Exodus 16

Nu. 33 11 And they journeyed from the Red Sea, and pitched in the wilderness of Sin.

Ex. 16 1 And all the congregation of the children of Israel came unto the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after 2 their departing out of the land of Egypt. And the whole congregation of the chil 3 dren of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron in the wilderness : and the children of Israel said unto them, Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, when we did eat bread to the full ; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly 4 with hunger. Then said the LORD unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you ; and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, 5 that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no. And it shall come to pass on the sixth day, that they shall prepare that which they bring in, and it 6 shall be twice as much as they gather daily. And Moses and Aaron said unto all the children of Israel, At even, then ye shall know that the LORD hath brought you out 7 from the land of Egypt : and in the morning, then ye shall see the glory of the LORD ; for that he heareth your murmurings against the LORD : and what are we, that 8 ye murmur against us ? And Moses said, This shall be, when the LORD shall give you in the evening flesh to eat, and in the morning bread to the full ; for that the LORD heareth your murmurings which ye murmur against him : and what are we ? your 9 murmurings are not against us, but against the LORD. And Moses said unto Aaron, Say unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, Come near before the LORD : 10 for he hath heard your murmurings. And it came to pass, as Aaron spake unto the whole congregation of the children of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness, 11 and, behold, the glory of the LORD appeared in the cloud. And the LORD spake 12 unto Moses, saying, I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel ; speak unto them, saying, At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled 13 with bread ; and ye shall know that I am the LORD your God. And it came to pass at even, that the quails came up, and covered the camp : and in the morning the 14 dew lay round about the camp. And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness a small round thing, small as the hoar frost on the 15 ground. And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, What is it ? for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, It is the bread which 16 the LORD hath given you to eat. This is the thing which the LORD hath commanded, Gather ye of it every man according to his eating ; an omer a head, according to the number of your persons, shall ye take it, every man for them which are in his tent. 17 And the children of Israel did so, and gathered some more, some less. And when 18 they did mete it with an omer, he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack ; they gathered every man according to his eating. 19 And Moses said unto them, Let no man leave of it till the morning. Notwithstanding 20 ing they hearkened not unto Moses ; but some of them left of it until the morning, 21 and it bred worms, and stank : and Moses was wroth with them. And they gathered it morning by morning, every man according to his eating : and when the sun waxed 22 hot, it melted. And it came to pass, that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each one : and all the rulers of the congregation came 23 and told Moses. And he said unto them, This is that which the LORD hath spoken, To-morrow is a solemn rest, a holy sabbath unto the LORD : bake that which ye will bake, and seethe that which ye will seethe ; and all that remaineth over lay up for 24 you to be kept until the morning. And they laid it up till the morning, as Moses

25 bade : and it did not stink, neither was there any worm therein. And Moses said, Eat that to-day ; for to-day is a sabbath unto the LORD : to-day ye shall not find it 26 in the field. Six days ye shall gather it ; but on the seventh day is the sabbath, in 27 it there shall be none. And it came to pass on the seventh day, that there went out 28 some of the people for to gather, and they found none. And the LORD said unto 29 Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws? See, for that the LORD hath given you the sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days ; abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place 30 on the seventh day. So the people rested on the seventh day. And the house of 31 Israel called the name thereof Manna : and it was like coriander seed, white ; and 32 the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. And Moses said, This is the thing which the LORD hath commanded, Let an omerful of it be kept for your genera- tions ; that they may see the bread wherewith I fed you in the wilderness, when I 33 brought you forth from the land of Egypt. And Moses said unto Aaron, take a pot, and put an omerful of manna therein, and lay it up before the LORD, to be kept for 34 your generations. As the LORD commanded Moses, so Aaron laid it up before the 35 Testimony, to be kept. And the children of Israel did eat the manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited ; they did eat the manna, until they came unto 36 the borders of the land of Canaan. Now an omer is the tenth part of an ephah.

1. The next station is the Wilderness of Sin, which we would identify with El Markha, an extensive plain on the coast, open, level, covered in parts with slight vegetation, and well suited for a large encampment. Wilson.—South of the Encampment by the Sea (at the mouth of Wady Tayibeh) the mountains approach nearer to the sea, but sufficient space is left for a road along the shore for several miles until the mountains again recede and the plain of El Markha is reached. There can be little doubt that this plain marks the site of the Wilderness of Sin, where the children of Israel made a long halt, and where God gave them bread from heaven, and they were fed with manna and quails. This plain extends as far south as Wady Feiran, a distance of about twenty-five miles. Like most of the coast plains, it is somewhat barren now ; still, it is not without some vegetation, and probably in former days, when the rainfall was larger, and the drainage from the mountains descended gradually, instead of sweeping every thing before it by a flood as at the present time, it would have afforded excellent pasturage. Holland. (See map, Sec. 98.)

Fifteenth day of second month. When precisely one month had passed since their departure out of Egypt (compare Nu. 33 : 3), they murmured again, this time for want of bread. It was by means of such privations and trials that God was testing the fidelity of his people, and imparting to them a better acquaintance with himself, with the resources at his command, and of his readiness to employ them for their benefit, and thus training them to a more devoted attachment to his service (De. 8 : 15, 16). That faith in God which can trust him in the midst of plenty and prosperity, but which grows faint and fails in the time of privation and peril, has great need of being strengthened—if, indeed, it deserves the name of faith. One great object of God’s dealings with his children in this world is the same that he had in view in the discipline of the wilderness—namely, to train them to the exercise of faith in him, and to develop and strengthen that faith. W. H. G.

3. The stores of wheat, flour, and food of various kinds, brought from Egypt, which must have been enormous to have lasted so long, began to fail, in spite of any additions which may have been procured at their last station. Water had failed them before, and the intolerable agonies of thirst had raised murmurs against Moses. Famine now threatened, and in the presence of this new fear, the miracles of the past were forgotten. Geikie.

Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord. And by whose hand would they die if they perished by famine? God carried them forth ; God restrained his creatures from them ; and while they are ready to die thus, they cry, “Oh, that we had died by the hand of the Lord!” It is the folly of men that in immediate judgments they can see God’s hand, not in those whose second causes are sensible ; whereas God holds himself equally interested in all, challenging that there is no evil in the city but from him (see Amos 3 : 6). It is but one hand and many instruments that God strikes us with. It is our want of faith that in visible means we “see” not “HIM that is invisible.” Bp. H.

