A P P E N D I X.
NOTE A.
([Letter XXXIII.], p. 350.)
Since Procopius, in the sixth century, tradition had evermore exclusively decided the Gebel Mûsa to be the Mount of the Law, without doubt on account of the church founded at its foot by Justinian. I am unacquainted with any late travellers or scholars who have doubted the truth of this. Burckhardt, also, does not do this, although he conjectured, from the numerous inscriptions at Serbâl, that that mountain had once been erroneously taken for Sinai by the pilgrims. The words of this illustrious traveller (Trav. in Syria, p. 609) are as follows:—“It will be recollected that no inscriptions are found either on the mountain of Moses or on Mount St. Catherine; and that those which are found in the Ledja valley, at the foot of Djebel Catherine, are not to be traced above the rock, from which the water is said to have issued, and appear only to be the work of pilgrims who visited that rock. From these circumstances, I am persuaded that Mount Serbal was at one period the chief place of pilgrimage in the peninsula; and that it was then considered the mountain where Moses received the Tables of the Law; though I am equally convinced, from a perusal of the Scriptures, that the Israelites encamped in the Upper Sinai, and that either Djebel Mousa or Mount St. Catherine is the real Horeb. It is not at all impossible that the proximity of Serbal to Egypt may at one period have caused that mountain to be the Horeb of the pilgrims, and that the establishment of the convent in its present situation, which was probably chosen from motives of security, may have led to the transferring of that honour to Djebel Mousa. At present neither the monks of Mount Sinai nor those of Cairo consider Mount Serbal as the scene of any of the events of sacred history; nor have the Bedouins any tradition among them respecting it, but it is possible, that if the Byzantine writers were thoroughly examined, some mention might be found of this mountain, which I believe was never before visited by any European traveller.”
At a later period, the excellent travels of E. Robinson form a decided epoch in our acquaintance with the peninsula, as well as with Palestine. With reference to the position of Sinai, he mentions, for the first time, the favourable vicinity of the great plain of Râha to the north of Gebel Mûsa, on which the camp of the people of Israel would have had plenty of room (Palestine, vol. i. pp. 144, sqq.). In defining the position of the actual Mount of the Law, he departs from the previous tradition, and endeavours to prove that Moses had not ascended the Gebel Mûsa, but the mountain ridge rising over the plain from the south, which is now called Horeb by the monks, and the highest peak of which is named Sefsâf (vol. i. p. 176). Unfortunately, he has not visited Wadi Firân and the adjoining Serbâl. In a later essay (Bibl. Sacra, vol. iv. No. XXII. May, 1849, pp. 381, sqq.) the learned author returns to the question in respect of my hypothesis, with which he had become acquainted, and opposes to it his already published arguments for Gebel Sefsâf. He comprehends this under three points, which he particularizes from the Mosaic history, and which must therefore also be mentioned here:—“1. A mountain-summit, overlooking the place where the people stood. 2. Space sufficient, adjacent to the mountain, for so large a multitude to stand and behold the phenomena on the summit. 3. The relation between this space where the people stood and the base of the mountain must be such, that they could approach and stand at the nether part of the mount; that they could also touch it, and that further bounds could appropriately be set around the mount, lest they should go up into it, or touch the border of it.” The first of these three points would militate rather against Gebel Mûsa than Serbâl. Robinson says that the latter is excluded by the second and third points. As to the second, I will only call to mind that the encampment of the children of Israel is not otherwise described than at all their earlier stations. If, therefore, the idea of a camp was to be carried out so exclusively as that writers should be solicitous about space for the occupation of so large a people, it would be necessary to find a plain of Râha for all former stations, particularly at Raphidîm (which, according to almost general belief was situated at the foot of Serbâl). As there was a somewhat lengthy stay at that place, Moses was visited by Jethro, and by his advice divided the whole people into divisions of ten men each, and organized them methodically; from which we must conclude that there was a certain local position for all. Whoever thinks of a mass of two millions,—therefore about the number of the inhabitants of London or the whole of modern Egypt—encamped in tents (of which they would have required one for each ten persons, therefore 200,000), as in a well-ordered military camp, to him even the plain of Râha would appear much too small; but whoever allows that but a proportionately small number could group themselves round the principal quarter of Moses, and that all the rest would seek the shady places and caves of the rocks, he will be able to understand the camp of Wadi Firân as easily as at any other place. Wadi Firân also offers—even if we only think of its most fruitful portion, which must have been the most inviting for repose—down as far as El Hessue, in connection with the broad Wadi Aleyât, just as much extent, and, at any rate, a far more inhabitable space for a connected camp than the plain of Râha. Indeed, if minute particulars allow of any deductions, such position of the camp would make it more understandable, why the people were led out of the camp toward God to the foot of the mountain in Wadi Aleyât. The command not to ascend the mountain, which is given more expressly in the words that no one was to touch the ends of the mount, suits any mountain that rises before the eye, and is closed in by bushes. Just behind the bushes is the end of the mountain. Robinson refers to my own map of Serbâl as to this last point, and also the description of the Wadi Aleyât by Bartlett (Forty Days in the Desert, pp. 54-59). But it would be difficult to prove, from my sketch-map, that the people could not stretch out at the foot of the mountain; and Bartlett seems also to be of my opinion. As this traveller, so well known by his excellently-illustrated, and as sensible as interesting, descriptions of countries, is just one of those few who have seen those localities with reference to the question agitated by me, without previously formed opinions, the citation of the place referred to by Robinson would be more fitting here, and the rather as I cannot bring forward the principal points of the argument in a better manner. I may remark that italicised passages are mine, the wide words were originally emphaticised by the author:—
