The pilgrimage as planned would have been undertaken in spring, for the plagues carry us through a year’s course in Egypt, with the Nile running red when it is at its lowest in April; with frogs abounding when the inundation comes in July; with darkness and sandstorms in the month of March. Springtime came round again before the Israelites left, after sacrificing the lamb of the Passover.
Rallying in the city of Rameses, probably at the present Tell er Rotab, in a marshy valley, they moved to Succoth, the Thuku of the ancient Egyptians, and encamped at Etham (LXX, Othom), being led by a pillar of cloud in the day and by a pillar of smoke at night (Exod. xiii. 20-22). Doughty describes how on the hadj of the Moslim, “cressets of iron cages are set up on poles, and are borne to light the way upon serving-men’s shoulders in all the companies.”[101] The burning fire at night would naturally take the appearance of a pillar of smoke in the daytime.
At Etham the Israelites turned south, making for Pihahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, over against Baal-zephon (Exod. xiv. 2). Pihahiroth of the Bible is Pa-qahert of the Egyptian inscriptions, while Baal-zephon is a Semitic name, recalling Zephon, the god of darkness. Pihahiroth and Baal-zephon lay west and east of the branch of the Red Sea which at this time extended so far north as to include the present Bitter Lakes. Here, owing to the blowing of the east-wind (LXX, south wind), the waters went back and the Israelites crossed (Exod. xiv. 21), at a spot which should be sought some thirty miles north of Suez. They continued to move south three days, through the wilderness of Shur, stopping first at Marah, where the waters were sweetened, and then at Elim, with its twelve wells and seventy palm-trees. Elim has been identified as the Carandara of Pliny (vi. 23), the Arandara of the lady Etheria (of about a.d. 450), who described how the waters disappeared into the ground and reappeared, which applies to the present Wadi Gharandel. If this identification be correct, the fountain which Moses changed from bitter to sweet presumably lay about half-way between Baal-zephon and Wadi Gharandel, where the present Ayun Musa or Wells of Moses are found; possibly it lay nearer to the Bitter Lake.
Fig. 15.—Ayun Musa.
Leaving Elim, the Israelites entered “the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai” (Exod. xvi. 1). A murmur arose because of the lack of food,—perhaps of food suitable for keeping the full moon festival, the movements of the Israelites being timed by the phases of the moon. For they left Egypt after keeping the Passover, a full moon festival which comes on the 14th (Exod. xii. 6) or 15th of the month (Josh. v. 10); and a month later “on the 15th day of the second month after they had departed out of Egypt,” they entered the wilderness of Sin. Moses held out the promise of help, and, as they looked towards the wilderness, “the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud” (Exod. xvi. 10). The glory of the Lord probably indicates the moon. Quails appeared between the two evenings. They were plentiful in Sinai in the days of Josephus (Antiq., 88), and continue so at certain times of the year to the present day. Manna was gathered in large quantities which took the place of bread. This shows that the Israelites were moving among groves of the tamarisk, for manna is the secretion which exudes from the tamarisk, owing to the punctures of an insect during six to eight weeks, beginning in May. A year later, when the Israelites were in the desert of Paran or Zin, they again gathered manna at the same season (Num. xi. 8), and continued to do so every year during the years they spent in the wilderness (Exod. xvi. 35). Manna appears under the name mennu in the contemporary records of Egypt, and is still collected in Sinai and exported.
The Israelites were now in Rephidim, the land of the Amalekites and, as there was a lack of water, Moses was divinely directed to smite the rock. The waters which he raised were Massah and Meribah (Exod. xvii. 7); the water which he struck near Kadesh, a year later, was Meribah also (Num. xx. 13), hence the place was called Meribath Kadesh (Ezek. xlviii. 28). A technical term for water-finding seems to be meant. In ancient Egyptian mer signifies channel, and ba, as mentioned above, signifies hole, which suggests a possible derivation. For wherever water percolates the soil with hard rock beneath it in the desert, it is possible to reach and raise it by cutting into the soil to the surface of the rock. The practice is still resorted to by the Bedawyn, who are adepts at striking water when they are on the march.
In Rephidim the Israelites were attacked by the Amalekites, who harried them while they were on their way (Deut. xxv. 17). The place where the encounter took place is not specified, nor the losses which were incurred.
The number of the Israelites was tabulated in two lists of the contingents of each tribe which were drawn up, the first when they encamped before the Holy Mount (Num. i. 46), the other when they were on the point of entering the Promised Land (Num. xxvi. 51). The internal evidence is strong that these census lists, which enumerate the numbers of each tribe, are a first hand record. At the same time the numbers arrived at by listing up the contingents of each tribe, 603,550 in the one case (Num. i. 46), and 601,730 in the other (Num. xxvi. 51), and 600,000 speaking generally (Exod. xii. 37; Num. xi. 21), are looked upon as in excess of the population which the land of Goshen could contain, and the land of Sinai could receive. Poetic licence or a mistake of the scribe was therefore put forward as an explanation. Prof. Petrie proposed a different solution.[102] The word alaf in Hebrew signifies thousand, but it also signifies family or tent-settlement. If we read the census lists as preserved in Numbers taking the so-called thousands to signify families or tent-settlements, and the hundreds only as applying to the people, the census lists contain what appears to be a reasonable statement. Thus, the tribe of Judah, instead of numbering 74,600 persons, numbered 74 tent-settlements, containing 600 persons, i.e. about eight persons to each tent-settlement; the tribe of Issachar, instead of numbering 54,400 persons, numbered 54 tent-settlements, containing 400 persons, and so forth. On this basis the Israelites, at the first census in Sinai, numbered 598 tent-settlements, with 5550 persons; and at the second census, on the entry into Canaan, they numbered 596 tent-settlements with 5730 persons. The numbers 600,000 and so forth are attributable to a mistake of the scribe who added up the contingents of the census lists, reading the word alaf as thousand, instead of tent-settlement.