Their faith was sorely tried. A military man who has witnessed the difficulty of providing a regular supply of victuals even in a peopled country for a large body of men, whether by purchase or by enforced contribution, can better than any other person appreciate the faith required from Moses when he undertook to lead into “the waste howling wilderness,” where no provisions existed or could be obtained by force or purchase, a people whose numbers exceeded by threefold the largest army which the ambition or pride of man ever brought together. We have often had occasion to reflect upon this fact, and have always returned to it with new and increased astonishment at the “largeness of heart” it is possible for God to bestow on man—in that he gave such incredible capacity of faith to Moses as enabled him to believe that the immense host which he had led from amid the fairness of Egypt would, by the power of God’s bountiful right hand, be sustained in the wilderness. Kit.

We sat by the flesh pots, and we did eat bread to the full. What vivid likenesses we still have of those old flesh pots! For what the flesh pots were to the complaining Hebrews on their way to Canaan, the sweets of sin are to men yet, when the Good Spirit is striving to get us out of our low estate into “the liberty of the children of God.” It is the sheerest assumption and shallowest sing-song that we hear from those who speak of man’s natural aspiration for moral excellence. Man has no such natural aspiration. From the lowest grade of life to the loftiest that we know on the planet—that is, from a plant to a saint—there is always a tendency to deteriorate and retrograde. Never in history was it known that a barbarous tribe or nation reformed itself from within, so as to recover itself to moral excellence and honor. What arrant nonsense it is to talk of mankind self-evolving from vice to virtue; for not only is such a thing unknown, but, by the flesh pots of Egypt, this is known: that when the loving Father in heaven by a mighty hand begins to bring men out of the bondage of sin, how they hunger to get back again! Withrow.

4. I will rain bread from heaven. God hears the murmurings of Israel and is grieved with this generation, and yet continues his care of them, as the tender parent of the froward child. He promises them a speedy, sufficient, and constant supply. H.—To educate their faith they were suffered to endure this distress. It had been as easy for God to anticipate and prevent their wants as to satisfy them when they were expressed. But so he deals not with the children to whom he is teaching the great lessons of his school, and God dealt with them as with his children. Kit.—God does not take the rod to his whimpering children, but rather tries to win them by patience, and to shame their unbelief by his swift and overabundant answers to their complaints. When he must, he punishes; but when he can, he complies. Faith is the condition of our receiving his highest gifts; but even unbelief touches his heart with pity, and what he can give to it, he does, if it may be melted into trust. The farther men stray from him, the more tender and penetrating his recalling voice. We multiply transgressions, he multiplies mercies. A. M.

Gather a day’s portion every day. He would not bestow a large supply at once, which they might store up for future use; but he would supply their daily wants day by day, thus keeping them mindful of their constant dependence—a dependence which is just as real in those who have laid by the largest stores, though it may not be so obvious nor so keenly felt. God had another design in granting them their supplies only as they were needed. This is stated in the next clause—That I may prove them, whether they will walk in my Law, or no. The regulations given respecting the manna afforded tests of their obedience. W. H. G.—To prove them, whether they would follow him implicitly, depending upon, and taking such provision as he sent, and under the conditions that he dispensed it, God would now miraculously supply their wants. Bread and meat would be given them, both directly sent from God, yet both so given that while unbelief was inexcusable, it should still be possible. Alike in the “rain of bread from heaven,” in the ordinance of its ingathering, and in the Sabbath law of its sanctified use, did God prove Israel—even as he now proves us: whether we will “walk in his Law, or no.” A. E.

5. They shall gather twice as much as on ordinary days, as it is explained in verse 22. It was to obviate the necessity of their going out to seek their food on the seventh day, or the Sabbath, and is evidence that the Sabbath was observed, and the law of the Sabbath was known, before the Ten Commandments were proclaimed from the summit of Sinai. These declarations of the Lord to Moses are only summarily stated; further particulars are left to be gathered from Moses’ repetition of them to the people in the verses that follow.

6. Then shall ye know that the Lord hath brought you out from the land of Egypt. You shall have an evidence of his presence and power, proving that it is not we, Moses and Aaron, who have brought you forth into this wilderness (verse 3), but Jehovah himself. W. H. G.—After all the miracles they had seen, they appear still to suppose that their being brought out of Egypt was the work of Moses and Aaron; for though the miracles they had already seen were convincing for the time, yet as soon as they had passed by they relapsed into their former infidelity. God therefore saw it necessary to give them a daily miracle, in the fall of the manna, that they might have the proof of his Divine interposition constantly before their eyes. Thus they knew that Jehovah had brought them out, and that it was not the act of Moses and Aaron. A. C.

9. To show the more clearly that these dealings were from the Lord, they were bidden “come near before Jehovah,” and “behold the glory of Jehovah,” as it “appeared in the cloud.” That Presence ought to have prevented their murmuring, or rather changed it into prayer and praise. And so it always is that before God supplies our wants he shows us that his presence had been near, and he reveals his glory. That Presence is in itself sufficient; for no good thing shall be wanting to them that trust in him. A. E.

10. While Aaron was speaking the attention of the people was attracted toward the desert, where the glory of Jehovah flashed out from the cloud with majestic brilliancy, to attest the truth of the words of reproof and promise which were spoken by his servants. K.—It enhances our wonder that the glory of the Lord should be seen by the children of Israel at or about the time of their murmurings, and that such repeated manifestations should have thus been thrown away upon them—as if the constancy of miracles made them cease to be miraculous, or at least cease to have the effect of miracles. Another and stupendous miracle of forty years’ standing was now to commence; and this to make them know—what by this time they might have well known—that he, under whose guidance they were, was the Lord their God. T. C.

11,12. Here is the Lord’s definite promise of flesh at even and of bread in the morning, to which Moses had referred in verses 6-8. 13-15. Following the promise is the record of fulfilment, by the quails that covered the camp at even, and the manna that lay upon the face of the wilderness when the dew was gone up in the morning. B.

13. As evening gathered around the camp, the air became darkened. An extraordinary flight of quails, such as at that season of the year passes northward from the warmer regions of the interior, was over the camp. The miraculousness chiefly consisted in the extraordinary number, the seasonable arrival, and the peculiar circumstances under which these quails came. A. E.—God gave quails to his people twice: once, on this occasion, a short time after they had passed the Red Sea; and a second time at the encampment called Kibroth-kathavah, or the graves of lust. Both of these happened in the spring, when the quails pass from Asia into Europe. Then they are found in great quantities on the coasts of the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. God, by a wind, drove them within and about the camp of Israel; and in this the miracle consists that they were brought so seasonably to the place, and in so great numbers, as to suffice two or three millions of persons longer than a month. Calmet.

