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ON THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA BY THE ISRAELITES, AND ITS LOCALITY; AND ON THE SITUATION

OF MOUNT SINAI.

BY CHARLES T. BEKE, PH.D., F.S.A.

IN my Origines Biblica,† the hypothesis is advanced, that the Mitzraim of the Pentateuch formed no portion of the Egypt (properly called) of profane history; but was a distinct and separate kingdom, lying to the east of the Isthmus of Suez, immediately adjoining to Canaan and the land of the Philistines.

In connexion with this hypothesis, or rather as forming part of it, the opinion is also expressed, in the same work, that the Yam-Suph, or Red Sea, which was crossed by the Israelites under Moses, was the Gulf of Akaba, and not the Gulf of Suez; that Mount Sinai was situate, not within the Peninsula of Tor (commonly called the Peninsula of Mount Sinai), but lay to the north or north-east of the head of the Gulf of Akaba; and that the wanderings of the children of Israel in the Wilderness took place, not within the contracted limits of the same peninsula, but in the wide-spreading deserts of the north of Arabia.

In now recurring to the subject, it is not my intention to enter into any explanation or defence of my hypothesis generally; but briefly to show, in accordance therewith, the commencement of the route of the Israelites after their Exodus from Mitzraim.

From the Sacred History, we find that the children of Israel first "journeyed from Rameses to Succoth;" and that they next "took their journey from Succoth, and encamped in Etham, in the edge of the Wilderness."§ At this last-mentioned spot, instead of continuing their course in the direction away from Mitzraim, which they had hitherto taken, they, by the command of the Almighty, "turned and encamped before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, over against Baal-zephon," at which place the Mitzrites under Pharaoh "overtook them encamping by the sea;"¶ their position being such, that their pursuers imagined "they were entangled in the land, the Wilderness had shut them in.'

To understand the direction of the road thus taken by the Israelites, it is necessary to compare the description of the locality in question given by the traveller Burckhardt.

In his visit to the Peninsula of Tor, that traveller was unable to advance further northward than a plain forming the extremity of Wady Taba, about five or six hours' distance from Akaba. From this spot, he says:†† "Before us was a promontory called Ras Koreye, and behind this, as I was told, there is another, beyond which begins the plain of Akaba. The castle is situated at an hour and a half or two hours from the western chain,

• Communicated by the Author.

+ Origines Biblice, or Researches in Primeval History. Vol. i. London, 1834.

down which the Hadj route leads, and about the same distance from the eastern chain, or lower continuation of Tor Hesma. Into this plain [of Akaba], which surrounds the castle on every side except the sea, issues the Wady el Araba, the broad, sandy valley, which leads towards the Dead Sea. At about two hours to the south of the castle, the eastern range of mountains approaches the sea. The plain of Akaba, which is from three to four hours in length, from west to east, and, I believe, not much less in breadth northward, is very fertile in pasturage:"-and further on, he adds:* "To the north of Akaba, in the mountain leading up to Tor Hesma, is a wady known by the name of Wady Ithem. ...... By this valley a road leads eastward towards Nedjed."

Now, as Moses had, by command of the Almighty, from the first informed Pharaoh of the desire of the Israelites to go three days' journey into the Wilderness, to sacrifice to the Lord,† the direction of their march would naturally have been from Mitzraim towards the Wilderness, or Desert of Arabia; that is to say, generally from west to east. Leaving, for the present, the positions of Rameses and Succoth out of the question, we come then to Etham, where "they encamped in the edge of the Wilderness," the position of which place seems entirely to correspond with that portion of the Wady el Araba with which the Wady Ithem immediately communicates. From hence their direct course, had they continued it, would have been along the Wady Ithem itself, through which (as Burckhardt informs us) a road leads eastward into the interior of the country; but, in consequence of their "turning," their course took a southward direction, along the Wady el Araba, by following which they came into the plain of Akaba, where "they encamped by the sea."‡

Here, having left behind them the road by which they might have gone eastward, the eastern range of mountains described by Burckhardt, which "approaches the sea," would have "shut them in," and prevented, or, at the least, placed great difficulties in the way of, their passage in that direction; so that the Mitzrites might well imagine, in consequence of their having taken such a course, that they were entangled in the land.”

The plain of Akaba, at the northern extremity of the Gulf of that name, was, then, the place from which the passage of the Yam-Suph, as recorded in Exod. xiv., commenced. But such being the case, it follows that that passage must have been made, not diametrically across the Gulf from west to east, but diagonally from the north end to the east side; that is to say, in a south-easterly direction. And this conclusion is corroborated by two considerations: 1st. The passage of the Israelites through the sea is recorded as having taken place during one night, in fact, before the

↑ Exod. iii. 18, v. 1-3.

Travels in Syria, &c. 4to. London, 1822. P. 511. Although it is not to be imagined that the castle of Akaba represents the identical Migdol (i.e. castle), between which and the sea the Israelites encamped, yet there can be no doubt that, in this commanding position at the head of the Gulf, a fortified place must have existed from the earliest times. Akaba may consequently be considered, generally, as representing Migdol. That Eziongeber, the port of Solomon, which was "beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom" (1 Kings, ix. 26), was not in this vicinity, but lay lower down the coast, I shall, probably, at a future period, have an opportunity of showing. According to my opinion, that place is identical with Leuke Kome, the port of the Nabatheans in the time of Augustus.

