believe the transaction at all, seeing that it is from his authority alone we derive it. If we believe in God that he made the sea, we must believe he could divide it when he sees proper reason; and of that he must be the only judge. It is no greater miracle to divide the Red Sea, than to divide the river Jordan. wonders how they could be said to be entangled in the land, and shut in by the wilderness,' with the way open before them straight up to Suez. This obvious difficulty is sufficient alone to show that this was not their route. Yet the intelligent Bruce has fallen into the same error. Niebuhr reasons on the march of the Israelites as on that of a modern caravan; and intimates, that as no mention | is made of their being apprized that a miracle would be wrought for their deliverance, it is not likely that they would suffer themselves to be led blindfold into such a share. "Amongst so many thousand persons," says he, “some would be well acquainted with the way, and would surely have opposed the design of Moses, if he had made them take a route which plainly led to their destruction. One need only travel with a caravan which weets with the least obstacle, a small torrent for instance, to be convinced that the Orientals are not deficient in intelligence, and that they do not suffer themselves to be led like fools by their Caravan-Baschi," or leader. After indulging in this style of reasoning, our author, wishing to diminish the force of the miracle, though not entirely to destroy it, contends for a higher passage near Suez, where the channel is narrower, and the passage itself may be supposed to have come more within the reach of natural causes; and here, to give some countenance to his argument, are the ruins of a town called Kolsum. And as the Arabic tradition has always placed the site of the miracle near that town; as the name of this town is also supposed to be only a variation of Clysma; and has, further, been taken by travellers to be the same with Arsinoe, or Suez; Mr Bryant took the above-mentioned mode of proving that they were not the same in doing which he proved too much. But if the ruins in question be indeed those of a town called Kolsum, there is nothing conclusive to be drawn from thence. The original town of this name was very pro-repeated it many a time before and since, from the same bably built on the true site of Clysma; from whence, in course of time, for greater convenience of trade, or to be nearer water, or for many purposes with which we may be unacquainted, it was removed to the site of the present ruins, carrying its name along with it. This is nothing more than what is perfectly analogous to what has happened in every country. Or if these ruins be those of the first and only town of Kolsum, what is there improbable in the supposition that this name should have been given to it? The distance from Clysma is comparatively insignificant: the event which the name records was too stupendous to be forgotten; while the precise spot in which it occurred, might, to the unlettered Arabs, though known to be near, be totally lost. We again, then, come to the conclusion, that the position of this town, and its being or not the same as Clysma, cannot mislead us. Niebuhr, then, stands inexcused, even upon this principle, in endeavouring to fritter the miracle down to nothing, by placing it in a narrow and shallow part of the channel; and the following argument, like most of his others on this subject, admits as little of palliation : "Pharaoh," says he, "would not appear to me to have been inconsiderate in attempting to pass the sea at Suez, where it is not above half a league over; but he must have lost all prudence, if, after seeing such prodigies in Egypt, he ventured to enter the sea where it was more than three leagues in breadth." These remarks of Niebuhr were called forth by some "If the Etesian wind, blowing from the north-west in summer, could keep up the sea as a wall on the right, or to the south, of fifty feet high, still the difficulty would remain of building the wall on the left, or to the north. Besides, water standing in that position for a day, must have lost the nature of fluid. Whence came that cohesion of particles which hindered that wall to escape at the sides? This is as great a miracle as that of Moses. If the Etesian winds had done this once, they must have 1 causes. Yet Diodorus Siculus, says, the Troglodytes, the indigenous inhabitants, of that very spot, had a tradition from father to son from their very earliest ages, that once this division of the sea did happen there; and that after leaving its bottom some time dry, the sea again came back, and covered it with great fury. The words of this author are of the most remarkable kind; we cannot think this heathen is writing in favour of revelation: he knew not Moses, nor says a word about Pharaoh and his host; but records the miracle of the division of the sea in words nearly as strong as those of Moses, from the mouths of unbiassed, undesigning pagans. "Were all these difficulties surmounted, what could we do with the pillar of fire? The answer is,-We should not believe it. Why then believe the passage at all? We have no authority for the one; but what is for the other: it is altogether contrary to the ordinary nature of things; and if not a miracle it must be a fable.” The instrument employed by the Almighty for the division of the sea, is said to be a strong east wind.' But it is remarkable that there is no such thing as a natural east wind in all this country; the monsoon blows invariably half the year from the north, or north-northwest, and the other half from the opposite points. Some authors have supposed, that Moses having lived long in the neighbourhood of the Red Sea, had become 1 A. M. 2514. A. C. 1490; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3764. A. C. 1647. EXOD. xxxiv. 