The year after the flight from Egypt, Sinai, ‘the mount of God,’ was left behind. The service that Yahveh required had been performed, the legislation revealed there had been completed, and the tabernacle and ark had been made. Israel had henceforth another religious centre than the sacred mountain of the desert, which had now fulfilled its part in the religious training of the tribes. Canaan, and not the wilderness, was the destined home of the descendants of Jacob, and to Canaan the ark and the tabernacle were to accompany them.
The guiding column of cloud moved accordingly from the wilderness of Sinai to that of Paran (Numb. x. 12). This is in harmony with the rest of Old Testament geography. In the blessing of Moses (Deut. xxxiii. 2) it is said that when God came from Sinai, ‘He shined forth from the mount of Paran,’ and in Habakkuk (iii. 3) the mount of Paran takes the place of Sinai itself. Paran, in fact, was the desert which formed not only the southern boundary of Canaan, but also the western frontier of Edom. The real Mount Sinai of Hebrew geography, therefore, was upon the Edomite border; and since Paran was the home of Ishmael (Gen. xxi. 21), it is not surprising that Esau should have taken one of Ishmael’s daughters to wife (Gen. xxxvi. 3).
Before Sinai was left, however, Hobab the Midianite, the brother-in-law of Moses, proposed to return to his own land. Sinai adjoined Midian, if indeed it was not included in Midianitish territory, and here, therefore, if at all, it was needful for the Midianite chief to quit the Israelitish camp. But his knowledge of the district was too valuable to be lost, and Moses persuaded him to remain with the Israelitish tribes and guide them to the places where they should encamp. The Kenites in later days traced their descent to him (Judg. i. 16, iv. 11), and the rocky nest of the Kenites was visible from the heights of Moab, perhaps in Petra itself (Numb. xxiv. 21).
The geographical details which follow are confused. In the itinerary (Numb. xxxiii. 15, 16) the camp is transported at once from the wilderness of Sinai to Kibroth-hattaavah. In the narrative, however, we are told that the people first went ‘three days’ journey,’ and then rested at Taberah, which seems to be identified with Kibroth-hattaavah; from thence they travelled to Hazeroth, and then pitched their tents ‘in the wilderness of Paran.’ On the other hand, the book of Deuteronomy (ix. 22) distinguishes between Taberah and Kibroth-hattaavah, and interpolates Massah between them, which, according to Exod. xvii. 7, was visited before Sinai. If we follow the official record, we must suppose that the incident connected with Taberah has been inserted in the wrong place, or else that Taberah and Kibroth-hattaavah are, like Massah and Meribah, one and the same. At all events, all these encampments must have lain on the outskirts of the desert of Paran. Hazeroth, ‘the enclosures,’ was a common name for the Bedâwin encampments in the desert south of Judah, and the Hazeroth mentioned here is doubtless that of which we read in Deut. i. 1. It lay near Paran on the borders of the plains of Moab.
Taberah, it was said, derived its name from the fire which had here consumed some of the people, while Kibroth-hattaavah marked the ‘graves’ of the murmurers who had died from a surfeit of quails. Similar flights of quails still visit the Egyptian Delta in the early spring, when the sky is sometimes overshadowed by myriads of birds. Hazeroth was remembered for the rebellion of Aaron and Miriam against their brother Moses, and the punishment that Miriam the prophetess had in consequence to endure. The authority of Moses was disputed because he had married an Ethiopian wife. It is the only passage in the Pentateuch where this ‘Cushite’ wife is alluded to; elsewhere we hear only of Zipporah the Midianitess. But it points to a traditional recollection of the days when Moses was still Messu, the Egyptian prince, and when, like that other Messu, his contemporary, he might have been the Egyptian governor of Ethiopia.[[219]] The objection to the Ethiopian wife came but ill from Aaron, whose grandson bore the Egyptian name of Phinehas, Pi-nehasi, ‘the negro.’ But Yahveh declared that the Cushite affinities of Moses were no bar to his being a true servant of the God of Israel and the divinely-appointed leader of the tribes. To him Yahveh had revealed His will openly, and as it were face to face; not, as to other prophets, in waking visions and dreams.
In the heart of the wilderness of Paran was the venerable sanctuary of Kadesh-barnea. Centuries before, the army of Chedor-laomer had swept through it, slaughtering its Amalekite inhabitants, and drinking the water of En-Mishpat, ‘the Spring of Judgment,’ where the shêkhs of the desert had given laws to their people. Its site has been found again in our own days by Dr. John Rowlands and Dr. Clay Trumbull.[[220]] The spring of clear water which fills the oasis with life and verdure is still called ’Ain Qadîs, the ‘Spring of Kadesh.’ It rises at the foot of a limestone cliff, in which a two-chambered tomb has been cut in early times, in the hollow of an amphitheatre of hills. The hills form a block of mountains which occupy the central part of the desert, midway between El-Arîsh and Mount Hor, and more than forty miles to the south of Sebaita, the supposed site of Hormah.
Kadesh, the ‘Sanctuary,’ was destined to be the second resting-place and scene of Israelitish legislation. The work which had been left unfinished at Sinai was completed here. The will of Yahveh, which had first been declared on the summit of the mountain, was now to be more fully unfolded among the soft surroundings of the oasis in the valley. Sinai and Kadesh-barnea were the two schools of the desert in which Israel was trained.
But Kadesh-barnea had other advantages as well. It was on the high-road from the desert to Canaan, it commanded the approach to the latter country, and nevertheless within its rocky barriers the Israelites were safe from attack. Here, therefore, at Kadesh-barnea, the first preparations were made for the invasion of Palestine. Twelve scouts were sent, in Egyptian fashion, to explore the land, and bring back a report of its capabilities for defence. They made their way as far as Hebron,[[221]] where a popular etymology derived the name of the valley of Eshcol from the cluster of grapes they had cut there.[[222]] But the report with which they returned was discouraging. The Amorites were tall and strong; by their side the children of Israel appeared but as grasshoppers; while the cities in which they dwelt were ‘very great,’ and walled, as it were, to heaven. It was folly for the desert tribes to dream of assaulting them; that would need the disciplined army of a Pharaoh, with its chariots and horses and machines for scaling the walls. ‘We be not able to go up against the people,’ they declared, ‘for they are stronger than we.’
Here, then, was an end to all the promises of Moses. The Promised Land was in sight, and they were excluded from it for ever. ‘Let us make another captain,’ they cried, ‘and return to Egypt.’ The leader who had brought them thus far had failed on the very threshold of their goal. The Hyksos, when they forsook Egypt, had found a refuge in Canaan; but the barren wastes of the wilderness were all that the Israelites could expect. It was little wonder that a rebellion broke out in the Israelitish camp, and that the supporters of Moses were threatened with stoning.
But experience soon showed that the Israelitish tribes were as yet no match for the people whose possessions they desired to seize. Despite the report of the spies, they climbed the cliff which formed the northern boundary of the oasis, and attempted to force their way beyond the frontiers of Canaan. But their enemies proved the stronger. When Seti I. had attacked the frontier fortress of Canaan, not far from Hebron, he had found it defended by Shasu or Bedâwin, and so, too, the Israelites now found themselves confronted not by the Canaanites only, but also by their Amalekite or Bedâwin allies. The assailants were utterly defeated and ‘discomfited even unto Hormah.’