THE ISRAELITES IN SINAI I.

THE passage of the Israelites through Sinai forms the most thrilling episode in the history of the peninsula. The how and when and where of this journey periodically engage attention. A hundred years ago it was a matter of common belief that Moses wrote the five books that are associated with his name. On the contrary, Biblical criticism now holds that, “regarded as a history of ancient migrations of the Israelites and their establishment as a religious and political community in Canaan, the Hexateuch contains little more than a general outline on which to depend.”[92] But the study of the episode reviewed in the light of modern research, reveals an unexpected accuracy, and once more shows that tradition is of value in proportion to our power of reading it aright.

Different views were put forward regarding the date of the Exodus and of the Pharaohs who were in contact with Moses.

According to the Book of Kings it was “in the 480th (LXX 440th) year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of his reign,” that Solomon began to build the Temple at Jerusalem (1 Kings vi. 1).

Solomon ruled from c. b.c. 974 to b.c. 935. His fourth year would be 970, and the Exodus, on this basis, happened either in b.c. 1450, or in b.c. 1410 according to the Septuagint.

Prof. Brugsch looked upon Ramessu II as the Pharaoh of the Exodus. Prof. Petrie endorsed the view, accepting the date of Ramessu II as b.c. 1300-1234, and of the Exodus as c. b.c. 1220. One of his reasons for doing so was that the Israelites, as stated in the Bible, worked at the “city Raamses” (Exod. i. 11), which, as excavations have shown, was a creation of the Ramessides. But the expression the “land of Rameses,” was used in connection with the story of Joseph (Gen. xlvii. 11), which deals with events that were long anterior to the Ramessides, showing that the compilers of Exodus used expressions that were current at the time when they wrote.

The identification of Ramessu II, a king of the Nineteenth Dynasty, as the Pharaoh of the Exodus, clashes with the information reaching us through Alexandrian and Syriac sources, which suggests that Moses was befriended by Amen-hotep IV, better known as Akhen-aten (XVIII 10), the great religious reformer, and that the Israelites left Egypt under one of his immediate successors. This connection between Moses and the great reformer of Egypt strikes the imagination, all the more as it is in keeping with the Egyptian king’s Syrian affinities. The authorities are worth recalling.

Chief among these were Demetrius Phalereus (b.c. 345) and Manetho (c. b.c. 260) who were quoted by Josephus (a.d. 80) and Eusebius (a.d. 320); and Artapanus of unknown date, passages of whose work were preserved by Alexander Polyhistor (b.c. 140) and accepted by Eusebius and the Chronicon Paschale. The information of Demetrius, Manetho, and Artapanus is peculiar in that it takes no account of Scripture. Moreover, Artapanus compared what the people of Memphis and the Heliopolitans preserved regarding the passage of the Red Sea. Another writer was Philo of Alexandria (a.d. 40) who wrote a Life of Moses.

The Chronicon of Eusebius contains the Egyptian dynasties as derived from Manetho, and in the list of kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty, Oros stands for Amen-hotep IV (i.e. Akhen-aten). Against his name stands the entry, “the Birth of Moses.”[93] In agreement with this, Epiphanius in his book Against all Heresies, mentioned Thermuthis, the daughter of Amenophis, who adopted Moses,[94] while the Syriac writer BarhebrÆus († 1218), who had access to many sources, held that the princess who adopted Moses was Tremothisa, in Hebrew Damris, the daughter of Amunphatisus.[95] The historian Josephus called her Thermuthis, and related that she intended Moses for her father’s successor (Antiq., ii. 9).

On the other hand, Artapanus gave the name of the Pharaoh as Palmanothis, adding that he built sanctuaries at Kessa (perhaps Akhet at Amarna) and at Heliopolis. His daughter Merris who was childless adopted Moses. She was betrothed to Chenefres.[96] The Chronicon Paschale called him Chenebron.[97]

Various traditions point in the same direction. Thus, the Arabs held that Moses was saved by the eldest of seven little princesses, who were daughters of the Pharaoh.[98] Students of Tell el Amarna will recall the representations of the little daughters of Akhen-aten, of whom as many as six are seen with their parents on the wall sculptures of the tombs. On the Egyptian side we know that the marriage of Meryt-aten, Akhen-aten’s eldest daughter, with Ra-smenkh-ka (XVIII 11) his co-regent and successor, was without issue.