28.—NUM. xvili, of the beach on both sides, the centre only would afford sufficient depth. For it is to be observed, that the front of Pharaoh's army was still standing on the bed of the sea, when the rear had also entered it. acquainted with the phenomena of its tides, and took | mile wide, and where, from the sandy and shelving nature advantage of the time of ebb to pass; while Pharaoh, less acquainted with them, rashly ventured in and was swallowed up. It was thus that the priests of Memphis explained the miracle. But this subterfuge falls at once to the ground, as the tides in this sea are exceedingly trifling; the difference between high and low water at Suez never being more, according to Niebuhr, than from three to four feet. Nor does it appear that the original channel of the gulf, to the north of its present termination, has been filled up by sand, as supposed. There is a remarkable statement of Burckhardt, when crossing this tract, which renders this supposition next to impossible. He observed the ground, about five miles north of Suez, and beyond the present high water mark in the marshy creek, covered with a saline crust, and traversed, in the In the maps and descriptions accompanying Calmet's dictionary, the Israelites are represented to have crossed the gulf at Kolsum, or Suez, where Niebuhr places the passage. Baal-Zephon is made to be Suez; Migdol, Magdolus, far to the north in the isthmus; and Pi-hahi-direction of the ancient channel, with a layer of small roth, the mouth of the gullet now filled up with sand. Without entering into any further discussion on the situation of these places than has already been done, there are two weighty arguments, in addition to those before advanced, against such an opinion. The first is, -That in this position the Israelites were in an open country, with no natural barriers by which they could have been said to have been so entangled in the land' as to be considered a certain and easy prey to the Egyptians; nor could the latter doubt but that their advance through such a country would be perceived by the Israelites, time enough to evade the pursuit, and to effect a retreat into the Desert, by resuming their tract, and rounding the head of the gulf. But the position twenty miles lower down, shut in on all sides by the sea and by mountains, except a narrow opening towards the north, precluded, in the eyes of the Egyptians (who made no attempt to pursue them, till informed of their critical situation), all possibility of escape, if they could reach unperceived the entrance to this defile, which, under cover of the long mountain barrier, on the west, acting as a screen, they were enabled to do. white shells, about a quarter of a mile over; while still farther to the north are salt marshes. These are undoubted proofs that the sea once extended over this ground; and that the cause of its retreat is not the influx of sand, but the gradual recession of the sea itself—a phenomenon common to all inland seas. If the former had been the case, the shells which mark the true bed of the sea, which once covered them, as well as the saline crust, must have been buried also. But the inference from these discoveries, the most to our purpose in the present inquiry, is, that although this part was once covered by the waters of the gulf, the change has been effected by a very trifling subsidence of its level. If sand had been the agent employed in effecting this change it might be contended that the channel had been filled up to an indefinite depth; but the shelly bed refutes this idea, and shows that the present level of the ground was at some time or other the true bed of the estuary, which, it cannot be doubted, a rise of a few feet above the present level of the sea would again cover, as well as the marshes beyond it. To draw accurate conclusions from these premises it should also be known, by other marks, what the actual fall of the sea has been: but as the country for a considerable extent on both sides, is represented as a plain, and the saline crust is limited to a stripe in the centre, it may be inferred that the fall cannot have been great. The canal of Ptolemy Philadelphus also taking this direction, shows how little was the inclination of the ground. All these difficulties are removed by fixing the passage where it has been placed above, namely, twenty miles below Suez, opposite the valley of Bedea: where every thing conspired at once to cover the advance of Pharaoh, and to render the escape of the Israelites impossible without a miracle; where the channel was sufficiently deep and broad to make that miracle worthy The next objection to the above opinion is, that the gulf narrowing as it advances northwards, the point at which the passage is supposed to have been effected, is, according to the scale of the maps in