Chapter XXXV: Letter XXXIII

ON THE RED SEA. _April 6, 1845._

I shall employ the time of our quiet seavoyage, which will take some days, in arranging the manifold materials collected on the peninsula, and to mark down the principal events of our journey. I will send a more copious account from Thebes.[107] These lines, however, will be given to Seid Hussen, at Qeneh, and be forwarded by the first opportunity.

We left the convent on the 25th of March toward evening, and went down the broad Wadi e’ Shech. I chose this roundabout way, because formerly (before the wild defile, Nakb el Haui, was rendered passable) this was the only way the Israelites could go when they wanted to reach the plain of Râha.[108] We remained during the night in the upper part of the valley, near the tomb of the holy Shech Sâlih, after whom the valley takes the name Wadi e’ Shech. In the lower part of the valley begins the manna-rich tarfa-bushes and gradually the Sinaitic inscriptions become more numerous. Before, however, we reached the end of the valley we quitted it, and turned to the left into the Wadi Selâf, which unites further down with the Wadi e’ Shech, in order to reach the foot of Serbâl by the shortest road. This immense height, towering over the mountainous landscape, we had often seen in our road when we had a clear view; and the accounts the Arabs gave of the fertile and well-watered Wadi Firân at its foot had made me desirous to make a nearer acquaintance. I had determined to ascend the mountain, and for this reason turned into the Wadi Rim, which runs into Wadi Selâf, into which Serbâl descends. When we had ridden a little way up this valley, we came to an old stone hut, which must have been inhabited by a hermit. Soon after, we found some Arab tents, and at a little distance several sittera-trees, which we chose as a resting-place.

On the 27th of March we rose early to ascend the mountain. The only way to Serbâl, Derb e’Serbâl, leads from the Wadi Firân through Wadi Aleyât up the mountain. We were obliged to go round to the south-east end of the mountain, in order to mount it behind on the south; as it would have been far beyond our strength to have climbed up through the ridge cleft, which falls steep, and in a direct line between the two eastern summits. A quarter-hour from our resting place we came to a well, shaded by _nebek hamâda_ and palms, whose fresh and pure waters were walled in for a depth of some feet. We then went over a little mountain ridge, upon which stood several stone huts, into another branch of the valley of Rim (Rim el Mehâsni), and reached in an hour and a-half the south-east corner of the mountain. From hence we followed a beaten path, which sometimes was even paved. This led us to an artificial terrace, and a wall, which appeared to be the ruins of a fallen house, and to a cool well, shaded by high rushes, a palm, and several _jassur_ (of which Moses’s staves were cut); the whole mountain being covered with _habak_ and other sweet-scented herbs. Some minutes further we came to several rock caverns, which must once have served as hermits’ cells; and after four hours’ further journeying, we arrived at a small plain, which lay between the heights, upon which we found another house with two rooms. A way led from this level to the edge of the west side of the mountain, which at first steep and rugged, then in soft broad slopes, sinks to the sandy plain el Ge’ah. It opened to me here a glorious prospect over the sea to the opposite coast, and the Egyptian mountains which bound it. From here the mountain path suddenly sank by the rugged precipice into a wild deep mountain hollow, around which the five summits of Serbâl unite in a half circle, and form a towering crown. In the middle of this hollow, called Wadi Si’qelji, lie the ruins of an old convent, to which the mountain path leads, but which unfortunately we could not visit for want of time.[109]

I then went back across the level, and began first to ascend the southern Serbâl summit. When I had nearly reached the steep height, I thought that the second summit appeared to be somewhat higher. I hurried down again to seek a road to this. We passed a small water-fall, and were obliged to go almost all round the hollow before we succeeded in ascending the north-east side. Here, to my astonishment, I found between the two points into which the summit is split, a fruitful little plain, well covered with bushes and herbs, from which I first ascended one point and then the other, and with the assistance of my experienced guides, and the compass, I took the bearings of all the principal points which could be seen around. I could distinguish quite plainly that beyond Gebel Mûsa the mountains rose higher and higher, and that the distant Um Shômar towered over all. We did not begin to return till towards four o’clock. The long round by which we mounted we were obliged to avoid on our return, in order not to be in the dark. We determined, therefore, to make our way down the steep rock cleft, which led in a straight line to our camp in the Wadi Rim, and like the chamois to spring from block to block; and we got down this impassable road, (the most difficult and fatiguing that I ever went in my whole life,) in about two hours and a-half with trembling knees to our tent.

