sessing the chemical qualities requisite for sweetening these bitter waters existed in the neighbourhood, but Moses was ignorant of its existence; the Lord reveals the fact to him.

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From Marah they proceeded "to Elim, where were twelve wells of water, and threescore and ten palmtrees and they encamped there by the waters,” Exod. xv. 27. This place all travellers agree in placing in the valley of Girondel, or Gharondel. Nine of the wells are still remaining, and the seventy palm-trees have increased to upwards of two thousand. The natives showed to Shaw a spot, under the shade of these trees, called Hammam Mousa, or the bath of Moses, and which they hold in great veneration, from a belief that the household of Moses pitched their tents in it.

From Elim they proceeded "unto the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai," Exod. xvi. 1. Proceeding near the sea, their route crossed several valleys which led to the shore, at the end of one of which, probably that called by Burckhardt Wady Taybe, they halted on the beach whence they struck into the desert, Num. xxxiii. 10, 11. While they lay encamped here, God sent to them manna, and continued to send it, till they came to the borders of the land of Canaan, a period of forty years. Exod. xvi. 35. Here also he sent to them quails.

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After two other resting-places, Dophkah and Alush, mentioned Num. xxxiii. 12—14, but not in the book of Exodus, and lying on their way from the wilderness of Sin, they came to Rephidim. Here there was no water, and the people, in their unbelief and distress, becoming mutinous, threatened the life of Moses; who, by the divine command, in the presence of the assembled elders, and with the rod with which he before struck the Nile, smote the rock in Horeb, and water flowed from it. From the discontent and murmuring of the people, the place was called Massah, and Meribah. Here also

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the Amalekites, a wild marauding tribe, surrounded them; or, according to Josephus, a confederacy of all the sheiks of the desert, made a determined effort to exterminate them, as invaders of their territory: so that their fortitude, as well as their faith and patience, were put to the test. "But," the sacred historian informs "Joshua discomfited Amalek, and his people, with the edge of the sword. And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it Jehovah-nissi," that is, the Lord my banner, Exod. xvii. 8, 16. From Rephidim they departed, and pitched in the wilderness of Sinai, before the mount, Exod. xix. 2, Num. xxxiii. 15. Here, under the most imposing and awful circumstances, Moses delivered to them those laws, which supposed them to be in possession of a rich and fertile country which they had not yet entered, nor even approached. The ordinances and institutions of a settled and civilized community were delivered to homeless wanderers, who, from their existing circumstances, appeared far more likely to sink below the pastoral life of their forefathers, than to rise to a flourishing agricultural people.

As there is an apparent confounding of the geographical positions of the three last-named places, in the sacred record, it is necessary that we should be somewhat more particular in describing them. The rock whence Moses drew the water, is expressly stated to have been in Horeb; and the mount, on the top of which he received the law, is as expressly declared to have been Sinai; and the place, where the Israelites were thus miraculously supplied with water, is also declared to have been Rephidim,-departing from which place, they are said to have come into the wilderness of Sinai. But events which, in one part of Scripture, are said to have happened in Sinai, are, in another, said to have happened in Horeb : thus, in the nineteenth chapter of the book of Exodus, the law is said to have been published from Sinai; but, in the fifth chapter of the book

of Deuteronomy, it is said to have been published in Horeb; and after the Israelites had departed from Rephidim, and come into the wilderness of Sinai, they are said to have stripped themselves of their ornaments by Mount Horeb, (Exod. xxxiii. 6,) because here, as the Psalmist informs us, (Psa. cvi. 19,) they made a calf, and worshipped it. Moses affirms the same thing, when he says, (Deut. ix. 8, 9,) " Also in Horeb ye provoked the Lord to wrath, when I was gone up into the mount, (that is, Mount Sinai,) to receive the tables of the covenant." Whence, it appears that if Mount Horeb and Mount Sinai were not the same mount, they were merely different peaks or ridges of the same mount; and that Rephidim was in the neighbourhood of this mount, and that in departing from Rephidim into the wilderness of Sinai, the Israelites could merely have passed from one side of the same mountain to another, or from the base of one of these peaks or ridges, to that of the other.

