not wells, are named; but this does not change the matter here, as twelve running springs, like those in Wadi Firân, cannot be thought of, but as the author (vol. i., p. 175) himself remarks, only standing ground waters, which must be dug out, and, therefore, in fact, wells. The great number of these is alone important, from which the size of the place can be calculated. The Sheikh Abu Zelîmeh I was well acquainted with, but that would not hinder a connection of the word with the place, although I do not lay the slightest stress on such coincidences.
The author does not bring forth other grounds, which he believes would militate against my opinion; these may, perhaps, have touched the principal points of the whole question, which were still unconfuted. Perhaps the author may now find it necessary to add them with respect to the investigations of a countryman of his, Mr. John Hogg, who took up the inquiry first in the Gentleman’s Magazine, March, 1847, and then in the transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, second series, vol. iii. pp. 183-236 (read May, 1847, January, 1848); subsequently extending it considerably under the title of “Remarks and Additional Views on Dr. Lepsius’s proofs that Mount Serbal is the true Mount Sinai; or the Wilderness of Sin; on the Manna of the Israelites; and on the Sinaitic Inscriptions.” This learned writer collates the earliest traditions, and seeks to prove from them that, before the time of Justinian, they referred to Serbâl, and not to Gebel Mûsa. Indeed he seems to have succeeded, and we shall return to the question hereafter.
Since that time the comprehensive and masterly work of my honoured friend Carl Ritter: Vergleichende Erdkunde der Sinai-Halbinsel, von Palästina und Syrien, erster Band, Berlin, 1848—(Comparative Geology of the peninsula of Sinai, of Palestine, and Syria, volume one),—has appeared. The exhausting use and employ of all sources from the oldest down to the most recent, for an as grandly conceived, as circumstantially executed, general picture of the peninsula in its geographical relations and in the relative history of its population, has also not left the question under discussion, in which history and geography are in closer connection than in any other, unillustrated. Sinai is for the peninsula what Jerusalem is to Palestine, and it is ascertained that the building of the church at Gebel Mûsa, in the sixth century, brought about by the belief that it was founded at the place where the Law was given, caused the historical centre of the peninsula,—which formerly was undoubtedly identical with the city of Pharan and its palm-forest, as the natural geographical centre,—to be parted from it, and removed several days’ journey further south; just as certain must the determination of the question, whether a first or second parting of the historical and geographical centre could be of considerable influence in the exposition of the earliest history of the peninsula, and could even exercise some influence on the future tone, not only of Sinaitic literature, but even on some of the relations of the place itself which not unfrequently subject, to some extent, the destinations of the continually increasing number of travellers. Ritter’s work, of course, had at once to choose one of the two opinions. And, naturally, after the final examination of the considerable previous works, the new opinion which first stepped forth against the view undoubted for a thousand years, and accepted by all the later travellers, in an incidental form, in a necessarily imperfect report of a journey, could make the less demand for preference, as it was not critically examined in any way, nor taken into consideration by later travellers. I know how to value the equally careful as impartial recognizing examination which Ritter has given in his work to the grounds in favour of Serbâl being Sinai.
This he does at pp. 736 seq. Here he at once rebuts the opinion, that the tradition of the convent on Gebel Mûsa, only known to us since the sixth century, can decide anything; “the tradition of the still more ancient convent of Serbâl, and the Serbâl-city of Wadi Firân, it might be said, was just as much existing, and has only been lost, as far as we are concerned.” Therefore, other grounds taken from nature and history ought to vouch for it. Then he brings up the opinion of Robinson, who places Raphidîm in the upper part of the Wadi e’ Sheikh, but forcibly instances against it, that it would then have been visited and mentioned on the continuation of the journey, and in another place just as appositely, that one cannot, in that case, understand how the people could have grumbled about water, only one day’s journey beyond the well-watered Firân, while this is easily explained on the long way from Elim to the vicinity of Firân. Ritter therefore takes, with me and the old tradition, the curious brook of Firân to be the fountain of Moses. He only objects that, if Moses struck the fountain from out of the rocks, it must have been at the beginning, not at the end of the present rivulet, and he therefore places Raphidîm in the uppermost part of the Wadi Firân, the fertility of which could not have existed before the fountain was made. As to the situation of the Mount of the Law, he declines at present to pledge himself to any distinct decision. “We see,” he says, “already in the almost contemporaneous historians, Jerome (Procopius?) and Cosmas, the variation of opinion concerning these localities, of which no one appears definitely settled before another, even in the latest double views by according and sufficient grounds, to us at least. As both these modes of explanation of a text so obscure in topographical matters, as a but imperfectly known locality, can only use hypothetical probabilities, as briefly for a more certain explanation; so let it be permitted to state our hypothetical view on this probably never-to-be quite settled matter.”