It was not of any natural instinct, but from the overruling power of their Creator, that these quails came to the desert. Needs must they come whom God brings. His hand is in all the motions of his meanest creatures. Not only we, but they move in him. As not many quails, so not one sparrow falls without him: how much more are the actions of his best creature, man, directed by his providence! Who can distrust the provision of the great Housekeeper of the world, when he sees how he can furnish his tables at pleasure? God delights to have us live in a continual dependence upon his providence, and each day renew the acts of our faith and thankfulness. Bp. H.

14. The dew is the gift of heaven, which fertilizes the ground and causes it to bring forth bread. But in the desert the dew can produce no effect, because there is nothing sown. If, then, notwithstanding this, the dew still brought them bread, it was truly the bread of heaven. Bwn.—God gives them meat of kings and bread of angels. Never prince was so served in his greatest pomp as these rebellious Israelites in the wilderness. God loves to over-deserve of men, and to exceed not only their sins, but their very desires, in mercy. How good shall we find him to those that please him, since he is so gracious to offenders! Bp. H.

15. A small round thing, small as the hoar frost on the ground. The people did not comprehend it, and asked one another, “What is this?” The Hebrew of which being MAN-HU, caused the name of MANNA to be given to it. Moses was able to answer the question. He told them that this was the substance which, in the place of bread, God destined for their substantial food—their staff of life. It was to fall every morning, except on the Sabbath day; but on the day preceding that a double quantity would fall, as a supply for the two days. Kit.—The whole of the gift was a continual training, and therefore a continual test, for faith. God willed to let his gifts come in this hand-to-mouth fashion, though he could have provided at once what would have obviously lasted them all their wilderness life, in order that they might be habituated to cling to him, and that their daily bread might be doubly for their nourishment, feeding their bodies and strengthening that faith which, to them as to us, is the condition of all blessedness. God lets our blessings, too, trickle to us drop by drop, instead of pouring them in a flood all at once upon us, for the same reason. A. M.

18. Keep ever before you a firm intention of serving God always and with your whole heart, and then “take no thought for the morrow;” only strive to do your very best “to-day.” When to-morrow arrives, it will have become “to-day,” and then it will be time enough to take thought for it. In all such matters we must have absolute trust and confidence in God: we must gather our provision of manna for the day that is passing, no more; never doubting but that God will send it again to-morrow, and the next day, and as long as we need it. Francis de Sales.—Happiness, like manna, is to be gathered in the grains and enjoyed every day; it will not keep; it cannot be accumulated; nor need we go out of ourselves, nor into remote places to gather it, since it has rained down from heaven, at our very doors, or rather within them. An.

Why did each receive but three quarts a day? Might not a nutritious and delicious kind of food like this be stored, and become an article of merchandise and a source of wealth? No, the Edenic law was not merely a penalty, but a method of mercy, of life, and health. It required labor. But there is a profounder reason for the prayer “Give us this day our daily bread.” We are to get out of to-day all we can, and trust God for to-morrow. We possess only what we can assimilate, so the miracle does no more than to provide for one day. You say that you possess property. No, another may more truly possess it. I who tarry by your garden, or the beggar who feasts upon its beauty with appreciating and admiring eyes gets more out of it than you. You hurry away to business early in the morning, and are gone till dark, too burdened, it may be, to give it a glance. So with your library or pictures. He possesses who assimilates. If your wealth makes you anxious, or leads you to dissipation, then you possess not wealth, but anxiety and disease. Braislin.

16-26. With regard to the origin, the appearance, and the nature of the manna, the Bible contains the following particulars: Jehovah rained it from heaven (verse 4); when the dew fell by night upon the camp, the manna fell upon it (Nu. 11:9); when the dew had ascended, it lay upon the surface of the desert, fine, and like scales, as fine as the hoar frost upon the earth (verse 14); it was like white coriander seed, and tasted like cake and honey (verse 31). When the heat of the sun became great, it melted (verse 21), and therefore had to be gathered early in the morning. It is repeatedly stated most emphatically that it supplied the place of bread. In Nu. 11:7 it is compared to coriander seed, and its appearance to that of the (bright, transparent) bdellium; the people ground it in mills or crushed it in mortars, and then boiled it in pots and made cakes of it, the flavor of which resembled the (mild) flavor of oil-cakes. If it was kept till the morning, it bred worms (verse 20). We may form some idea of the quantity of manna collected, if we consider that, according to verse 16 sqq., a nomer full (not less than a pound) was gathered daily (at least in the early part of the sojourn in the desert) for every member of the congregation, and that it is stated in verse 35 that the children of Israel ate manna for forty years, until they arrived at the border of Canaan, the land in which they were to dwell. K.

The manna did not appear in the wilderness before the hour assigned by Moses in obedience to God’s command. No change of weather prevented the manna from dropping in a regular measure; neither frost, nor rain, nor heat, nor winter, nor summer, interrupted the course of its distillation. A quantity sufficient for the immense multitude was found every day, when they took up an omer for every individual. Again, on the sixth day, the quantity was doubled, that they might lay by a second omer for their Sabbath food. If they preserved any beyond their due allowance, it was subject to putrefaction, whereas on the Sabbath day the second portion remained good. Wherever they were, this blessing of God always accompanied them, while the neighboring nations lived on corn, and the manna was only known in their camp. As soon as they entered a fruitful and corn-growing country, the manna ceased. That portion, which Moses was commanded to lay up in a vessel, did not grow corrupt. Let these points be well weighed, and the miracle will be more than sufficiently conspicuous. Calv.

In certain parts of Arabia, and especially in that part which lies around Mount Sinai, a substance has been always found very much resembling this manna, and also bearing its name—the juice or gum of a kind of tamarisk-tree, which grows in that region, called tarfa, oozing out chiefly by night in the month of June, and collected before sunrise by the natives. Such a fact was deemed perfectly sufficient to entitle modern rationalists to conclude that there was no miracle in the matter, and that the Israelites merely collected and used a natural production of the region where they sojourned for a period. But even supposing the substance called manna to have been in both cases precisely the same, there was still ample room for the exertion of miraculous power in regard to the quantity; for the entire produce of the manna found in the Arabian peninsula, even in the most fruitful years, does not exceed seven hundred pounds, which, on the most moderate calculation, could not have furnished even the thousandth part necessary for one day’s supply to the host of Israel! Besides the enormous disproportion, however, in regard to quantity, there were other things belonging to the manna of Scripture which clearly distinguished it from that found by naturalists—especially its falling with the dew, and on the ground as well as on plants; its consistence, rendering it capable of being used for bread, while the natural is rather a substitute for honey; its corrupting, if kept beyond a day; and its coming in double quantities on the sixth day, and not falling at all on the seventh. If these properties, along with the immense abundance in which it was given, be not sufficient to constitute the manna of Scripture a miracle, and that of the first magnitude, it will be difficult to say where anything really miraculous is to be found. P. F.