The Gulf is, at its head, about

"morning-watch" of the following day. five miles (perhaps something more) in breadth; and although it is not to be doubted that the whole of the tribes, with their "flocks and herds, even very much cattle," could have gone that distance within so short a time, yet they could not possibly have done so without taking up a very extended front, which the western side of the Gulf, where the steep mountains approach the sea, would have rendered utterly impracticable, but for which the broad plain of Akaba, at the northern extremity of the Gulf, would have afforded peculiar advantages. 2dly. The Israelites, having already left Etham, “in the [western] edge of the wilderness" of that name,† went out again eastward into the same "Wilderness of Etham,"‡ after crossing the sea; which, if they had crossed the Gulf from the one side to the other, could not have been the case.

The annexed sketch, which is taken from the map of Arabia Petræa, in Rüppell's Travels in Nubia, &c.,§ will more fully explain the road taken by the Israelites thus far. It will likewise serve to illustrate the next succeeding portion of their journey.

Having crossed the sea, the fugitives came out into the Wilderness of Etham or of Shur,|| "which is before Mitzraim, as thou goest towards Assyria;" from thence they proceeded to Marah;** then to Elim, where they encamped by "twelve fountains of water, and threescore and ten palm trees;"++ and from thence again to the Red Sea (Yam-Suph), by which they encamped.++

Now, had the Israelites crossed the Gulf of Suez, as is usually supposed, it is manifest that, to have enabled them, at this point of their journey, to encamp "by the Red Sea," they must, after their miraculous passage of that sea, either have continued their route through Marah and Elim along the sea-shore, or if they in the first instance quitted the coast, they must afterwards have turned westward, and thus have taken a circuitous course, so as to have approached the sea a second time. If the former had been the case, it would be unaccountable that the station, in Numbers xxxiii. 10, should be so particularly described as being "by the Red Sea," when the two preceding stations had been likewise by the sea if the latter, then it would be not less remarkable that the Israelites, whilst hurrying away from Mitzraim, should have taken a course which, in appearance, was carrying them back again towards that country. But having crossed the Gulf of Akaba, in the manner above-mentioned, they would, whilst continuing their flight in a direct line away from Mitzraim, have been again brought to the sea, not indeed by any deflexion in their line of march, but by a bend in the coast-line itself. The road taken by the Israelites must, therefore, have been the same as that which (with the exception of the passage of the sea) is, in the present day, taken by the pilgrim-caravans from Cairo to Mecca. It is accordingly so laid down in the accompanying map, in which

• Exod. xiv. 24, 27.

+ Numb. xxxiii. 7.

Numb. xxxiii. 8.

§ Reisen in Nubien, Kordofan und dem petræischen Arabien, von Dr. Eduard Rüppell. Frankfurt, a.M. 1829.

Exod. xv. 22.

tt Numb. xxxiii. 9.

Gen. xxv. 18.

**Numb. xxxiii. 8.

‡ Numb. xxxiii. 10.

Ayoun el Kassab (the Aiune of Rüppell) represents the place of the encampment by the sea of Numbers xxxiii. 10.*

With respect to the positions of the intermediate stations, Marah and Elim, we fortunately possess the means of determining them (particularly the latter) with almost positive certainty. They must nearly, if not entirely, correspond with the Sherfa (Shorafa) and Beden of Rüppell's map. The former of these places was not visited by that traveller, but the latter is described by him as a fruitful valley, surrounded by sandstone hills, where the pilgrim-caravan rests on its eleventh day's journey from Cairo. This valley," he continues, "must act as a drain to several considerable valleys in the mountains, of primitive formation, lying to the eastward; for, on the 11th July, when no rain had fallen in the neighbourhood during several months, I was astonished at meeting here with a body of water, which was in many places fifty paces in width and a foot deep. The whole was covered with thick reeds, and along the sides grew date-palms, and other trees of various kinds."

Burckhardt, who, in his Travels in Arabia, gives the stations of the pilgrim-caravan from Cairo to Mecca, thus briefly describes those in this vicinity: "The plain and castle of Akaba, 10th [day of journey]. Here they remain the day and night. 12th. Thaher el Homar, a rocky ground, with bad water, and numerous date-trees. 13th (night). To Shorafa, a barren, long-extended valley, without water. 14th. To Moghayr Shayb: many wells of sweet water, date-plantations, and trees among the rocks, render this one of the most agreeable stations on the route. 15th. To Ayoun el Kassab, a plain ground, with date-trees and water."§

As the Shorafa and Ayoun el Kassab of Burckhardt, and the Sherfa and Aiune of Rüppell, are clearly identical, the Moghayr Shayb of the former cannot but answer to the Beden of the latter; and it is most probable that the water mentioned by Rüppell (which, from his description of it, has unquestionably more the characters of a pool of standing-water than those of a mountain-stream) proceeds from the springs which originate the "many wells of sweet water" mentioned by Burckhardt, rather than, as Rüppell surmises, from other wadys lying further eastward. At all events, the description of the caravan route from Akaba to Thaher el Homar," with bad water," and Shorafa, "a barren, long-extended valley, without water," and thence to Moghayr Shayb (Beden), with "many wells of sweet water, and date-plantations," corresponds so entirely with the relation of the sacred historian as to the journey of the Israelites after crossing the Red Sea-when they "went three days|| in the Wilderness, and found no water; and when they came to Marah they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter; and they came to Elim,

* Ruppell says (Travels in Nubia, &c., p. 218) that "from Akaba to Aiune the road of the pilgrimcaravans does not approach the sea, and in fact, does not once come within sight of it. [See also my brother's remark at the end of this paper, entirely confirmatory of Ruppell's assertion.]

This does not necessarily imply three entire days; as the Israelites reckoned both the first and last divisions of any portion of time inclusively, besides regarding a part, however small, of such divisions of time as the whole. See Orig. Bibl., pp. 82, 83.