gulf to which it gave its name, they seemed to the pursuing army to be hemmed in between the sea and the desert. But other destinies awaited them; they were a people for & purpose. Moses led them southward along the coast during the fourth day; and at night they found a way of escape which they had little hoped for. As they murmured in discontent against their leader, "the Lord caused the sea to go back by means of a strong east wind all that night, and he made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, and the waters were a wall to them on their right hand and on their left." The Egyptian army rashly followed in the morning. But the wind had fallen, perhaps the tide was rising; the waters suddenly returned, and their forces were overthrown and drowned. This most interesting xi. 15. place we recognise in a spot which, by the encroachment of the sand, has been left dry since the days of Isaiah. Here the hardened sand forms a bank which, though less than two miles wide, and only a foot or two above the high water, now blocks out the Red Sea, and divides the Bitter Lake from the gulf. From the situation of the town of Hiroth, the Israelites could not have appeared hemmed in, when half a day's march to the south of that city, if the lake had been separated from the gulf as it is now. The account of their march seems written with careful geographical accuracy; we have no more certain method of trying the truth of what an ancient historian relates than by examining his geography and natural history.

Isaiah,

XV. xvi.

xvii.

Bartlett's

(10) After passing the Red Sea the Israelites turned southward along the coast towards Mount Sinai, and Exodus, the natural features of this desert peninsula are so unchanging that their path may yet be traced, and Forty Days their halting-places fixed with much probability. in the The traveller now meets with the same springs of Desert. brackish water, the same clumps of stunted palms, the same spot where quails can live, and the same watered valley in which he can refresh himself after his thirsty journey over scorching sands and rocks. The road was well known to Moses, who had married a wife from the valleys at the foot of Sinai, and had thence come up to the rescue of his countrymen. After three days in the desert, part of

XV, 22.

which time may have been spent at the little oasis now called the Wells of Moses, the Israelites came to some water, which from its bitterness they called Exodus, Marah. This may have been at Howarah, a bitter unwholesome pool, at which, however, a thirsty camel will not refuse to drink. The twelve wells and seventy ch. xv. 27. palm-trees of Elim, the next resting-place on their

march, may be the valley of Ghurundel, which is not without

some shade. Here they stayed several weeks. Numbers,

They then turned to the edge of the coast, and xxxiii. 10. travelled for some time over the wet sands by the

"way of the sea," at a place where the traveller now is pressed on to the shore by the head of the mountain range (see Fig. 54). They passed the little cove or port from which

Fig. 54.

Exodus,

ch. xvi. 13.

the miners perhaps shipped their copper to Egypt, which has left its name in the Valley Taibeh. The road then turns from the coast; and it brought them to the watering-place of El Murkhah, where they met with numerous quails or partridges of the desert, which still glad the hungry traveller in those barren regions. They then entered the narrow scorching valley of Mokatteb, which they called Rephidim, between bare granite rocks, without water and without shade. This is one of the most distressing parts of this thirsty journey, and it was here that they met with an enemy to bar their passage. They

ch. xvii. 1.

Numbers,

were in the region of the Egyptian copper-mines, which were chiefly worked in the valley of Mugharah. They then rested at Dophkah, or the Bruising Place, where the rock xxxiii, 12 may have been pounded by the miners in order to clear away the useless stone from the valuable ore. They next rested near the burial-place of the miners, a spot yet marked by the tablets dedicated to the Egyptian gods, and dated in hieroglyphical writing by the names of the Egyptian kings (see Fig. 55). This was a dreary place to

Exodus,

Fig. 55.

encamp in, and they may well have named it the Burial-place of Taavah, or of pleasure, by slightly changing its ch. xvii. 8. Egyptian name, Tau, the hills. Near this is the valley of Mokatteb. They were now in direct march towards Feiran, where the Egyptian miners had formed a little

village. In this parching valley they were opposed by a body of armed men, perhaps the miners with some soldiers, under the command of Amalek, perhaps the Egyptian commander of the place. But the Israelites routed the enemy and marched on. They then encamped at Hazeroth, the village of Paran, within the district of Mount Sinai, and among the palm-groves in the fertile well-watered valley of Feiran, where Moses had before dwelt with his father-in-law, the chief of the tribe. The valley of Feiran is a delightful little oasis in the middle of a terrible desert of rock and sand. Here, at the foot of Mount Serbal, water is abundant palms, dates, figs, and pomegranates bend overhead in wild luxuriance. Here, the sweet-tasting manna drops like gum from the hanging bows of the turfeh-trees. Here flocks may be fed and corn grown. In this little valley, one hundred

and twenty miles from the passage of the Red Sea, the Israelites probably made their longest stay, and may have received the law. In sight is Mount Serbal (see Fig. 56), part of the range of Sinai; and the peak xxxiii. 23. of Serbal, called Shepher by the Israelites, in the eyes of our more judicious travellers, has a better claim to be

Numbers,

thought the holy mount, the Sinai from which Moses delivered the commandments to the people, than the point called Mount Sinai by the monks, which is about a day's march to the east of this, the only habitable valley in the neighbourhood.

Exodus, ch. xvii.

15.

(11) In this valley, at the foot of the holy mount, perhaps near the temple of Sarbout el Cadem, Moses set up an altar to the Lord, which he called the Altar of Jehovah Nissi. In so calling it, he either borrowed the name of the place, or gave to the spot a name for the future. And it remained a sacred spot in the eyes of the Egyptians, as well as the Jews. The Mount Sinai lib. i. 15. of the Jews was probably the Mount Nissa of the Egyptians, described as a lofty mountain in Arabia between Phenicia and Egypt, the fabled dwelling-place of the god Osiris when a child, and the fancied origin of his Greek name Dio-Nysus.

Diod. Sic.

ch. xxxiii.

(12) After the defeat of Amalek near the copper-mines, the Israelites were beyond the power of the Egyptians. They were in the land of the Midianites, a tribe of Ishmaelites or Arabs, who held the southern part of the peninsula. This tribe was entirely friendly, for Moses had married the daughter of their chief. Under their guidance the Numbers, next portion of the journey was made; and the Israelites moved forward, halting at about twenty known springs or resting-places, without hindrance or loss of their way, till they reached Ezion Geber, at the head of the Gulf of Akabah. To a less encumbered body of travellers this would have been only a ten days' journey. From hence they marched northward along the Arabah, the Barren Valley which runs from the Red Sea towards the Dead Sea. They halted at a spot which they called Kadesh, or Holy, from the spring of water which there gushed from the rock to bless their aching eyes and allay their thirst. Here they were leaving the land of the friendly Midianites, and entering ch. x. 29. upon the country of another tribe. Their Midianite ch. xii. 2, guide refused to go any further with them. They

26. therefore sent forward spies or scouts from Kadesh ch. xx. 14. to learn the way, and to examine the country which lay before them. On the return of the spies with favourable tidings, they asked leave of the Edomites, who