On the following day we went on farther, and reached, through the Wadi Selâf and the lower end of the Wadi e’Shech, the Wadi Firân, this most precious jewel of the peninsula, with its palms and tarfa woods, by the side of a lovely bubbling stream, which flows on, winding through bushes and flowers, as far as the old convent-mountains of the city of Pharan, the present Firân. Everything that we had seen, till then, and that we afterwards saw on our way, was a naked stony desert, in comparison with this fruitful well-wooded and well-watered oasis. For the first time since we left the valley of the Nile, did we tread again on the soft black earth, obliged to put out of our way the overhanging bushy branches with our arms, and did we hear the singing birds twittering in the foliage. There where the broad Wadi Aleyât descends from Serbâl into the Wadi Firân, and widens the valley into a wide level, rises the rocky hill Hererât, on the top of which lie the ruins of an old convent. At the foot of this hill stood once a stately church, built of well-hewn sand-stone blocks, the remains of which have been used in building the city lying on the opposite slope.

I went the same evening up the Wadi Aleyât, and passed innumerable rock inscriptions, till I came to a spring surrounded by palms and _nebek_, from whence I enjoyed the full view of the majestic mountain chain. Distinguished from all the other mountains, and united in one mass, rises the Serbâl, first in a gentle slope, and then in steep rugged precipices, to a height of 6,000 feet above the sea. Incomparable was the view, when the valleys and lower mountains around were already wrapped in the shades of night, and the summit of the mountain, still above the colourless grey, rose like a fiery cloud, glowing in the setting sun. The next morning I repeated my visit to Wadi Aleyât, and finished the plan of this remarkable district, the land points of which I had already laid out from the top of the Serbâl.

The most fertile part of Wadi Firân is enclosed between two hills, which rise from the middle of the level in the valley; of these, the upper one is called El Buêb, the lower one at the end of the Wadi Aleyât, Meharret or Hererât. In olden times, it appears that this valley must have been enclosed, and the rushing water which flowed from all sides, even from Gebel Mûsa, into this hollow, uniting, must have formed a lake. Such a supposition alone appears to account for the extraordinary deposit of earth, which here to a height of from eighty to a hundred feet, lies along the valley walls; and it is, without doubt, this singular situation of Firân, as the lowest point of a large mountainous tract, which causes the uncommon wealth of waters which is now met with. Immediately behind the convent hill, we found the narrow valley bed as stony and barren as the higher valleys, although the stream flowed on for another half-hour by our side. The powerful rush of the water here admitted no more earthy deposit. Not till the next large turning of the valley, called El Héssue, did we see any palms. Here the stream disappeared in a cleft in the rock, and the more suddenly, as it had broken out behind the Buêb, and we saw no more of it. After five hours’ journey, we left the valley of Firân, which here turns to the left towards the sea, and we went out of the mountains into a flat sandstone country. The high mountains turned next back towards the north, and enclosed in a great bow the hilly, sandy landscape which we crossed. We came to the Wadi Mokatteb, the “written valley,” which takes its name from the inscriptions which are found here in many places.

It is easily seen that it is those rocks, shaded from the noonday sun, which invited the travellers passing to Firân to engrave their names and short maxims upon the soft stone. We took impressions in paper of all the inscriptions that we could reach, or copied with the pen such as were not suited for impression. We found these inscriptions singly, at the most various, and often very far distant places in the peninsula; and, on the whole, had no doubt that they had been engraven by the inhabitants of the land in the first centuries before and after Christ. Occasionally I found them graven over older Greek names, and Christian crosses are not unfrequently combined in them. These inscriptions are usually called Sinaitic, and not unaptly, if the whole of the peninsula of Sinai is so meant as the place where they are found. But it is worthy of remark that at Gebel Mûsa, which is generally considered to be Mount Sinai, there are but a few single and short inscriptions of this kind, in the same manner, as by a careful survey they might be found in any of these places; but their actual centre was rather Pharan, at the foot of Serbâl.[110]