An exudation like honey, produced by insects; falling on the ground only from accident or neglect, and at present produced in sufficient quantities only to support one man for six months, has obviously but few points of similarity with the “small round thing, small as the hoar frost on the ground; like coriander seed, white; its taste like wafers made with honey; gathered and ground in mills, and beat in a mortar, baked in pans, and made into cakes, and its taste as the taste of fresh oil.” A. P. S.

—The natural products of the Arabian deserts and other Oriental regions which bear the name of manna have not the qualities or uses ascribed to the manna of Scripture. They are all condiments or medicines, rather than food; stimulating or purgative, rather than nutritious; they are produced only three or four months in the year, from May to August, and not all the year round; they come only in small quantities, never affording anything like fifteen million pounds a week, which must have been requisite for the subsistence of the whole Israelitish camp, since each man had an omer, or three English quarts, a day, and that for forty years; they can be kept for a long time, and do not become useless in a day or two; they are just as liable to deteriorate on the Sabbath as on any other day; nor does a double quantity fall on the day preceding the Sabbath; nor would natural products cease at once and forever, as the manna is represented as ceasing in the Book of Joshua. P. S.—Knobel, a sharp scholarly rationalist, sums up the points of disagreement thus: The manna (1) comes with the cloud and dew from heaven (verses 4, 14; Nu. 11: 9); (2) falls in such enormous quantities as to supply every person of the great host with an omer a day [the modern product, says Stanley, would support but one man six months]; (3) yields every man exactly what he needs, neither more nor less; (4) falls only on six days out of seven, with a double portion on the sixth; (5) corrupts when kept from one work-day to another, but keeps perfectly over the seventh day; (6) is ground in mills and pounded in mortars, which cannot be done with the modern manna; (7) is boiled, and baked into cakes, for which the modern manna is wholly unsuitable. To which may be added, it was independent of particular localities and seasons, and continued steadily till the fortieth year; also that the modern manna, as Schubert well remarks, “contains none of the substances necessary for the daily nourishment of the animal frame,” being now used only for medicinal purposes. S. C. B.

It was miraculous in its origin (rained from heaven), in its quantity, in its observance of times and seasons, in its putrefaction and preservation—as rotting when kept for greed and remaining sweet when preserved for the Sabbath. It came straight from the creative will of God, and whether its name means “What is it?” or “It is a gift,” it is equally true and appropriate, pointing, in the one case, to the mystery of its nature; in the other, to the love of the Giver, and in both referring it directly to the hand of God. A. M.—Clearly this was a direct supply from the hand of God: “He gave them bread from heaven to eat;” and, as Moses said afterward, it was designed to teach the people their dependence upon God for daily bread, and also “that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord.” J. P. T.

Their meat was strange, but nothing so much as their bread. To find quails in a wilderness was unusual; but for bread to come down from heaven was yet more. They had seen quails before, though not in such number: manna was never seen till now. From this day till their settling in Canaan God wrought a perpetual miracle in this food: a miracle in the place; other bread rises up from below, this fell down from above; neither did it ever rain bread till now; yet so did this heavenly shower fall that it is confined to the camp of Israel: a miracle in the quantity; that every morning should fall enough to fill so many hundred thousand mouths: a miracle in the composition; that it was sweet like honey-cakes, round like corianders, transparent as dew: a miracle in the quality; that it melted by one heat, by another hardened: a miracle in the difference of the fall; that, as if it knew times and would teach them as well as feed them, it fell double in the even of the Sabbath; and on the Sabbath fell not: a miracle in the putrefaction and preservation; that it was full of worms when it was kept beyond the due hour for distrust; full of sweetness when it was kept a day longer for religion, yea many ages in the ark for a monument of the power and mercy of the Giver: a miracle in the continuance and ceasing; that this shower of bread followed their camp in all their removals, till they came to taste of the bread of Canaan, and then withdrew itself, as if it should have said, “Ye need no miracles now ye have means.” They had the types; we have the substance. In this wilderness of the world the true manna is rained upon the tents of our hearts. He that sent the manna was the manna which he sent. He hath said, “I am the manna that came down from heaven.” Behold, their whole meals were sacramental: every morsel they did eat was spiritual. Bp. H.—Like Him whom it typified, it was the only thing of the kind, the only bread from heaven which God ever gave to preserve the life of man. A. C

The manna is called spiritual meat (1 Cor. 10:3), because it was typical of spiritual blessings in heavenly things; Christ himself is the true Manna, the Bread of life, of which this was a figure (John 6:49-51). The Word of God is the manna by which our souls are nourished (Matt. 4:4). The comforts of the Spirit are hidden manna (Rev. 2:17). These come from heaven, as the manna did, and are the support and comfort of the Divine life in the soul while we are in the wilderness of this world. It is food for Israelis, for those only that follow the pillar of cloud and fire; it is to be gathered, Christ in the Word is to be applied to the soul, and the means of grace are to be used; we must every one of us gather for ourselves, and gather in the morning of our days, the morning of our opportunities, which if we let slip, it may be too late to gather. The manna they gathered must not be hoarded up, but eaten; they that have received Christ must by faith live upon him, and not receive his grace in vain; there was manna enough for all, enough for each, and none had too much; so in Christ there is a complete sufficiency, and no superfluity. But they that did eat manna hung-red again, died at last, and with many of them God was not well pleased; whereas they that feed on Christ by faith shall never hunger, and shall die no more, and with them God will be forever well pleased; the Lord evermore give us this bread! H.