According to the Artapanus Moses spent his early manhood in the service of the husband of the princess who adopted him, and led a campaign against the Ethiopians (PrÆp. Evang., ix. 27). In keeping with this, Stephen Martyr († a.d. 36) said that Moses was well nigh forty years old before it came into his heart to look after his brethren, the children of Israel (Acts vii. 23). The exploits of Moses against the Ethiopians were described by Josephus (Antiq., ii. 10).

The identification of a daughter of Akhen-aten as the princess who adopted Moses suggests another possible date for Exodus. The reign of Akhen-aten was dated by Prof. Breasted to c. b.c. 1375-1350, and by Prof. Petrie to c. b.c. 1383-1365. If Moses left Egypt during the reign of one of his immediate successors, perhaps under that of Tut-ankh-amen (XVIII 12), c. b.c. 1353-1344, the date of Exodus on the basis of the Egyptian chronology as now accepted, would be about b.c. 1350, as against the date b.c. 1410 or 1450 as stated in the First Book of the Kings.

According to the Bible, Moses slew an Egyptian who had smitten a Hebrew, whereupon the Pharaoh sought to slay Moses, and he fled (Exod. ii. 12-15). According to Artapanus, the Pharaoh, after the death of the princess, called upon Chanethotes (Canuthis) to kill him. Moses, warned by Aaron, crossed the Nile at Memphis, intending to escape into Arabia. Chanethotes lay in ambush, whereupon Moses, in self-defence, slew him.

Moses then dwelt in the land of Midian, where he watered the flock kept by the daughters of Reuel (called Raguel in Numb. xi. 29). Reuel befriended him and took him for a sojourner and son-in-law (Exod. ii. 21). A further passage states that Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, who is described also as a priest (Exod. iii. 1), and a Kenite. Artapanus named Raguel, describing him as ruler (?????) of the country, and said that he desired to make an expedition into Egypt in order to secure the crown for Moses and his daughter, but Moses refused.[99] BarhebrÆus says that Moses married a daughter of Jethro, and describes Jethro as a son of Raguel.[100] This suggests that Raguel was the father of the tribe. Philo of Alexandria also refers to Moses’ claim to the crown of Egypt.

In the service of Jethro, Moses led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, to Horeb (Exod. iii. 1). Here he found himself on holy ground. The presence of a priest, of a mountain of God, and of a reserved tract of land, point to an ancient sanctuary, and our thoughts naturally turn to Serabit, for many centuries a High Place of Burning, a centre of moon-cult and a shrine of the Semitic god Sopd. The wall of rough stones across the Wadi Umm Agraf marked the limit of the ground that was reserved to the sanctuary. This would be the backside of the desert from which Moses approached the mountain.

The angel or messenger of God who spoke to Moses did so from a Burning Bush inside the limit of the holy ground (Exod. iii. 5). Perhaps he was set there as a guardian to the place. During our stay in Sinai the guards who were appointed to watch over our encampment near Serabit, settled near some bushes to which they added brushwood, so as to form a circular shelter, with an opening on one side, and in this they spent their time, mostly sitting around a small fire. The appearance of the shelter from outside was that of a burning bush (Fig. 14).