On the 31st of March we again reached the mountains turning eastward, and entered by Wadi Qeneh, the little branching Wadi Maghâra, in which sandstone and primary stone bound each other. Here we found, high upon the northern cliff, the remarkable Egyptian rock-steles belonging to the earliest monuments of Egyptian antiquity with which we are acquainted.[111] Already, under the fourth dynasty of Manetho, the same which erected the great pyramids of Gizeh, 4,000 B.C., copper mines had been discovered in this desert, which were worked by a colony. The peninsula was then already inhabited by Asiatic, probably Semetic races; therefore do we often see in those rock sculptures, the triumphs of Pharaoh over the enemies of Egypt. Almost all the inscriptions belong to the Old Empire; only one was found of the co-regency of King Tuthmosis III. and his sister.

I wished to get from hence by the shortest way to the second place on the peninsula Sarbut el Châdem. But there was no direct road over the high mountains to the descent on the north-east side. So we were obliged to return to Wadi Mokatteb, and going a long way round to the south-east through Wadi Sittere and Wadi Sîch, to avoid the mountain. When we came out of the valley, we had before us the wide-spreading plain, which includes the whole northern part of the peninsula, and which consists entirely of sandstone. This falls, however, towards the south, into a double descent, so that the view appears, at a great distance, to be bounded by two lofty mountain walls, of the same height. The next southern descent, called E’ Tîh, leads down to a wide sandy valley-plain, Debbet e’ Ramleh, while the near side of the sandstone rocks appears to reach the height of the immense plain.

Upon one of the projecting terraces in this broad valley, which we had to climb with great fatigue, lie the monuments of Sarbut el Châdem, most astonishing even to one prepared for the sight of them. The most ancient representation here carried us back into the Old Empire, but only into the last dynasty of the same, the twelfth of Manetho. At this time, under Amenemhra III. there was a little grotto hewn out of the rock, and furnished with an ante-chamber. Outside it high steles were erected at different distances without any particular order, the most distant of which was about a quarter of an hour away on the highest point of the _plateau_. Under the New Empire, Tuthmosis III. had enlarged the building towards the west, and added a small pylon, and an outer court. The later kings built a long row of rooms in the same direction, one before the other, occasionally, as it appears, for the purpose of preserving the steles within from the weather; particularly from the sharp, and often sand-filled winds, which had all through eaten up the ancient undefended steles. The youngest stele bears the cartouches of the last king of the nineteenth dynasty. Since that time, or soon after, the place was deserted by the Egyptians.

The divinity who was mostly revered here in the New Empire, was Hathor,[112] with the designation, also found in Wadi Maghâra, “Mistress of Mafkat,” _i.e._, “the copper country;” for _mafka_, signified “copper,” in the hieroglyphical, as well as in the Koptic language. Therefore, no doubt copper was also obtained here. This was confirmed by a peculiar appearance, which strangely enough has not been observed by any earlier travellers. East and west of the temple are to be seen great slag-hills, which, from their black colour, form a strange contrast to the soil of the neighbourhood. These artificial mounds, the principal of which is 256 paces long, and from 60 to 120 paces broad, situated on the tongue of the terrace projecting into the valley, are covered with a massive crest of slag from four to five feet thick, and thence to their feet from twelve to fifteen feet, sprinkled with single blocks of the same material. The land shows that the mines could not have been in the immediate neighbourhood, but the old and still visible paths which lead into the mountain no doubt point them out. Unfortunately we had not time for it. It seems, therefore, that this free point was chosen only for smelting, on account of the sharp, and as the Arabs assure us, almost incessant draught of air.

On the 3rd of April we rode further, and visited the Wadi Nasb, in which we also found traces of ancient smelting-places; and the following day towards evening, we reached our ship, which had been waiting for us in the harbour of Abu Zelimeh for several days.