question, scarcely a mile in width; which takes much from the sublimity at least of the miracle, if not from the reality of it. And if it be contended that the passage through a mile of water is no less a miracle than that of nine, which is not denied, or than that of the Jordan, of far less breadth, where without an equal miracle a passage could certainly not have been effected; it is replied, that we have not merely to seek a body of water, the division of which was sufficient to amount to a miracle, but an expanse, the returning surge of which could bury at once the numerous army of the Egyptians, consisting of six hun-of its author and its object; and where without a second dred chosen chariots, and all the chariots of Egypt,' with horse and foot, amounting no doubt to many thousands. It is impossible to estimate the number implied by ALL the chariots of Egypt; but if we may judge by those with The precise place of the transit may, then, with as which Shishak invaded Judea, they were not less than much certainty as we can ever hope to arrive at, be fixed 1200 the proportion of horsemen to which was 60,000, at the embouchure of the valley of Bedea, or about twenty with people on foot out of number. Even supposing the miles below Suez; where, according to Bruce, the gulf whole army not to have exceeded this number, it is im- is three leagues over, with fourteen fathoms of water in possible to conceive such a body, together with 1200 the channel; and where the division of the waters would chariots with their horses, impacted in the closest order indeed form a wall' of fearful aspect, on the right hand in which it is possible for an army to move on the line and on the left. It may also be added, on the authority of march, and with every allowable extension laterally, of the same traveller, and as an additional corroborashould all be engulfed together in the waters of a sea ation, that the north cape of the bay, opposite the valley miracle, was sufficient space to receive the entire host of the Egyptians, so that they should be at once overwhelmed, without the escape of a single man. A. M. 2514. A. C. 1490; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3764. A. C. 1647. EXOD. xxxiv. 28-NUM, xviii. of Bedea, which marks the place of the ancient creek of | not, Pococke, and Shaw, considered a valley near Tor, Clysma, is called Ras Musa, or the cape of Moses. where are date-trees and springs, to be Elim: an opinion which has been supported by Mr Bryant, who endeavours also to show that this position was the same with the Phonicon, or palm-grove, of Strabo and Diodorus, which it probably was; but it cannot, with strict attention to the route of the Israelites, be considered as Elim. In the first place, the distance from Howara to Tor is little less than a hundred miles; and as all the stations in this part of the journey appear to be laid down with great accuracy; as no mention is made of any between Marah and Elim; and as the Israelites were hastening to mount Sinai, we have no reason to conclude that any halt did actually take place; and with still less reason can we suppose this distance to have been performed in a single march. In the next place, if Elim be Tor, the four encampments between that place and Sinai will be crowded into a space which it is difficult to recon Arrived on the opposite shore, the Israelites entered the desert of Etham; where is a sandy and gravelly plain, called by Niebuhr, Etti, and by Burckhardt, El Ahtha-both bearing sufficient vestiges of the ancient name of the country. In this wilderness they went three days' journey, which brought them to Marah; whose bitter waters were rendered sweet for their use. The position of Marah answers to that of the bitter well of Howara, about eighteen hours from Suez. Burckhardt says, that this is the usual, and, as it appears, the exclusive route to Mount Sinai. He says also that there is no other road of three days' march in the way; nor any other well absolutely bitter on the whole of this coast as far as Ras Mohammed, at the entrance of the gulf. Burckhardt, indeed, has adopted the error of Niebuhr in supposing the transit to have been near Suez, and reckons his three days to Howara accordingly. But his argu-cile with any motive, or with any similar rate of progress ments with respect to this place will answer equally well in other parts of the march. After quitting Elim, the if we deduct twenty miles, or about six hours, for the Israelites encamped by the Red Sea; then in the wilderdifference in the distance between Suez and the true ness of Sin; then at Dophkah; then at Alush; then at place of passage. There will then remain twelve hours, Rephidim; and then in the wilderness of Sinai. Now or three days of four hours, equal to about twelve miles the rocky region which constitutes the desert of Sinai, for each day's journey-a rate of progress which may be extends to within twenty miles of the coast; so that the considered as sufficiently suited to the condition of a four encampments, from that on the Red Sea, to Rephipeople who had just escaped from the presence of an dim, at the edge of the desert, could not have been more enemy; who mow could have no doubt of their perfect than four or five miles apart: a series of petty movesafety; and had nothing to impel them to the forced ments across the barren plain