the original starting point of a caravan, in the East, is by no means so great a distance as a three days' journey at a later period in the course of a prolonged pilgrimage; for, as a rule, the first day's journey is hardly more than a preliminary movement for a start. Anyone familiar with Eastern travel will bear witness to this fact. For example, when I was to start from Suez for Mount Sinai, although everything was in readiness on the evening of my reaching Suez, and I was desirous of pushing forward speedily, I was detained until well into the afternoon of the next day, because, as I was told, the first night's rest must be at Ayoon Moosa, in sight of Suez, across the Red Sea; nor was my case an exception just here.

In describing the annual pilgrimage from Cairo to Mekkeh, Ebers1 says: "After resting outside the walls for two or three days, the caravan sets out, and makes its first day's journey, of scarcely more than four hours, as far as the first station at Birkett el-Hajj, or the 'Pilgrim's Lake." A century ago, Niebuhr reported the same point as the reach of his first day's journey from Cairo; and yet a century earlier, Thevenot named it as his first stopping place on a similar journey. Four centuries ago, Breydenbach and Fabri, making a pilgrimage from Gaza to Sinai, noted their first night's stopping place as just outside of the town of Gaza. And so it has been with the first day's journey, in all the centuries in the unchanging East.

Hackett has clustered facts in illustration of this point. He says of a "first day's" journey: "On that day it is not customary to go more than six or eight miles, and the tents are pitched for the first night's encampment almost within sight of the place from which the journey commences." Referring to his own experience in this line, he says: "The only reason that I heard assigned for

1 Pict. Egypt, II., 130. • Itiner.

3 Reisen, I., 220.

2 Reiseb, pp. 212–217.

5 Evagator. II., 406.

• Illus. of Scrip., pp. 15–20.

starting thus late and stopping so early was, that it furnished an opportunity, if anything should prove to be forgotten, to return to the city and supply the deficiency." And he adds: "I find from books of travels, that we merely did in this respect what is customary for travelers in setting forth on a journey; and, further, that they give the same explanation of this peculiarity of the first day." Then he quotes to this effect from Maundrell, Richardson, Burckhardt, Miss Martineau, and others; and he shows the bearing of this on the narrative of the return of the parents of the Child Jesus to search for him in Jerusalem, when at the close of "a day's journey" he was not found in "the company." And in this connection he notes the fact that the improbability of such a thing as this natural occurrence is one of the objections of Strauss to the accuracy of the Gospel narrative. Another illustration of imperfect knowledge as the basis of much of the modern "destructive criticism!"

In the light of this explanation, it will be seen that the first "three days' journey" from Sinai northward cannot fairly have been much more, if any, than an ordinary two days' journey; and that thirty miles is quite as long a distance for it as could be counted on. Hence a place not farther away from the Plain erRahah than Erways el-Ebayrig, must be taken as the first encamping station of the Israelites, at the close of that "three days' journey."

And so the encamping and the journeying went on. "At the commandment of the Lord the children of Israel journeyed, and at the commandment of the Lord they pitched: as long as the cloud abode upon the tabernacle they rested in their tents. . . . And so it was, when the cloud abode from even unto the morning, and that the cloud was taken up in the morning, then they journeyed: whether it was by day or by night that the cloud was taken

1 Luke 2: 42-45.

up, they journeyed. Or whether it were two days, or a month, or a year, that the cloud tarried upon the tabernacle, remaining thereon, the children of Israel abode in their tents, and journeyed not: but when it was taken up they journeyed." There is certainly not much ground in that record for claiming that the space between encampments was uniformly a day's distance.

The list of stations in Numbers 33: 1-49 would seem therefore, to be, not a list of all the halting places of the Israelites, but, a list of the places at which there was a formal encampment. Indeed the Hebrew word translated variously in this list, "took their journey," "journeyed," "departed," "went," and "removed,” implies, in its very form, a "breaking up," or a "pulling up stakes," as on the change of an encampment. Nor is there any place twice mentioned in this list, although we have reason to suppose that during the forty years the host, or at least its tabernacle and its headquarters, encamped more than once at the same place. For example, in this list of stations, it is recorded that "they departed from Hashmonah and encamped at Moseroth. And they departed from Moseroth, and pitched in Bene-jaakan;" and so on to Hor-hagidad, and Jotbathah. But in Deuteronomy 10: 6, 7, it is said, that they "took their journey from Beeroth of the children of Jaakan [the wells of Bene-jaakan] to Mosera" and so on to Gudgodah and Jotbath. The order of the stations in these two records is reversed, as if the places were visited in one order in going in one direction, and in reverse order in going the other way; but in the complete list of stations no one place has received a second mention, unless indeed under another name, and that for

1 Num. 9: 18, 21,22.

ayo" (Vayyis'oo "and they broke up.") See Keil and Delitzsch's Bib. Com., III., 242.