Here we found to our great astonishment, four German apprentices, among them two Prussian Schlesians from the vicinity of Neisse. They had come from Cairo, in order to visit Mount Sinai; they had arrived happily as far as Suez, and there had waited in vain for a ship, and at last, like real modern crusaders, had set off alone on the road, in order to carry out their bold purpose. They had been assured, doubtless not in good German, that the way was short, and not to be mistaken, and that there was no want of water. In this good belief, their pilgrim-flasks filled to the brim, they set off into the desert; but the footsteps of the children of Israel were obliterated, and no pillar of a cloud went on before them. On the third day they had lost their way, their bread was gone, they had missed the wells, they had been several times stopped by Arabs, and only not robbed, because they possessed nothing worth stealing; and they would certainly have perished in the waste, if they had not from the mountains, at some hours’ distance, perceived our ship lying by the strand, and fortunately reached it before our arrival. Upon my inquiry as to the trade which they had intended to bring to perfection by this journey into the East, and if they expected to find employment among the monks on Mount Sinai, as they had brought no money with them, I was informed, that one was a carpenter, who hoped to make himself very useful there; unfortunately I was obliged to tell him that he would have to cope with a lay brother; another was a shoemaker, the third was a stocking-weaver, and the fourth owned, after some hesitation, that he was a woman’s tailor. Nothing else could be done but to take these extraordinary people in the ship with us, although the sailors looked at them ascantly, on account of the want of water. I had them set on shore at Tôr, and took care that they should be accompanied from thence to the convent.

Besides occupying myself with the wonderful Egyptian monuments of this land of copper, and the so-named Sinaitic inscriptions, I busied myself with examining the geographical questions relating to the sojourn of the Israelites on the peninsula. I think I have obtained, with reference to these occurrences, a result, which, although it differs in essential points from the general acceptation, if I have judged rightly, will form an important feature in the historical and geographical events of the Old Testament.[113] I will here merely briefly mention a few of the principal points, and will write more fully from Thebes.

It appeared very doubtful to me when I was in the convent at Gebel Mûsa,[114] whether it was the holy mountain on which the Commandments were given or not. Since I have seen Serbâl, and Wadi Firân, at its foot, and a great part of the rest of the country, I feel quite convinced that we must recognise Sinai in Mount Serbâl.

The present monkish tradition has no worth in an impartial research. This every one must know, who has occupied himself seriously with such things. If, even in Jerusalem they are, for the most part, not of the slightest value, unless they be supported from the original source, how much less are they worth on the Sinai peninsula, where they relate to questions much more distant, both as to time and place! During the long space of time between the giving the Commandments and the first Christian centuries, Sinai is only once mentioned in a later historical occurrence, as the “Mountain of God, Horeb,” upon which Elias appeared. It would indeed be extremely wonderful, if during this lapse of time the tradition had not been interrupted, and if also during that time the population had so changed on the peninsula, that we cannot point out a single place mentioned in the Old Testament with any certainty, and even the Greeks and the Romans were not acquainted with these old designations.[115] We must therefore return to the Mosaic accounts, in order to prove the truth of the present acceptation.

To this we must also add, that the general relative geographical position of the localities of the peninsula have not essentially altered since the time of Moses. They who take refuge in a contrary opinion, may undoubtedly prove everything, and for that very reason they prove nothing. It is therefore very important to keep the historical relations of the different periods before our eyes, because these were certainly likely to cause changes in different places.

Hence it cannot be denied, that the fertile and well-watered Wadi Firân, at all times, and therefore also at the time of Moses, was the most important, and most frequented centre of the whole peninsula, by reason of its unparalleled fertility, and of its inexhaustible bubbling fountains. That this wonderful oasis was then, as now, in the middle of the eternally naked desert, the whole character of the land proves. On the other side it is not less true, that the environs of the present convent on Gebel Mûsa were formerly, (notwithstanding the spare streamlets, which there spring from the earth, but only moisten the neighbouring soil), just as barren as all the other parts of that mountain waste; that the draw-wells[116] dugout of the rocks at first supplied water sufficient for the use of the inhabitants of the convent; and that an artificial irrigation of more than a thousand years’ duration, with the most careful employment of every means of culture, rendered possible the small plantations now found there.[117] In olden times there was not the slightest reason for rendering this desert habitable by art, so much the rather as it lay apart from all the connecting roads of the peninsula, and formed a true mountain hollow, to which there was only one entrance, through the Wadi e’ Shech. ^