16-19. They were to gather it every morning (verse 16), the portion of a day in his day (verse 4). Thus they must live upon daily providence, as the fowls of the air, of whom it is said, That thou givest them they gather (Ps. 104:28); not today for to-morrow, let the morrow take thought for the things of itself. To this daily raining and gathering of manna our Saviour seems to allude when he teaches us to pray, Give us this day our daily bread. We are hereby taught: (1) Prudence and diligence in providing food convenient for ourselves and our households; what God graciously gives, we must industriously gather, with quietness working, and eating our own bread, not the bread either of idleness or deceit. God’s bounty leaves room for man’s duty; it did so even when manna was rained, they must not eat till they have gathered. (2) Contentment and satisfaction with a sufficiency; they must gather, every man according to his eating; enough is as good as a feast, and more than enough is as bad as a surfeit. They that have most have for themselves but food and raiment and mirth; and they that have least generally have these; so that he who gathers much has nothing over, and he who gathers little has no lack. There is not so great a disproportion between one and another, in the comforts and enjoyments of the things of this life, as there is in the property and possession of the things themselves. (3) Dependence upon Providence—“Let no man leave till morning (verse 19), but let them learn to go to bed and sleep quietly, though they have not a bit of bread in their tent, nor in all their camp, trusting that God, with the following day, will bring them their daily bread.” It was surer and safer in God’s storehouse than in their own, and would thence come to them sweeter and fresher. Read with this (Matt. 6:25), Take no thought for your life, etc. See here the folly of hoarding. The manna that was laid up by some (who thought themselves wiser and better managers than their neighbors, and who would provide, in case it should fail next day), putrefied and bred worms, and became good for nothing. That proves to be most wasted which is covetously and distrustfully spared. Those riches are corrupted (Jas. 5:2, 3). Think of that great power of God which fed Israel in the wilderness, and made miracles their daily bread. What cannot this God do, who prepared a table in the wilderness, and furnished it richly even for those who questioned whether he could or no? (Ps. 78:19, 20). Never was there such a market of provisions as this, where so many hundred thousand men were daily furnished, without money and without price. Never was there such an open house kept as God kept in the wilderness for forty years together. H.

20. The supply of manna came daily, and faith had to be exercised on the providence of God, that each day would bring its appointed provision; if they attempted to hoard for the morrow, their store became a mass of corruption. In like manner must the child of God pray for his soul every morning as it dawns, “Give me this day my daily bread.” He can lay up no stock of grace which is to save him from the necessity of constantly repairing to the treasury of Christ; and if he begins to live upon former experiences, or to feel as if he already stood so high in the life of God that, like Peter, he can of himself confidently reckon on his superiority to temptation, his very mercies become fraught with trouble, and he is the worse rather than the better for the fulness imparted to him. His soul can be in health and prosperity only while he is every day “living by the faith of the Son of God, who loved him, and gave himself for him.” P. F.—Past experience will justify a man in trusting Christ now and for the time to come, but not in trusting in his own strength, not even his strength of grace. Experience, as Henry Martyn used to say, rots on one’s hands, if a man trusts to that instead of Christ; just as the manna of the Israelites bred worms if they hoarded it up for the morrow, instead of trusting in God for a new supply. This was a striking lesson of faith in the wilderness, and we too must come to Christ daily for grace trusting not in yesterday’s strength of grace or in what remains over. Christ, who has supplied, must still supply it, or it will fail. So a man must say, I have nothing, can do nothing, am nothing, but in Christ. Cheever.

God’s principles of dealing with his Church are the same for all ages. When transacting with his people now directly for the support of the spiritual life, he must substantially re-enact what he did of old, when transacting with them directly for the support of their bodily life. And as even then there was an undercurrent of spiritual meaning and instruction running through all that was done, so the faith of the Christian now has a most legitimate and profitable exercise, when it learns from that memorable transaction in the desert the fulness of its privilege and the extent of its obligations in regard to the higher provision presented to it in the Gospel. P. F.

23-30. The manner in which the Sabbath first presents itself on the field of Israelitish history as an existing ordinance which God himself respected, in the giving of the manna, before the Law had been promulgated, is a clear proof of its prior institution. P. F.—From this passage and from verse 5 it is inferred that the seventh day was previously known to the people as a day separate from all others, and if so, it must have been observed as an ancient and primeval institution. No other account of the command (given without any special explanation), or of the conduct of the people who collected the manna, is satisfactory; thus Rosenmüller and others. It is at the same time evident that Moses took this opportunity of enforcing a strict and more solemn observance of the day. Cook.

No doubt, in the oppression and darkness of Egypt, the seventh-day (Sabbath) observance had fallen into partial disuse; though even in Egypt in that era, as among the more eastern peoples, the traditional seventh-day rest seems to have lingered, and therefore the usages of Egypt may not have militated against the rest on the seventh day. However that may be, still there was need of this training to the Sabbath observance; and this ordinance of the manna was just the preparation needful for their receiving heartily the statute, “Remember the Sabbath day,” when it came to them through Moses from the mount. S. R.—In all the Jewish history there never again occurred as favorable a time for imposing the Sabbath observance upon the people as at the giving of the manna. For forty years, comprising more than two thousand weeks, they were to subsist upon manna as their daily food. God was to furnish it every day; they were to gather it every day. Thus was presented the opportunity both for God to mark the day and for man to keep it. During all these two thousand weeks God gave them a double supply on the sixth day, and preserved that given on that day fresh for two days, instead of one. Two thousand Sabbaths came, but on them no manna. It was vain for them to look for it. Soon they ceased to do so altogether. What a lesson for beginners! The most stupid and the most obdurate alike learned it. Time and the world may be searched for another series of events by which it would be possible to impress the idea of a Sabbath upon the minds of the people as effectually as by this. Weston.

26. God would have the Israelites continually dependent on himself for all their supplies; but he would make them, in a certain way, workers with him. He provided the manna; they gathered and ate it. The first was God’s work; the latter their own. They could not produce the manna, and God would not gather it for them. Thus the providence of God appears in such a way as to secure the co-operation of man. None fell on the Sabbath! Hence we find that the Sabbath was considered a Divine institution previously to the giving of the Mosaic Law; and that God continued to honor that day by permitting no manna to fall during its course. Whatever is earned on the Sabbath is a curse in a man’s property. A. C.—When the Lord sent that double portion on the last day of the week, and none on the next, it was as much as to say, that in his providential arrangements for this world he had given only six days out of the seven for worldly labor, and that if men readily concurred in this plan they should find it to their advantage; they should find that in the long run they got as much by their six days’ labor as they either needed or could profitably use, and should have, besides, their weekly day of rest, of spiritual refreshment, and bodily repose. Nor can we regard this lesson of small moment in the eye of Heaven, when we see no fewer than three miracles wrought every week for forty years to enforce it—viz., a double portion of manna on the sixth day, none on the seventh, and the preservation of the portion for the seventh from corrupting when kept beyond the usual time. P. F.

27. The outward manna fell not at all on the Sabbath; the spiritual manna, though it balks no day, yet falls double on God’s day; and if we gather it not then we famish. In that true

Sabbath of our glorious rest we shall forever feed of that manna which we have gathered in this even of our life. Bp. H.