* For a full discussion of this point, see Kurtz's Hist. of Old Cov., III., ?? 30, 41; also see Keil and Delitzsch's Bib, Com., as above.

'See Robinson, in Bib. Repos. Oct., 1832, p. 788.

an exceptional reason, as in the case of Kadesh-as will be shown.

There is one point which ought not to be overlooked, while inquiring if the order of stations throws light on the proximity of any two stations named consecutively. The same record that says: "They removed from Kadesh and pitched in Mount Hor,” says also: "They removed from Ezion-gaber and pitched in the wilderness of Zin, which is Kadesh." Now Ezion-gaber is known to have been at or near the head of the eastern arm of the Red Sea -the Gulf of 'Aqabah. The Israelites when making their journey for the compassing of Mount Seir, went "through the Way of the 'Arabah, [or by way of the 'Arabah Road,] from Elath and from Ezion-gaber;"3 (and the Israelites seem never to have been in the Way of the 'Arabah, except at its southernmost end where it compassed Mount Seir.) Later, it is declared that king Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion-geber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, "in the land of Edom." Now, if the stations named consecutively are to be reckoned as only a day's distance apart, it is clear that Kadesh, being only one remove from Ezion-gaber, and only one remove from Mount Hor, is at some point which is only a day's distance from either of those two places. This in itself would put Jebel Neby Hâroon out of the

1 Num. 33: 36, 37.

2 Winer (Bibl. Realwörterb. s. v. “Eziongeber") discusses this site, with comprehensiveness. He would find it at 'Aszyûn or 'Assiun, a place referred to by Makrizi, the Eyptian historian, as quoted by Burckhardt ( Travels in Syria, p. 511.) Of this place Robinson (Bib. Res. I., 169 f.) thinks no traces are to be found; and he would find its site at Wady "el-Ghudyân, opening into el-'Arabah from the western mountain, some distance north of 'Akabah." "However different the names el-Ghudyân and Ezion may be in appearance, yet the letters in Arabic and Hebrew all correspond." Although this site is now ten miles or so north of the end of the gulf, Robinson thinks that formerly the waters extended thus far. "This probably is the best site for it." (Smith-Hackett Bib. Dic. s. v. "Ezion-gaber,")

question as a site of Mount Hor; for even a straight line (and it would be difficult to shorten that) between the Gulf of 'Aqabah and Jebel Neby Hâroon would be not less than three days' journey; if indeed it were less than four or five. Nor have any sites for Kadesh and Mount Hor been named, which would bring Kadesh within a day's reach of Mount Hor on the one hand, and of Ezion-gaber on the other.

In short, everything combines to show that the mention of two stations in juxtaposition, in the record of the Israelites' journeyings, gives no indication of the nearness of those stations to each other; gives no reason for supposing that they are only a day's distance apart. Moreover it is evident that in some cases such nearness is an impossibility.

18. KADESH IN THE LIST OF STATIONS.

In the review list of stations in the thirty-third chapter of Numbers, the name of Kadesh does not appear until near the close of the forty years' wanderings; when it is given in conjunction with Ezion-gaber and Mount Hor, as already noted. Yet it is evident that Kadesh was first reached within a short time after leaving Sinai; moreover, that when the sentence of dispersion, or wandering, which was there passed upon the Israelites, was nearing its close, there was a re-assembling of the whole congregation at that sanctuary-stronghold, for a new move Canaanward. absence of any early mention of Kadesh in the list of stations has been à cause of much inquiry, and of much difference of opinion, among scholars.

The

1 Robinson (Bib. Repos., Oct. 1832, p. 786), says: "From Ezion-gaber to Kadesh ...could not be much less than the whole length of the great valley of the Ghôr,-a distance not less than one hundred miles [say four to six days' journey] whatever might be the exact situation of Kadesh."

2 Num. 33: 36, 37. Num. 13: 26. See pages 19-24, supra. Num. 20: 1.