In contra-distinction to this, there is one point of the peninsula, which, long before Moses, and also during his time, was of great consequence, but now it is no longer so. This is the harbour of Abu Zelîmeh. Here roads led from the three different mines, which are yet known to us, Wadi Maghâra, Sarbut el Châdem, and Wadi Nasb. No landing-place lay more conveniently for the union of Egypt with these colonies; it was, according to the account of our sailors, the best harbour on the whole coast, not even excepting Tôr. Here also the Egyptians must have taken much pains in making a plentiful supply of water. As neither the sandy sea-coast, nor the valleys leading to it afforded any, so they had, without doubt, dug wells at the next place which promised water beneath the ground. Such a place was found at the lower entrance of the Wadi Shebêkeh (with others Taibeh, where there still stand a number of palms, and many other trees, and consequently the ground is damp, although there is no well to be found).[118] This would therefore be the most proper place to dig for water, and make a well. Now there is no difference of opinion that near Abu Zelîmeh the encampment by the Red Sea was made, which is mentioned in the fourth Book of Moses as behind Elim. In the second Book this account is omitted, and only the twelve wells and seventy palm-trees named. How natural, indeed unavoidable, then, is the conclusion, that this well and palms of Elim, towards which the harbour of Abu Zelîmeh led, perhaps about an hour’s distance from the valley, and for this reason, in the account of the encampment of Elim by the sea, given in the second Book, from the watering-place of apparently the same name. According to the present, and also according to Robinson’s acceptation, the twelve wells of Elim were situated in Wadi Gharandel, according to the latest reckoning,[119] from eight to nine hours--a long day’s journey distant from the harbour, thus for the supply of this important place, quite useless. It is not easy to perceive what, in Wadi Gharandel, where still, at this present time, the brackish water of the whole district is somewhat more plentiful than elsewhere, could exactly have suggested the plan of these twelve wells. To this must be added that it is necessary to put the next preceding station, Mara, to an inconsiderable well, only an hour and a half or two hours from Wadi Gharandel, while the next station is considered to be eight hours distant. It appears to me not to be doubted, that the first three journeys into the desert led to Wadi Gharandel, that is Mara; the fourth to the harbour station, Abu Zelîmeh, _i. e._ Elim.

Now first, would the continuation be understandable? “And they set forth from Elim and came into the desert of Sin, _which lies between Elim and Sinai_.” At Wadi Gharandel also, the boundaries of two districts were as geographically incomprehensible as they are natural at Abu Zelîmeh. The harbour, with its small commodious plain, between Nochol-rock and Gebel Hammâm Faraûn,[120] forms with these two prominent mountains really the most important geographical portion of the whole coast. The northern high plain, regularly sloping towards the sea, was called the desert of Sûr; the southern, rising higher, and soon losing itself in the mountain lands of the primitive rocks, is called the desert of Sin. The remark, that the latter lay between Elim and Sinai, would have no sense, if it were not also said that the desert of Sin extends itself to Sinai, or further. The next departure, then, from the desert of Sin to Raphidîm, must not be understood that they had left the desert; on the contrary, they remained in it till they came to Sinai, whose name “Sini,” that is “the Mountain of Sin,” plainly derived its name from the district, and on this account could not be visited without the other. This also is confirmed by the account of the manna, which was given to the Israelites in the desert of Sin; for this is first found in the valleys near Firân, and grows as little about the sandy sea coasts as it does in the higher regions of Gebel Mûsa.[121]