28,29. See, saith he, the Lord hath given you on the sixth day the bread of two days: How long REFUSE ye to keep my commandments, and my laws? It was not blindness or ignorance, but downright perverseness; for refusing is an act of the will. They could not but see and know what the Lord had done for them; but they would not see; they had eyes, and saw not; they had ears, and heard not; because they would not. This was the character and temper of their posterity in our Saviour’s time, which he so often upbraids them with. And, alas! is it not still the very spirit and temper of us all? Who is there that enjoys his double portion of the good things of this life, and yet hankers not after more? We are neither contented with the portion of time nor the provision of bread which God has been pleased to allot us for our necessary wants. And though God reserve to himself but a seventh of our time, how few are there who do not seem to think that seventh part too much? How often are we entrenching on the Lord’s own day by our pursuits of the profits or pleasures of the world? Wogan.

“To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath” (verse 23) Not shall be, nor yet that every seventh shall be, but simply, “To-morrow is.” This is clearly the language of the historian, not the legislator. It is but the familiar method of speaking of something already in existence. Besides, it does not say, thou shalt rest every seventh day from all work, but simply from manna gathering. The direction seems to have been given with exclusive reference to the regulation of manna gathering, and this very fact seems to recognize the pre-existence of the appointment, and here only made applicable to the manna. And this view agrees precisely with the after declaration, “See, for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath; therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days” (verse 29). Thus placing the Sabbath before the manna, and showing why the manna was doubled on the sixth, and why there would be none on the seventh, because the seventh had been previously given as a day of rest. Then let it also be observed that the expressed object of giving the manna, and especially in the manner of it, was to prove Israel, and not to institute a Sabbath. “I will rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my Law, or no” (verse 4). What law? and how prove them?

The law was clearly the Sabbatic law, and the proof consisted in this, whether they would observe his rest, even when appearances were against them. “To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord,” one of those rest days appointed from the beginning; therefore, a double quantity is given. Now bake, and seethe, and prepare for to-morrow. And on the morrow he said, Eat to-day what is left from yesterday, and which is miraculously preserved, for none will be given to-day. And yet some of the people disbelieved, and went out, but found none. Hence the Lord asks, “How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?” (Verse 28.) The whole history indicates that the manna was doubled on the sixth day because the next was the Sabbath, thus showing its previous existence; for, so far as the record goes, the manna was actually doubled before one word was said to the people about the Sabbath. If the appointment did not previously exist, would it not be a strange procedure to double the manna before the proclamation of the Law? Was the passover lamb actually slain before the people were told what was to be done? And furthermore, that the object of the whole transaction was to test Israel’s obedience to a law already in existence, and not formally to enact a new one.

As confirmatory of all this is the fact that Moses, in De. 5:15, clearly connects the institution with the deliverance from Egypt. The reason there assigned is the fact that they were delivered. Because they had been “delivered through a mighty hand and by a stretched-out arm.” “Therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day.” If the deliverance from Egypt be the secondary ground of the giving of the Sabbath, then surely the giving of the manna could not be that ground, nor yet the initiation of the ordinance. And as further confirmation of this view, we mention the fact that the Sabbath is everywhere spoken of as the property of the Lord, as appears from the expressions: “The Sabbath of the Lord thy God;” “ye shall keep my Sabbaths;” “I gave them my Sabbaths”—all showing that the Sabbath was the property of the Lord; something he had previously in his possession, and now formally given to his people. Sacy.

32. The preservation of this manna from waste and corruption was a standing miracle, and therefore the more proper memorial of this miraculous food. “Posterity shall see the bread,” says God, “wherewith I have fed you in the wilderness;” see what sort of food it was, and how much each man’s daily portion of it was, that it may appear they were neither kept to hard fare, nor to short allowance, and then judge between God and Israel, whether they had any cause given them to murmur, and find fault with their provisions, and whether they, and their seed after them, had not a great deal of reason gratefully to own God’s goodness to them. Eaten bread must not be forgotten; God’s miracles and mercies are to be had in everlasting remembrance, for our encouragement to trust in him at all times. H.

33. “An omer full of manna” was to be “laid up before Jehovah” in a “golden pot.” Together with “Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant,” it was afterward placed in the holiest of all, within the ark of the covenant, overshadowed by “the cherubim of glory.” A. E.—How long the pot of manna was preserved in the ark of the covenant cannot be known definitely. We have the fact that the Lord directed its preservation there; and the further fact that when the ark was placed in the new temple of Solomon there was nothing in it save the two tables of stone (1 Kings 8:9). It was doubtless kept long enough to subserve all the valuable purposes of a memorial to the generations of Israel. It has been embalmed in the Christian consciousness of the Christian age by its symbolical use in the teachings of our Lord in which it represents his flesh which he gave for the life of the world—the far more real bread of life from heaven (John 6:31-35; 47-58). H. C.

35. This verse was no doubt added when Moses was revising and completing his materials for Exodus, in the plains of Moab, by Jordan, near Jericho (Nu. 36:13), or in the valley over against Beth-peor (De. 3:29). The sentence is evidently such as might be written by a prophet who was aware that the forty years of wilderness life were drawing to a close, and perceived the supply of manna waning to its end, according as the natural products of the land were approaching to a full satisfaction of the people’s wants. M.

Did eat manna forty years. The manna began to fall just thirty days after they left Egypt, and ceased the day after the pass-over which they kept in the fortieth year (Josh. 5:11, 12). Bp. Patrick.—Here the supply of manna is spoken of as continuing till the people “came to a land inhabited,” or to their reaching “the borders of Canaan.” In Josh. 5:12 its actual cessation is said to have taken place only when they had entered Canaan, and ate the corn of the land. But why might not the first passage, written in anticipation of the future, indicate generally the period during which the manna was given—viz., the exclusion of the people from a land in such a sense inhabited, that they were still dependent on miraculous supplies of food? Then the passage in Joshua records the fact that this dependence actually ceased only when they had crossed the Jordan, and lay before Jericho; so that we may conclude their conquests to the east of Jordan, though in lands inhabited, had not sufficed till the period in question to furnish an adequate supply to their wants. P. F.

It is not meant that during the whole of this period they had no other sustenance: the herds which they had brought out of Egypt had not failed them at Sinai, nor even when they were about to pass through Edom (Nu. 20:19), nor even when the Reubenites and Gadites petitioned to be settled on the east of Jordan (Nu. 32:1). It is plain that they had bread (Lev. 8:2, 26, 31), and meal (Lev. 9:4; 10:12; 24:5, etc.), and that they bought food and water from the Edomites (De. 2:6). And from Josh. 1:11 we see that the staple of their victuals must have been other than manna, for there they are commanded to lay in three days’ provision, and the manna would not keep from day to day. But it was granted to them during all this time to help out other provision, and probably it was the only food of those who could not afford the rarer and costlier kinds. It is only mentioned specially after this in Nu. 11:7, at their first breaking up from Sinai, and in Nu. 21:5, during the circuit of Edom, and after the death of Aaron. Aff.—We may assume, as in most cases of miracle, that the supernatural supply was commensurate with their actual necessity. Moses gives a complete history of manna till the end of his own life. The manna was not withheld in fact until the Israelites had passed the Jordan. Moses writes as a historian, not as a prophet. Cook.