Of the places, the geographical position of which we have just been endeavouring to settle, Shaw gives the following description:

"The desert of Sinai consists of a beautiful plain, more than a league in breadth, and nearly three in length, lying open towards the north-east, where we enter it, but is closed up to the southward by some of the lower eminences of Mount Sinai. In this direction, likewise, the higher parts of this mountain make such encroachments upon the plain, that they divide it into two, each of them capacious enough to receive the whole encampment of Israel. That which lies to the eastward, may be the desert of Sinai, properly so called, where Moses saw the angel of the Lord in the burning bush, when he was guarding the flocks of Jethro, Exod. iii. 2. The convent of St. Catharine is built over the place of this divine appearance."

"Mount Sinai, which hangs over this convent, is

called by the Arabs, Jibbel Mousa, that is, the mountain of Moses; and sometimes only, by way of eminence, El Tor, that is, the mountain. St. Helena, out of the great reverence she had for this Θεοβάδιστον ὄρος, according to the appellation of these monks, built a staircase of stone, from the bottom to the top of it; but, at present, as most of these steps, which history informs us, were originally 6,600 in number, are either tumbled down, or defaced, the ascent has become very fatiguing, and frequently imposed on their votaries and pilgrims, as a severe penance. However, at certain distances, the fathers have erected, as so many breathing-places, several little chapels and oratories, dedicated to one or other of their saints; who, as they are always to be invoked upon these occasions, so, after some small oblation, they are always engaged to be propitious, to lend their assistance. The summit of Mount Sinai is not very spacious; where the Mahometans, the Latins, and the Greeks, have each of them a small chapel."

"After we had descended, with no small difficulty, down the other, or western side of this mount, we came into the plain or wilderness of Rephidim, where we saw that extraordinary antiquity, the rock of Meribah; which has continued down to this day, without the least injury from time or accident. This is rightly called, from its hardness, a rock of flint, (Deut. viii. 15,) though, from the purple or reddish colour of it, it may be rather rendered the rock amethyst, or the amethystine, or granite rock. It is about six yards square, lying tottering, as it were, or loose, near the middle of the. valley, and seems to have been, formerly, a part, or cliff of Mount Sinai, which hangs in a variety of precipices, all over this plain. The waters which gushed out, and the stream which flowed withal, Psa. lxxviii. 20, have hollowed, across one corner of this rock, a channel, about two inches deep, and twenty wide, all over incrusted, like the inside of a tea-kettle that has been

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long used. Besides several mossy productions, that are still preserved by the dew, we saw all over this channel, a great number of holes, some of them four or five inches deep, and one or two in diameter, the lively and demonstrative tokens of their having been formerly so many fountains. Neither could art or chance have been concerned in the contrivance; inasmuch as every circumstance points out to us a miracle; and, in the same manner with the rent in the rock of Mount Calvary at Jerusalem, never fails to produce the greatest seriousness and devotion in all who see it. The Arabs, who were our guards, were ready to stone me, in attempting to break off a corner of it."*

In Num. x. 11, 12, we are informed that " on the twentieth day of the second month, in the second year, (i. e. of their coming out of Egypt,) the cloud was taken up from off the tabernacle of the testimony; and the children of Israel took their journey out of the wilderness of Sinai; and the cloud rested in the wilderness of Paran." Their journey thither, however, was broken by several encampments. The first was at Taberah, a place not far from Sinai, in the way to Kadesh, and hence, north, or north-east of Sinai. Here a fire broke out which raged with great fury among the dry and combustible materials of which their tents were made, and consumed some of the people. To this event the name of the place, Taberah, which signifies burning, owes its origin. next encampment on this route was Kibroth-hattaavah, a place some distance farther from Sinai, in the same direction. It is evident that it lay without the wilderness of Sinai; for it is said, (Num. xxxiii. 16,) that they removed from the desert of Sinai, and pitched at Kibroth-hattaavah. Here, to punish them for their querulous discontent with the manna, with which they

* Shaw's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 105-108.

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