Let us place here the preliminary question, which of the two mountains, Serbâl or Gebel Mûsa, was so situated as to be especially pointed out as Sini, the “Sinaïtic mountain of the desert of Sin;”--the answer cannot for a moment be doubted. Gebel Mûsa, which is scarcely visible from any side, and is almost hidden and “secret,”[122] neither from its height, nor its form, situation, or any other distinction, presented anything that could have caused either the native races or the Egyptian hermits to point it out as the “mountain of Sin;” whilst Serbâl, which attracts the eye from all sides and from a great distance, which dominates over the whole of the primary rocks, not only by its outward appearance, but also on account of Wadi Firân situated at its foot, ever the centre-point for the wide straggling inhabitants of the country, and the goal of all travellers, may claim the designation of the “mountain of Sin.” If, however, any one would wish to conclude from the departure from the desert of Sin to Raphidîm, that only the broad coast south of Abu Zelîmeh, which the Israelites must have passed, was called the desert of Sin, (which is the opinion of Robinson,[123]); still Serbâl, which adjoins and commands this district, and from here is accessible over the ancient convent of Si’gelji, would claim the designation as the mountain of Sin from the boatmen of the Red Sea; while Gebel Mûsa, which lies directly on the opposite eastern side of the great chain of mountains, could not possibly have taken the name of Sin from the western desert of that name, nor can it offer a suggestion for such a statement, as that the desert of Sin lies between Abu Zelîmeh and Gebel Mûsa. It is also reasonable to believe, that the whole of the primitive rocks, (that is, the whole of the peninsula south of Abu Zelîmeh), was called the “desert of Sin,” and consequently that Gebel Mûsa was included in it. This even does not necessarily exclude the belief that Serbâl, as the best known, the nearest, and as a much more important mountain to the Egyptian colonists than the southern mountains could be, would not have been distinguished by that name; whilst in the southern principal chain not even Um Shômar as the highest centre-point,--not the completely subordinate Gebel Mûsa,--still less the isolated rock Sefsâf, which Robinson considers the one, would have had such a distinguished designation.

All that has been said here relative to Sinai as the “mountain of the desert of Sin,” may now be applied to the further question, as to which of the two mountains, Serbâl and Gebel Mûsa, possessed such properties that it should already, before the great event of the giving the Commandments, have been regarded as a “holy mountain,” as a “mountain of God,” by the native races of the peninsula.[124] For Moses already drove the sheep of Jethro behind the desert from Midian, to the “mountain of God in Choreb;” and Aaron came to meet him on his return from Egypt to the “mountain of God.” If we hold to the belief that the necessary centre of the Sinaïtic population at that time was the Oasis Firân, so does there appear every probability that that race had founded a sanctuary, a universal place of worship in the neighbourhood, at the foot, or much more naturally at the summit, of the mountain which rose from that valley.[125] Moreover, this was the particular spot fixed for that meeting of Moses, who came out of Midian, and Aaron, who came out of Egypt. There was no occasion, in so desert and unpopulated a country, to seek out for any particularly private and remote mountain-corner for such a meeting.

From this it appears that the Sinaïtic inscriptions, which as has been already said, are principally to be found on the way to Wadi Firân, and in the Wadi Aleyât leading up to Serbâl, seem to point out that in much later times, long pilgrimages, to celebrate religious festivals, must have been undertaken to this place.[126]

Let us now turn immediately to the principal point, which, for those who keep the general circumstances of the passage of the Israelites before them, must be the most conclusive. It is not to be denied that when Moses determined to lead this great multitude into the peninsula, the first problem he had to solve by his wisdom and knowledge of the land, was the means of supporting them. For at whatever number we may reckon the wanderers, who, according to Robinson, amounted to two millions, (which, according to Lane, is the present population of all Egypt,) they were most undoubtedly an immense multitude, who suddenly and without any provision of food, were to be sustained in the desert. How is it then possible to suppose, that Moses would not have immediately fixed upon the most fertile, best watered, and shortest road, instead of a distant mountain-corner, which would have been impossible even for (I mention a large number purposely) 2,000 wanderers, with what belonged to them, to provide with food and water. Moses would have done wrong to have depended on miracles from God, as these happen only when human wisdom and human thought are at an end.

On reflection upon this undeniable proof against the hitherto supposed situation of Sinai, it appears to me that the idea will be changed, and that every close historical examination of these wonderful events must destroy it, even if grounds should also be brought forward against our acceptation of it. We will now continue the narrative. From Elim Moses reached Raphidîm in three days’ journey. The new school are generally agreed that the caravan from Abu Zelîmeh did not again return to the eastern sand-plain E’Raml, through the same Wadi Shebêkeh, or Saibeh, by which they descended, but took the usual caravan road which leads to Wadi Firân. How then would Moses have chosen the dry and much longer upper way, or even the great and still more dry round-about way along the sea-coast, by Tôr and Wadi Hebrân, instead of immediately turning into the valleys of the primitive rocks, both less dry, and rich with manna.