of El Kaa, which, if they marches which they had made from Rameses to Clysma. had been making their approaches to a fortress, might The next journey was to Elim; where were twelve have had some object, but which, in the situation in which wells of water, and threescore and ten palm trees.' Both they were, must have been frivolous and vexatious, and Niebuhr and Burckhardt agree in placing Elim in the without a parallel elsewhere. Nor is it likely, as Sinai Wady Gharendel, distant three hours from Howara; was their destination, that they should have retrograded which answers very well with the rate of march above without any mention being made of such a course, or assumed, in a country, too, where the position of the any cause assigned for it. Lastly, the position of Elim encampments must be regulated very much by the situa- at Tor is incompatible with the situation of the desert of tion of water. In the wady or valley of Gharendel, Sin. This desert is expressly said (Exod. xvi. 1.) to which is about a mile broad, are date or palm trees, have been between Elim and Sinai; but it could only tamarisks, and acacias; and a copious spring. This have formed a small part of the distance, as only one of single spring, unusually abundant for this arid country, the five intervening encampments took place within its may be considered rather as a confirmation of the opinion, limits. In Num. xxxiii. 10-12, it is said, that the than as an argument against it; as Niebuhr attests, that Israelites removed from Elim, and encamped by the water may easily be obtained any where by digging for Red Sea; and they removed from the Red Sea, and it, although the apertures will quickly be filled up again encamped in the wilderness of Sin; and they took their by the sands. To search, in fact, after a lapse of 3500 journey out of the wilderness of Sin, and encamped at years, for the identical twelve wells of Elim, rudely con- Dophkah.' Now the whole space between Tor and the structed in a sandy soil, is little better than absurd. The encampment of the desert of Sinai, is a plain, bearing wells of rocky countries, indeed, are perhaps the most one name, and but of one day's journey, bounded every durable of all the monuments of antiquity, and serve to way to the north by the group of Sinai; so that the fix with unerring certainty the scene of many a memor- Israelites quitting the wilderness of Sin after a single able event; but the case is widely otherwise on a moving encampment in it, must either have retraced their steps surface of sand, where the shallow excavations, and the towards Elim, or have proceeded towards the eastern or simple masonry of Arabs, would not require centuries to Elanitic gulf of the Red Sea, beyond Sinai altogether: obliterate or, which is frequently the case, the wells of neither of which circumstances is any intimation given; may have been wantonly destroyed in the dissen- on the contrary, both are at variance with the order of sions of the tribes. It is sufficient that water exists the route, and the destination of the people, which was here in abundance, and is to be obtained in as many Sinai, to receive the law. But in the natural and estabwells as the traveller chooses to dig; while the accord-lished route, the whole is conformable with the scripture ance of this position with the next movement from narrative, and confirmed by the local knowledge we Howara, and the absence of any other springs that could possess of the country. be relied upon for a distance of many hours in the same route, leave little doubt of its being that of Elim. Former travellers, indeed, amongst whom are Monconys, Theve From the desert of Etham to the second march beyond Elim, the road, as it does now, ran parallel with the gulf of Suez, and at no great distance from it. At the end A. M. 2514. A. C. 1490; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3764. A. C. 1647. EXOD. xxxiv. 28-NUM. xviii. of the first day's march from Elim, an indentation of the | Canaan, and in which they spent the greatest part of the coast brought them at once upon the sea, where was the time they were condemned to wander, was at Taberah, encampment mentioned. Towards the end of the second, or Kibroth-hattaavah: the former name being given by the coast, which had hitherto inclined in a south-east Moses, because here many of the people were consumed direction, turning directly to the south, quite away from by fire from heaven for their complaining; and the latter, the direct road to Sinai, obliged them to quit the vicinity because, at the same place, the people lusted for flesh, of the sea, which they had hitherto constantly had on and many more died while the quails, which had been their right hand, and to enter farther into the heart of miraculously sent them, were yet in their mouths. From the desert; which in that part bore the name of Sin. this place, the stations mentioned northwards are HazerThis is precisely the route pursued at the present day; oth, Rithmah, Rimmon-parez, Libnah, and Kadeshand near the point where the road leaves the coast, at barnea, where the camp was fixed while the spies were the south-west foot of the mountainous ridge called El sent to explore the promised land; from whose evil Tyh, is the sandy plain of El Seyh, extending two days' report the people were so intimidated, and so unmindful journey