The Divinity in Sinai revealed himself to Moses in the name of Yahveh or Jehovah, and subsequently declared himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Exod. iii. 6), “but by my name Yahveh was I not known to them” (Exod. vi. 3). Considering the connection of Abraham and of Joseph with Haran and the “Hermiouthian” sanctuaries mentioned above, their God was presumably the moon-god. The word Yahveh under which the Divinity now manifested himself, probably represents the moon-god as Ea or Ya under a later and more spiritualised aspect. In our Bible the term is rendered as “I am that I am” (Exod. iii. 14), which recalls the interpretation by the Septuagint as ??, the Self-existent One. From the Song of Deborah we gather that Yahveh “came to Sinai from Seir and the field of Edom” (Judges v. 4), which leaves us to infer that he had sanctuaries there also. This explains how it was that during the later progress of the Israelites, Yahveh spoke to Moses at Kadesh on the borders of Edom (Num. xx. 7), at Hor (Num. xx. 23), and again in the Red Sea, and how it was that the prophet Balaam was inspired by Yahveh (Num. xxiv. 13). Various allusions render it probable that the cult of Yahveh was peculiar to the Kenites whose home lay in Edom. Jethro, who befriended Moses, was at once a priest of Midian and a Kenite (Judges i. 16).

The representative of the Divinity from the Burning Bush commanded Moses to persuade the elders of Israel to bring forth the people out of Egypt, in order to serve God on the mountain, going three days into the wilderness in order to sacrifice to the Lord, the women bringing with them all available jewels of silver and jewels of gold (Exod. xi. 2, xii. 35). The pilgrimage is called a feast (Exod. v. 1, x. 9), which may have been similar to the modern Arab hadj, a word which signifies an encampment or erection of tents. This term, and the general claims that were advanced, show that it was question of a pilgrimage to a well-known centre, the thought of which caused no surprise to the Egyptians. One of its features was the offering of animals. Such offerings among the Hebrews were made to keep off the plague; they forestalled the sacrifice of the first-born, which was the means they used to stay the plague once it had begun. The Pharaoh, who was anxious to prevent the Israelites from going the pilgrimage, proposed that they should sacrifice in Egypt instead. Moses refused on the plea that their doing so might be interpreted as sacrificing the “abomination,” i.e. tampering with a sacred-nome animal of Egypt (Exod. viii. 26). When the Pharaoh, further wrought upon, said that the people alone might go, Moses insisted that they must have wherewith to sacrifice, and that there must be cattle, since “we know not with what we must serve the Lord until we come thither” (Exod. x. 26).

This serving the Lord with animals shows that a holocaust was in contemplation, and bears out the belief that the objective of the pilgrimage was a High Place of Burning.

The pilgrimage as planned would have been undertaken in spring, for the plagues carry us through a year’s course in Egypt, with the Nile running red when it is at its lowest in April; with frogs abounding when the inundation comes in July; with darkness and sandstorms in the month of March. Springtime came round again before the Israelites left, after sacrificing the lamb of the Passover.

Rallying in the city of Rameses, probably at the present Tell er Rotab, in a marshy valley, they moved to Succoth, the Thuku of the ancient Egyptians, and encamped at Etham (LXX, Othom), being led by a pillar of cloud in the day and by a pillar of smoke at night (Exod. xiii. 20-22). Doughty describes how on the hadj of the Moslim, “cressets of iron cages are set up on poles, and are borne to light the way upon serving-men’s shoulders in all the companies.”[101] The burning fire at night would naturally take the appearance of a pillar of smoke in the daytime.

At Etham the Israelites turned south, making for Pihahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, over against Baal-zephon (Exod. xiv. 2). Pihahiroth of the Bible is Pa-qahert of the Egyptian inscriptions, while Baal-zephon is a Semitic name, recalling Zephon, the god of darkness. Pihahiroth and Baal-zephon lay west and east of the branch of the Red Sea which at this time extended so far north as to include the present Bitter Lakes. Here, owing to the blowing of the east-wind (LXX, south wind), the waters went back and the Israelites crossed (Exod. xiv. 21), at a spot which should be sought some thirty miles north of Suez. They continued to move south three days, through the wilderness of Shur, stopping first at Marah, where the waters were sweetened, and then at Elim, with its twelve wells and seventy palm-trees. Elim has been identified as the Carandara of Pliny (vi. 23), the Arandara of the lady Etheria (of about a.d. 450), who described how the waters disappeared into the ground and reappeared, which applies to the present Wadi Gharandel. If this identification be correct, the fountain which Moses changed from bitter to sweet presumably lay about half-way between Baal-zephon and Wadi Gharandel, where the present Ayun Musa or Wells of Moses are found; possibly it lay nearer to the Bitter Lake.