He says (p. 55): “If we endeavour to reconcile ourselves to the received but questionable system, which seeks to accommodate the miraculous with the natural, it is impossible, I think, not to close with the reasoning advanced in favour of the Serbal. There can be no doubt that Moses was personally well acquainted with the peninsula, and had even probably dwelt in the vicinity of Wadi Feiran during his banishment from Egypt, but even common report as to the present day, would point to this favoured locality as the only fit spot in the whole range of the Desert for the supply, either with water or such provisions as the country afforded, of the Israelitish host: on this ground, alone, then, he would be led irresistibly to fix upon it, when meditating a long sojourn for the purpose of compiling the law. This consideration derives additional force when we consider the supply of wood, and other articles, requisite for the construction of the tabernacles, and which can only be found readily at Wadi Feiran, and of its being also, in all probability, from early times, a place visited by trading caravans. But if Moses were even unacquainted previously with the resources of the place, he must have passed it on his way from the sea-coast through the interior of the mountains; and it is inconceivable that he should have refused to avail himself of its singular advantages for his purpose, or that the host would have consented, without a murmur, to quit, after so much privation, this fertile and well-watered oasis for new perils in the barren desert; or that he should, humanly speaking, have been able either to compel them to do so, or afterwards to fix them in the inhospitable unsheltered position of the monkish Mount Sinai, with the fertile Feiran but one day’s long march in their rear. Supplies of wood, and perhaps of water, must, in that case, have been brought, of necessity, from the very spot they had but just abandoned. We must suppose that the Amalekites would oppose the onward march of the Israelites, where they alone had a fertile territory worthy of being disputed, and from which Moses must, of necessity, have sought to expel them. If it be so, then in this vicinity and no other we must look for Rephidim, from whence the Mount of God was at a very short distance. We seem thus to have a combination of circumstances which are met with nowhere else, to certify that it was here that Moses halted for the great work he had in view, and that the scene of the law-giving is here before our eyes in its wild and lonely majesty. The principal objection to this is on the following ground, that there is no open space in the immediate neighbourhood of the Serbal suitable for the encampment of the vast multitude, and from which they could all of them at once have had a view of the mountain, as is the case at the plain Er Rahah, at Mount Sinai, where Robinson supposes, principally for that reason, the law to have been given. But it this objection conclusive? We read, indeed, that Israel ‘camped before the mount’ and that ‘the Lord came down in sight of all the people’ moreover, that bounds were set to prevent the people from breaking through and violating even the precints of the holy solitude. Although these conditions are more literally fulfilled at Er Rahah, yet, if we understood them as couched in general terms, they apply, perhaps, well enough, to the vicinity of the Serbal. A glance at the view, and a reference to this small rough map [here follows a sketch of the plan] will show the reader that the main encampment of the host must have been in Wadi Feiran itself, from which the summit of the Serbal is only here and there visible, and that it is by the lateral Wadi Aleyal that the base of the mountain itself by a walk of about an hour is to be reached. It certainly struck me, in passing up this valley, as a very unfit, if not impracticable, spot for the encampment of any great number of people, if they were all in tents; though well supplied with pure water, the ground is rugged, and rocky, towards the base of the mountain awfully so; but still it is quite possible that a certain number might have established themselves there, as the Arabs do at present, while, as on other occasions, the principal masses were distributed in the surrounding valleys. I do not know that there is any adequate ground for believing, as Robinson does, that because the people were warned not to invade the seclusion of the mount, and a guard was placed to prevent them from doing so, that therefore the encampment itself pressed closely on its borders. Curiosity might possibly enough lead many to attempt this even from a distance, to say nothing of those already supposed to be located in the Wadi Aleyat, near the base of the mountain, to whom the injunction would more especially apply. Those, however, who press closely the literal sense of one or two passages, should bear in mind all the difficulties previously cited, and the absolute destitution of verdure, cultivation, running streams, and even of abundant springs, which characterise the fearfully barren vicinity of the monkish Sinai, where there is indeed room and verge enough for encampment, but no resources whatever. If we take up the ground of a continual and miraculous provision for all the wants of two millions of people, doubtless they may have been subsisted there as well as in any other place; otherwise it seems incredible that Moses should ever have abandoned a spot, offering such unique advantages as Feiran, to select instead the most dreary and sterile spot in its neighbourhood.”