eastward. The western extremity of this plain of the promises they had received, and the protection only would the Israelites have to cross, which they would they were under, that, as a punishment for their ingratisoon traverse, and have only one encampment to make tude and disobedience, they were ordered to turn back, on its surface; when the remaining stations of Dophkah, and get them into the wilderness, by the way of the Alush, and Rephidim, would bring them, by marches of Red Sea,' Numb. xiv. 25. This retrograde movement fifteen or sixteen miles, to the borders of the desert of carried them back southwards, through the same wilder Sinai. ness of Paran, but by a more eastern route, nearer mount Seir, to Eziongeber, on the eastern gulf of the Red Sea. The stations enumerated in this route are, Rissah, Kehelathah, mount Shapher, Haradah, Makkeloth, Tahath, Tarah, Mithcah, Hashmonah, Moseroth, Bene-jaakan, Hor-hagidgad, Jot-bathah, Ebronah, and Ezion-geber. What space of time was spent in these several encampments is not mentioned. The cloud resting on the tabernacle was the guide for the people: when and where that moved, thither they followed, and rested where it rested; and whether it were two days, or a month, or a year, that the cloud tarried upon the tabernacle, remaining thereon, the children of Israel abode in their tents, and journeyed not; but when it was taken up, they journeyed,' Numb. ix. 22. Of Dophkah and Alush, we can only know the relative situations; and as nothing more is said of them than their bare mention as places of passage, it is of little consequence. But to Rephidim much interest is attached. Here, or hard by, the miraculous supply of water took place; and here the Israelites were, for the first time, attacked by their implacable enemies the Amalekites. It is not a little curious, that a person of Mr Bryant's sagacity should have found it necessary, in order to explain this attack of the Amalekites, to carry Rephidim far up to the northward, towards the borders of that people. There is nothing surely surprising in a people, who were probably apprized of the ultimate destination of the Israelites, wishing to carry the war from their own homes, and, by advancing on their enemy, to attack him at a disadvantage. But in Exod. xvii. 8, it is said, that Amalek' came and fought with Israel at Rephidim.' And in 1 Sam. xv. 2, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way when he came up from Egypt:' that is, that he came down to Rephidim, and took the Israelites by surprise. It could not have been represented in this way, if the latter had approached the territories of the Amalekites. To set this question at rest, however, the Israelites were encamped at Rephidim when they were miraculously supplied with water from Horeb; consequently it must have been close to that mountain, or, in other words, on the edge of the desert of Sinai, where it has already been placed. The next encampment, after that at Rephidim, was in the desert of Sinai itself, where the people arrived in the third month, and where they remained encamped eleven months, during which time the law was delivered. At length, on the 20th day of the second month, in the second year, the signal for removing from Sinai was given by the pillar of the cloud being removed from the tabernacle, and preceding the line of march into the wilderness of Paran; into which, or at least from their encampment in the desert of Sinai, the Israelites advanced for three days before a convenient restingplace, for any time, was found them, in all probability for want of water. The first station in this wilderness of Paran, that great and terrible wilderness,' which extended all the way from Sinai to the borders of In the map of this route, in the last edition of Calmet's dictionary, it is made to extend westward, towards Egypt, instead of southward, towards the Red Sea. Libnah, stated in the description to be west of Mount Hor, is yet supposed to be the same Libnah which Joshua smote. (Josh. x. 29, 30.) This Libnah, which was evidently in the tribe of Judah, is placed by Eusebius and Jerom in the district of Eleutheropolis; and Lachish, the next place taken by Joshua, only seven miles south of that city. In fact, the places successively captured by Joshua in his march southwards after Makkedah, were, first Libnah, then Lachish, then Eglon, and then Hebron; consequently both Libnah and Lachish were north of the last mentioned city. Rissah, the next place in the route, is supposed to be El Arish, and mount Shapher mount Casius, on the confines of Egypt; but this track along the coast of the Mediterranean would, with more propriety, have been termed "by the way the Great Sea," than of the Red Sea. Besides, this route would have brought the Israelites again to the edge of Egypt, and within reach of their incensed enemies, who may be supposed in this interval to have recruited their armies, and might have attacked them in this situation to much greater advantage than they did at Pi-hahiroth. But if no danger was to be apprehended from hostile attack, there was another of greater consideration. Let us,' said the Israelites just before, disheartened at their sentence of retrogradation, and wearied with the privations and monotony of the desert, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Fgypt.' of every |