He must also come to Wadi Firân--no third way was possible. This is the cogent reason why (with the exception of Robinson)[127] almost all without a dissentient voice, have placed Raphidîm after Firân. It seems impossible that this oasis, if it had been traversed, should not once have been named. Already Josephus,[128] Eusebius, Jerome,[129] and, as it appears, every other author and traveller[130] place Raphidîm after the city Pharan. No spot in the whole country could have been of so much value, as these fruitful gardens of Pharan, to the native races, threatened by Moses. It is then very easy to be conceived that Moses, just here in Raphidîm, should have been attacked by the Amalekites, who would lose their most valuable possessions. He drove them back, and then only could Moses say that he had possession of the peninsula. His first goal was attained. What could tempt him to go further?

It is also written in plain words, that the people were arrived at the Mountain of God, the Mountain of the Law. As it says, that after the victory near Raphidîm, Jethro, Moses’s father-in-law, heard of all that had happened. “And then came Jethro, and Moses’s sons, and his wife to Moses in the desert, where he was encamped at the Mountain of God;” and also the Lord had already spoken to Moses, “See I will stand before you upon a rock in Choreb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall flow forth, that the people may drink;” words which could only refer to the wonderful fountain of Firân, as it has long since appeared to me.[131] That Moses really encamped here in Raphidîm, is further proved, as he now, by the advice of Jethro, organised the till now disorderly multitude, in order to be able to govern it.[132] He chose the most able men and set them over thousands, over hundreds, over fifties, and over tens; these became judges respecting the smaller occurrences, while he reserved only the most important to himself.

This proves clearly that the journey was over, and that the time of rest was come.

This certainly appears to be contradicted in the beginning of the next chapter.[133] “In the third month,[134] when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai. For they were departed from Raphidîm, and were come to the desert of Sinai, and had pitched in the wilderness, and then Israel encamped before the Mount, and Moses went up unto God, and the Lord called to him out of the mountain,” &c.

According to this there is a journey between Raphidîm and Sinai. This decides in favour of the tradition, which believes the Mountain of the Law to have been found beyond Firân, in the Gebel Mûsa. It will not, however, be guessed that, by this acceptation, it will fall into a much greater contradiction with the text. Furthermore the words speak of nothing more than one day’s journey;[135] also, not in the fourth book, where, nevertheless, between Elim and Raphidîm, not only Alus and Daphka, but also the Red Sea, although this lay by Elim, are particularly mentioned. From Firân to Gebel Mûsa was, at least, two long days’ journey, if not more. Then, however, “the Mountain of God” has already been mentioned in Raphidîm; likewise it has been named a rock in Choreb, and it is impossible to understand any other to be the “Mountain of God,” but the “Mountain of God, Choreb,” to which Moses drove the sheep of Jethro.

We should thus understand, that there were two “Mountains of God,” the one, “The Mountain of God Choreb,” in Raphidîm, which might be Serbâl, and one “The Mountain of God Sinai,” upon which the Commandments were given, which might be Gebel Mûsa.[136] This acceptation would, however, not only be scarcely credible, but would contradict itself most positively by the fact, that the Mountain of God, Choreb, where Moses was called, already before was designated as the Mountain of the Law;[137] (2, 3, 1, 12,) and further the general name of “God’s Mountain,” which so often appears, without any other name (2, 4, 27, 18, 5, 24, 13, 4, 10, 33,) could only be used if there were but one such mountain; and finally, that the name Sinai, or Mount Sinai, and Choreb, or Mount Choreb, continue to be used in the very same signification as the Mountain of the Law.

This visible difficulty has also formerly been felt.[138] Josephus (_Ant._ 3, 2, 3,) helped himself out of it, by putting the supposed beginning of the nineteenth chapter, from its present place to before the visit of Jethro; so that Moses did not receive his family in Raphidîm, but in Sinai. By this two difficulties would certainly be overcome; one, that there was only one Mountain of God, and the other, that the organisation of the people did not take place during the journey. He also surrenders after some consideration, the statement that the rock, which Moses struck, lay in Choreb.

The new school have, however, set forth the opinion that either Sinai was the general name of the whole range of mountains, and Choreb that of the one mountain where the law was given, or contrarywise, that Choreb signified the wider designation, and Sinai the single mountain,[139] while the monkish tradition gave the names to two mountains lying close together.[140] A comparison of the individual places does not appear to me to admit of either of these views; my opinion leans much more to that of the indiscriminate use of the two names Choreb and Sinai, and that both point out one and the same mountain, and the neighbourhood.[141] Perhaps Choreb might be the particular local Amalekite name, and Sinai a name derived from its situation in the desert of Sin.