Leaving Elim, the Israelites entered “the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai” (Exod. xvi. 1). A murmur arose because of the lack of food,—perhaps of food suitable for keeping the full moon festival, the movements of the Israelites being timed by the phases of the moon. For they left Egypt after keeping the Passover, a full moon festival which comes on the 14th (Exod. xii. 6) or 15th of the month (Josh. v. 10); and a month later “on the 15th day of the second month after they had departed out of Egypt,” they entered the wilderness of Sin. Moses held out the promise of help, and, as they looked towards the wilderness, “the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud” (Exod. xvi. 10). The glory of the Lord probably indicates the moon. Quails appeared between the two evenings. They were plentiful in Sinai in the days of Josephus (Antiq., 88), and continue so at certain times of the year to the present day. Manna was gathered in large quantities which took the place of bread. This shows that the Israelites were moving among groves of the tamarisk, for manna is the secretion which exudes from the tamarisk, owing to the punctures of an insect during six to eight weeks, beginning in May. A year later, when the Israelites were in the desert of Paran or Zin, they again gathered manna at the same season (Num. xi. 8), and continued to do so every year during the years they spent in the wilderness (Exod. xvi. 35). Manna appears under the name mennu in the contemporary records of Egypt, and is still collected in Sinai and exported.

The Israelites were now in Rephidim, the land of the Amalekites and, as there was a lack of water, Moses was divinely directed to smite the rock. The waters which he raised were Massah and Meribah (Exod. xvii. 7); the water which he struck near Kadesh, a year later, was Meribah also (Num. xx. 13), hence the place was called Meribath Kadesh (Ezek. xlviii. 28). A technical term for water-finding seems to be meant. In ancient Egyptian mer signifies channel, and ba, as mentioned above, signifies hole, which suggests a possible derivation. For wherever water percolates the soil with hard rock beneath it in the desert, it is possible to reach and raise it by cutting into the soil to the surface of the rock. The practice is still resorted to by the Bedawyn, who are adepts at striking water when they are on the march.

In Rephidim the Israelites were attacked by the Amalekites, who harried them while they were on their way (Deut. xxv. 17). The place where the encounter took place is not specified, nor the losses which were incurred.

The number of the Israelites was tabulated in two lists of the contingents of each tribe which were drawn up, the first when they encamped before the Holy Mount (Num. i. 46), the other when they were on the point of entering the Promised Land (Num. xxvi. 51). The internal evidence is strong that these census lists, which enumerate the numbers of each tribe, are a first hand record. At the same time the numbers arrived at by listing up the contingents of each tribe, 603,550 in the one case (Num. i. 46), and 601,730 in the other (Num. xxvi. 51), and 600,000 speaking generally (Exod. xii. 37; Num. xi. 21), are looked upon as in excess of the population which the land of Goshen could contain, and the land of Sinai could receive. Poetic licence or a mistake of the scribe was therefore put forward as an explanation. Prof. Petrie proposed a different solution.[102] The word alaf in Hebrew signifies thousand, but it also signifies family or tent-settlement. If we read the census lists as preserved in Numbers taking the so-called thousands to signify families or tent-settlements, and the hundreds only as applying to the people, the census lists contain what appears to be a reasonable statement. Thus, the tribe of Judah, instead of numbering 74,600 persons, numbered 74 tent-settlements, containing 600 persons, i.e. about eight persons to each tent-settlement; the tribe of Issachar, instead of numbering 54,400 persons, numbered 54 tent-settlements, containing 400 persons, and so forth. On this basis the Israelites, at the first census in Sinai, numbered 598 tent-settlements, with 5550 persons; and at the second census, on the entry into Canaan, they numbered 596 tent-settlements with 5730 persons. The numbers 600,000 and so forth are attributable to a mistake of the scribe who added up the contingents of the census lists, reading the word alaf as thousand, instead of tent-settlement.