Many comment on this subject as if, during the whole forty years in the wilderness, the Israelites subsisted entirely, or at least chiefly, on manna and quails miraculously given them from heaven—as if, in this particular case, God undertook to train a race to habits of hardihood by relieving them of all necessity of doing anything to provide for their own needs. But from many passages in Ex., Lev., Nu., and De. we learn that Israel in the wilderness had flocks and herds, which were several times in danger of perishing for lack of water, and for which it was proposed to buy water, when they asked leave to pass through Edom; that they left

Egypt with money and other commercial resources, and reached Palestine able to purchase such things as they needed; that they are assumed to have resources of hunting and fishing; that the ceremonial law throughout implies their possession, not only of animals for sacrifice, but of agricultural products; that the civil laws contemplate their being engaged in agriculture, as well as in the care of flocks; that what we are accustomed to designate their wandering in the wilderness is actually described as their being shepherds in the wilderness. In fine, these writings represent God’s treatment of Israel in the wilderness to have been just what we should expect, in view of the principles on which he ordinarily deals with men. As a rule, he threw them upon their own resources, and thereby trained them; when exceptional needs arose during the forty years, especially when the need arose from their obeying some especial command which diminished their ability to provide for themselves by ordinary means, then God cared for them by miracle. W. J. Beecher.

The manna is the greatest of the Old Testament miracles. It was not one miracle, but an astonishing combination of many. It was a regular supply of food during nearly forty years. It fell around the camp of the Israelites regularly, in all places and at all seasons, during all their removals. The supply, regularly intermitted once in every week, was compensated by a double supply the preceding day. It became unfit for use if kept to the next day, and yet, once a week, it might be kept for two days. And when the miracle was about to be discontinued, as no longer necessary, a pot full of it was directed to be laid aside, and preserved as a memorial to future generations. All these marvellous circumstances are not mere abstract qualities of the manna, but historical facts—facts inseparably interwoven with the history of the chosen people. It is surely then an attempt of no common hardihood, though it has been made, to endeavor to bring this sublime set of miracles within the limit of a natural probability. Bush.

The manna was a revelation in miraculous and transient form of an eternal truth. The God who sent it sends daily bread. The words which Christ quoted in his wilderness hunger are the explanation of its meaning as a witness to this truth. “Man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” To a Christian, the Divine power is present and operative in all natural processes as really as in what we call miraculous. God is separable from the universe, but the universe is not separable from God. If it were separated, it would cease. So far as the reality of the Divine operation is concerned, it matters not whether he works in the established fashion, through material things, or whether his will acts directly. The chain which binds a phenomenon to the Divine will may be long or short; the intervening links may be many, or they may be abolished. And the Divine cause and the visible effect may touch without anything between. But in either case the power is of God. Bread made out of flour grown on the other side of the world, and fashioned by the baker, and bought by the fruits of my industry, is as truly the gift of God as was the manna. For once, he showed these men his hand at work, that we might know it was at work, when hidden. The lesson of the “angel’s food” eaten in the wilderness is that men are fed by the power of God’s expressed and active will—for that is the meaning of “the word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God”—in whatever fashion they get their food. The gift of it is from him; its power to nourish is from him. It is as true to-day as ever it was: “Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing.” The manna ceased when the people came near cornfields and settled homes. Miracles end when means are possible. But the God of the miracle is the God of the means.

The manna was typical of Christ. Our Lord himself has laid his hand upon it, and claimed it as a faint foreshadowing of what he is. The Jews, not satisfied with the miracle of the loaves, demand from him a greater sign, as the condition of what they are pleased to call “belief”—which is nothing but accepting the testimony of sense. They quote Moses as giving the manna, and imply that Messiah is expected to repeat the miracle. Christ accepts the challenge, and goes on to claim that he not only gives, but himself is, for all men’s souls, all and more than all which the manna had been to the bodies of that dead generation. Like it, he came—but in how much more profound a sense—from heaven. Like it, he was food. But unlike it, he could still forever the craving of the else famishing soul; unlike it, he not only nourished a bodily life already possessed, but communicated a spiritual life which never dies; and, unlike it, he was meant to be the food of the whole world. His teaching passed beyond the symbolism of the manna, when he not only declared himself to be the true bread from heaven which gives life to the world, but opened a glimpse into the solemn mystery of his atoning death, by the startling and apparently repulsive paradox that his flesh was food and his blood drink indeed. The manna does not typically teach Christ’s atonement, but it does set him forth as the true sustenance and life-giver, sweet as honey to the soul, sent from heaven for us each, but needing to be made ours by the act of our faith. An Israelite might have starved, though the manna lay all round the camp, if he did not go forth and secure his portion; and he might no less have starved, if he did not eat what heaven had sent. Crede et manducasti—“Believe, and thou hast eaten”—as St. Augustine says. The personal appropriating act of faith is essential to our having Christ for the food of our souls. The bread that nourishes our bodies is assimilated to their substance, and so become sustenance. This bread of God, entering into our souls by faith, transforms them into its substance, and so gives and feeds an immortal life. The manna was for a generation; this bread is “the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever.” That was for a handful of men; this is for the world. Nor is the prophetic value of the manna exhausted when we recognize its witness to Christ. The food of the wilderness is the food of the city. The bread that is laid on the table, “spread in the presence of the enemy,” is the bread that makes the feast in the king’s palace. The Christ who feeds the pilgrim soldiers is the Christ on whom the conquerors banquet. “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna.” A. M.