This was the clearly felt, and unhesitatingly expressed impression that the companionship of those places with the Biblical narrative made upon a man, who yet finally remains in doubt, whether, notwithstanding all the cited grounds, it would not be better to follow the other “systems,” according to which the whole is regarded as an uninterrupted wonder from beginning to end, if it indeed be not so called in the Bible (see p. 19 of Bartlett’s work), in which case all the researches into the human probability of that great historical event become meaningless. The author then proceeds to some specialities, which he only mentions as such, in which he departs from my feeling, as he places the attack of the Amalekites farther down the valley towards El Hessue. The many ways in which such specialities can be explained, only point out the fact to us, that the general bearing of the most important circumstances of the question can alone produce positive conviction, and that where those are concerned the objections arising from the petty variations must recede.
Soon after Robinson, in 1843, Dr. John Wilson travelled through Palestine and the Petraïc peninsula, and published his comprehensive work on the subject (“The Lands of the Bible,” 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1847). Though he does not approach in the most remote degree the high position of his learned predecessor, I cannot but coincide in some remarks which he throws out against Robinson’s hypothesis, that the Sefsâf is the Mount of the Law (vol. i. pp. 222, sqq.). He again shows its connection with the tradition of Gebel Mûsa. In Serbâl, on the contrary, he believes he identifies the Mount Paran of the Bible (p. 199), an idea which could only be entertained if the name of Mount Paran was found to be another denomination of Sinai, and the latter be also identified with Serbâl. At the conclusion of the second volume (pp. 764, sqq.), the author adds a note, in which he defends himself from my contrary opinion concerning the position of Sinai. The most important reasons, however, which I have everywhere placed in the foreground, he does not at all touch upon, but only enlarges on specialities, some of which could easily be confuted, and the rest not bearing on the principal question. He places Daphka, not even mentioned in the principal history, and, therefore, certainly less considerable, in Wadi Firân, and Raphidîm, “the resting places,” in the bare sandy Wadi e’Sheikh, because there is no water there. But in that case, to use his own weapons, where is the fountain of Moses? “Few in the kingdom of Great Britain, at least,” says the author, “will be disposed to substitute the Wadi Feiran, with clear running water, for Rephidim, where there was no water for the people to drink.” I believe he does his countrymen wrong, if he considers them to diverge so generally from the almost univoce traditions, and to consider the feelings of learned fathers of the church, who place Raphidîm in Firân, and take the fountain there for the Fountain of Moses, as a rationalistic explanation of it; and, besides H. Bartlett, several others of his countrymen, among whom I particularise Mr. Hogg (see below for a notice of his essay), the Rev. Dr. Croly, and the author of the Pictorial Bible, have expressly declared in favour of my opinion. If he mean to say I had overlooked the fact that the wilderness of Sin, and the wilderness of Sinai, signified two different things, I will refer him to p. 47 of my work, where the contrary is distinctly stated. The words, “out of the wilderness of Sin,” I have also not left unnoticed (p. 39), as little as it was done by Eusebius and St. Jerome, who also allow the wilderness of Sin to stretch as far as that of Sinai. The strife with Amalek, as it is related in Exodus, gives the impression of a general and stubborn fight; that the principal attack in front was supported by an attack in the rear, as it is added in Deuteronomy xxv. 18, is not contradicted; the double attack, too, seems to be alluded to there in the words
ἀντέστη σοι έν τῇ ὁδῷ, καὶ ἔκοψε σου τὴν οὐραγίαν.[157] Near Elim twelve springs