A journey of two days would bring the traveller to the luxuriant oasis of Firan, which ancient tradition and modern explorers agree in identifying as Rephidim. From Firan it is held, by Professor Sayce and others, that the main body of the Israelites with their flocks and herds probably passed the Wadi esh-Shekh, while Moses and the elders went by Wadi Selaf and Nakb el-Hawa. The final camping-ground, at which took place the giving of the Law, is supposed to be the Raha plain at the foot of the peak of Jebel Musa. It may be mentioned that some explorers are of opinion that Mount Serbal was the mountain of revelation. There are authorities who maintain that Horeb was the name of the whole mountain range, Sinai being the individual mountain; others think that Horeb designated the northern range and Sinai the southern range. See Dr. Robinson's Biblical Researches, vol. I, section iii: also articles Sinai in Cheyne's Encyclopaedia Biblica and Dean Stanley's Sinai and Palestine.
The monastery of St. Catherine was erected 2,000 feet below the summit of Jebel Musa. It was founded by Justinian to give shelter to the numerous Syrian hermits who inhabited the peninsula. The monastery was presided over by an Archbishop.
The passage in square brackets is inserted from the Oxford MS. The city of Tur, which Benjamin calls Tur-Sinai, is situated on the eastern side of the Gulf of Suez, and affords good anchorage, the harbour being protected by coral reefs. It can be reached from the monastery in little more than a day. The small mountain referred to by Benjamin is the Jebel Hammam Sidna Musa, the mountain of the bath of our lord Moses.
Tanis, now called San, was probably the Zoan of Scripture, but in the Middle Ages it was held to be Hanes, mentioned in Isa. xxx. 4. It was situated on the eastern bank of the Tanitic branch of the Nile, about thirty miles south-west of the ancient Pelusium. The excavations which have been made by M. Mariette and Mr. Flinders Petrie prove that it was one of the largest and most important cities of the Delta. It forms the subject of the Second Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund, 1885. The place must not be confounded with the seaport town Tennis, as has been done by Asher. In the sixth century the waters of the Lake Menzaleh invaded a large portion of the fertile Tanis territory. Hence Benjamin calls it an island in the midst of the sea. In a Geniza document dated 1106, quoted by Dr. Schechter, Saadyana, p. 91, occurs the passage:
"
In the city of the isle Hanes, which is in the midst of the sea and of the tongue of the river of Egypt called Nile."