This is to the effect that the “Mountain of God,” where Moses was encamped, when he was visited by Jethro in Raphidîm, “could not in any case be the convent Mount of Sinai, (i. e. Gebel Mûsa,) although this is so named at a subsequent period, as that of the true God, from which one was then in every case far distant, but might indeed be a denomination of the high, much nearer Serbâl, as one was yet in camp at Raphidîm.” He, too, perceives an interruption of the connection at the beginning of the nineteenth chapter with the previous chapters, but seeks for the cause in a chasm in the text, while I would rather perceive a short interpolation. In this chasm falls the departure of the people from the valley of Firân for the upper Sheikh valley and to that of Gebel Mûsa, the true Sinai. This was first simply “the mountain,” (Exodus, xix. 2,) and only obtained the name of a “Mountain of God,” after the giving of the law (which, however, is already contradicted by the next following verse, xix. 3), while Serbâl might have received the denomination of “Mountain of God” from a heathen idol there worshipped.
“Both mountains, the Mount of God (Serbâl) in Raphidîm, and the Mount in the desert of Sinai, are therefore just as various in name, as they are separated by the last journeys between both camps.” The general features of nature round about Gebel Mûsa, he considers more fitting for a longer stay of the people on account of the greater security, coolness, and the Alp-like pasture land. Only the name Horeb, already comprehended in Raphidîm, could be an objection, yet there seems to him to be no sufficient grounds existing, why this name, already considered as a general term by Robinson, Hengstenberg, and others, should not be extended to the outer ranges of Serbâl.
The acceptation of two mountains of God, Serbâl and Gebel Mûsa, is, as far I can tell, here attempted for the first time. It is certainly, the necessary, only not yet enounced consequence, for all those who place Raphidîm in Firân. In this there seems to me to lie an evident proof with reference to the critical examination of the text, that both mountains are again to be found in Serbâl. The greater security of the plain of Râha would not be very high for a “harnessed” (Exodus xvi. 18,) host of 600,000 men, after they had taken a firm footing, and Serbâl would also have always offered a safe place of retreat. The cold in the lofty mountains, causing water to freeze (Ritter, p. 445-630) in February in the convent (5,000 feet above the sea), according to Rüppell and Robinson, would alone have made an open camp on the plain of Râha impossible during the winter, for a population accustomed to the Egyptian climate, to the vegetation of those districts, which is certainly differently described by the different travellers; the thought there is no doubt of the Israelites having at one period been there, may partially have induced several to accept more shrubs in the neighbourhood than they actually saw at the time, partly there, no question that the season of the year may make some difference; I therefore willingly observe, that I visited the peninsula at about the same season of the year in which, according to the Mosaic account, the Israelites came thither.
Finally, Ritter has again spoken upon the Sinai question in a more popular essay: “The Sinaitic Peninsula, and the Route of the People of Israel to Sinai,” in the Evangelischen Kalender, for 1852, edited by F. Piper, pp. 31, sqq. Here, too, he places Raphidîm in Firân, and perceived the mountain of God at Raphidîm, in Serbâl. Against the identity of Serbâl and Sinai, he brings these two chief objections. As it has now been perfectly settled that the so-called Sinaitic inscriptions are of heathen origin, and prove Serbâl, to which they chiefly point as the “centre of an ancient worship,” this remarkable mountain could not be “a mountain of Jehovah, if it were already a sacred mountain of the idolaters” (p. 51). And further on (p. 52):—“The holy mountain of Israel did not lie in the territory of Amalek, like Serbâl, but in the east and south parts of the territory of Midian,” for it is expressly said in Exodus (iv. 19):—“And the Lord said unto Moses, in Midian, Go, return into Egypt,” in order that they should sacrifice to him on these mountains, Horeb and Sinai, in Midian (Exodus iii. 1-12).” Of these two points, however, the first seems to me a very important argument for Serbâl-Sinai. Serbâl was also a holy mountain for the tribes in the peninsula at a later period, as it is not called “Idol Mountain,” before the giving of the Law, but “Mountain of God” (Exodus iii. 1, iv. 27, xviii. 5), just as it was after the giving of the Law (Exodus xxiv. 13; 1 Kings xix. 8), and a subsequent appropriation of the mountain to a heathen worship is much less remarkable. No reason is to be found, however, in the fact, that when the Lord spoke to Moses he lived in Midian with Jethro, to warrant the placing of the mountain of the Law in Midian, for that it nowhere said. We only know, that Raphidîm, where Jethro visited Moses from Midian, lay in the territory of the Amalekites, as they here made the attack. Eusebius, who (s. v. Ῥαφιδίμ) expressly refers Raphidîm and Choreb to Pharan, says (s. v. χωρήβ) that this mountain of God lay in Madian. Also in Itinerar. Antonini, c. 40, Pharan is placed in Madian.
Would that these observations, in which I believe I have touched upon almost all the more important grounds of their esteemed author, may prove to him, how high a value I set upon each of his opinions, as those of a more competent judge in this field of research than any other. Ritter’s long, well-known tact for the truth in such questions would have caused me to have less faith in my own view than all the grounds he produces, which are generally to be confuted, as it appears, if I had not in this case the advantage of a personal inspection of the localities, unprejudiced by any former opinion, which could make it less independent of former writers, than it is possible for him to have.