As to what concerns the departure from Raphidîm, it must appear very probable to many, that those words, which so completely interrupt the natural continuity of the events, have been purposely displaced either by Josephus, or before him did not originally belong here, but were placed at the beginning of the giving the Commandments, when this (as without doubt, it frequently happened) was taken distinctly from all that went before, or came after.[142] The want of connection, since the arrival at Sinai, is mentioned before the departure from Raphidîm, and the expression so difficult of explanation, “and the same day,” while by other statements of time, a particular day is meant, would support the supposition.[143] Those, however, to whom this acceptation may appear too bold, as it does not agree with the original comprehension of the subject, may understand the new departure as a slight misarrangement of the encampment, as we must already consider that of the departure from Elim to the coast of the Red Sea. This change happened either while they advanced from El Hessue, where the sea was first seen, to Firân, from Firân into the upper part of the Wadi Aleyât, where the camp could spread out, far round the foot of the mountain.[144]

Such a comprehension will alone content those who strive to represent the whole course of events in their essential and necessary points. They will not be able to prevent the conviction, that Serbâl, on account of the oasis at its foot, must have been the aim and centre of the new immigrating population, and that to be fenced in in a mountain-hollow, like the plain at Gebel Mûsa, where the multitude could find no water, no fruit, or manna-bearing trees, and where they were cut off from all connection with the other part of the peninsula more than anywhere else, could never possibly, have been the intention of the wise and learned man of God. It must be acknowledged that the distinguishing Sinai as the principal mountain of the desert of Sin, and the sanctity that it possessed, not only among the Israelites, but also among the native-born races of the country, very decidedly point out Serbâl; further, that the Raphidîm, with the well of Moses of Choreb, which was defended by the Amalekites, undoubtedly lay in the Wadi Firân, that consequently also the mountain of God, Choreb, where Moses was called, and the mountain of God, near Raphidîm, where Moses was visited by Jethro, and organized the people, could be no other than Serbâl, from which finally, it also appears, that if we do not admit of two mountains of God, the Mountain of the Law lay near Raphidîm, and in Serbâl must be recognised, and not in Gebel Mûsa.

In conclusion, let us once more see how far the present tradition agrees with our result; this goes back as far as the founding of the convent by Justinian in the sixth century.[145] This was by no means the first church of the peninsula. At a much earlier period, we find a bishopric in the city of Pharan, at the foot of Serbâl.[146] This was the first Christian centre-point of the peninsula, and the church founded by Justinian was for a long time dependent upon it. It is a question whether the tradition, which sees Sinai in the present Gebel Mûsa can be referred to a time prior to Justinian.[147] For solitary hermits this district is particularly adapted, and exactly for the same reason it would be unfitted for a great civilized and commanding people, who would exhaust all its resources, as it is in a retired spot, distant from all the frequented and connecting roads; but nevertheless, by reason of its situation in the high mountains, it affords sufficient nourishment for the moderate necessities of the solitary scattered monks. The gradually increasing hermit-population might then have attracted the attention of the Byzantine emperor to this very spot, and at that time dying tradition, by these means have revived and fixed for the time to come.[148]

What I have said about the situation of Elim, Raphidîm, and of the Mount Choreb or Sinai, fails certainly in scholarlike proof, which I also shall not be able to send from Thebes; this can only be drawn with any advantage from the course of the earliest traditions before Justinian, which, even if they should coincide in every point with these of the present time, nevertheless would determine nothing positively. It appears to me that these questions must remain ever undecided, since the elements which stood at my command, that is to say, the Mosaic account itself, the examination of the situations and the knowledge of the historical circumstances of that time, were not considered sufficient for their solution. Only, a contemporary examination of these three most essential sides of the researches will allow a correct picture to be obtained of the whole story; while the attempt to give the same authority, without any difference, to each single point of the representation now lying before us, will necessarily lead us into the road of false criticism, which always sacrifices the understanding of the one to the understanding of the whole.