The apostle in 1 Cor. 10 gives a spiritual significance to the whole of this narrative of the exodus, the murmuring, and the supply of bread and water in the desert. In an earnest admonition against murmuring and want of self-control, he cites this story of the desert as a signal example of failure to hold fast the profession after even the very highest exaltation to privileges, reminding the Corinthians “how our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. But with many of them God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now, these things were our examples that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted.” The meaning of which is: Beware, how, after coming into covenant with Christ, ye give away to temptation. Remember how, though all of our fathers were delivered from Egypt, yet Caleb and Joshua only entered the land of promise. Say not: Will God allow those to perish whom he hath thus exalted in conferring upon us the gifts of the spirit, the power of miracles, tongues, prophecy, interpretation? For remember the lofty privileges of the fathers. They were baptized into the discipleship of Moses under that cloud which sheltered and guided them, and in the passage through the sea which gave them final deliverance from Egypt. For such deliverance and guidance placed them under the same obligation to recognize Moses as leader by Divine commission, as your baptism and its vows bind you to recognize Christ. And as they had their baptism so also their Eucharist. They all fed not upon natural food but upon manna—the food directly provided by God; and they drank not water naturally furnished by springs in the desert, but by the stream from the smitten rock, whose stream followed them in the desert, which rock symbolized the smitten Christ; and yet after all these exalted privileges they murmured, rebelled, and failed to reach the earthly Canaan. And remember this record is made not merely as a curious history—“they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come.” The apostle is not making any allusion to baptism with water, but only to the display of God’s power in the cloud and in the sea, and of God’s goodness in giving them the manna for food and the water from the rock for drink, which bound them to serve God and follow his servant. And as, notwithstanding all this, they failed, so those in the New Testament Church who enter into covenant with Christ in their baptism and receive spiritual gifts may fail through a similar rebellious and murmuring spirit. It is both interesting and important to notice how thus, in the practical application of the lessons of the Old Testament, both Jesus and his apostles constantly assert not only the pre-existence of Christ, but also that he is really the Jehovah of the Old Testament. The rock was Christ. The Israelites “tempted Christ in the wilderness.” It was the “spirit of Christ in the prophets that testified.” In like manner it is represented in the New Testament that this body of people under Moses was the Church of Christ; as, for instance, the martyr Stephen speaks of it as “the Church in the wilderness.” S. R.

The events recorded to have happened under the old dispensation are often strikingly prefigurative of those which occur under the new: and the temporal circumstances of the Israelites seem designedly to shadow out the spiritual condition of the Christian Church. The connection is ever obvious; and points out the consistency of the Divine purpose, and the harmony deliberately contrived to subsist between both dispensations. Thus in the servitude of Israel are described the sufferings of the Church. In the deliverance from Egypt is foreshown its redemption, and the journey through the wilderness is a lively representation of a Christian’s pilgrimage through life, to his inheritance in everlasting bliss. So also the manna, of which the Israelites did eat (John 6:33-38; Rev. 2:17), and the rock of which they drank (1 Cor. 10:1-4), as well as the brazen serpent by which they were healed (John 3:14), were severally typical of correspondent particulars, that were to obtain under the Christian establishment; as under the sacrifices and ceremonial service of the Law, of which the institution is recorded in this book, was described the more spiritual worship of the Gospel. Grey.

At last, the obscurity which has so long hung over the Peninsula of Sinai, with regard to the possible determination of the route of the Israelites through the desert, has been removed. Almost the whole of the country has now been explored; and that portion of it which possesses the greatest interest for us has been most carefully mapped, by an expedition sent out under the auspices of the Director-General of our Ordnance Survey. Holland.

NOTE.—The finely executed map (on page 81) is, in its general outlines, an accurate redrawing from that of the Ordnance Survey. But we have sought to make especially clear all the names and valley lines, together with the immediate connections and surroundings of Sinai, the mountain of the Law. In studying this section, see also map fronting title-page and that on p. 61. B.

The admirable work of the Ordnance Survey in the Peninsula of Sinai has forever settled all questions respecting the mount of the Law and the way thither. It has done more than this, for the accurate labors of the scientific surveyor have vindicated in the most remarkable manner the accuracy of the narratives in Exodus and Numbers. Every scientific man who reads the reports of the Survey and studies its maps, must agree with the late Professor Palmer that they afford “satisfactory evidence of the contemporary character of the narrative.” They prove, in short, that the narrator must have personally traversed the country, and must have been a witness of the events he narrates. More than this, they show that the narrative must have been a sort of daily journal, written from time to time as events proceeded, and not corrected even to reconcile apparent contradictions, the explanation of which only becomes evident on study of the ground. Dawson.

From Wady Useit [south of Elim], two roads lead to Jebel Musa: one, the north route, runs up Wady Hamr, and thence past Sarabit el-Khadim to Wady es-Sheikh; the other, the coast route, turns down Wady Tayibeh to the sea, and thence follows the course of Wady Feiran. The coast route is far the most easy, and we have an indication that this was followed by the Israelites in Nu. 33:10, which places the encampment on the sea-coast probably on the broad level plain at the mouth of Wady Tayibeh. From El Murkha three roads, which afterward join each other, branch off; one passes over the Nagb Buderah to Wady Mukatteb, another turns up Seih Sidreh to the same place, and thence both pass to Wady Feiran, while the third follows the course of Wady Feiran throughout. The first is impracticable for the passage of a large host, but the other two routes are perfectly easy, and the Israelites may have followed either or both. Wilson.

The circumstances of the case, and the character of the ground, both lead to the opinion that the course of the Israelites lay down the whole length of the plain of Murkha, and then up Wady Feiran. This wady presents a level bed up which wagons might be driven without the slightest difficulty. It is somewhat confined in parts by the surrounding mountains, but opens out here and there so as to present admirable positions for encampments. Holland.

Travellers in the present day do not follow Wady Feiran, but turn off by Wady Shellal [northeast end of El Murkha], and make for Wady Mukatteb by the Nagb Buderah, but the road over that pass was unquestionably constructed at a date posterior to the exodus, and had it even existed then would have been less practicable than Wady Feiran, and have presented a further difficulty in the pass of Jebel Mukatteb. Beyond Wady Feiran there is no practicable valley. Prof. Palmer.

Their journey would lie over the plain of El Murkha along the coast, a plain which would correspond to the Desert of Sin, and by reason of the oppressiveness of a spot where my thermometer on the 11th of February, 1874, rose to 96° at noon (though but 44° by the sea in the morning), would explain the first “murmuring” of Israel. The more encumbered portion and their “wagons” would have gone along the sea-coast (a weary journey) to the mouth of Wady Feiran, a valley ranging in width from half a mile to two miles or more, and enclosed by high, precipitous walls. By the route thus indicated, a carriage can be driven all the way from the Wells of Moses by way of wadys Feiran and es-Sheikh to Mount Sinai. S. C. B.—There are two practicable routes from Feiran to Jebel Musa-Safsafeh: one following the course of the Wady es-Sheikh throughout; the other passing up Wady Solaf and across the low hills to El Watiyeh, or turning through the Nagb Hawa to the plain of Er Rahah. Either or both of these routes may have been followed by the Israelites; the main body, with the flocks and herds, may have gone round by the Wady es-Sheikh, while Moses and the elders travelled by the shorter route of Wady Solaf. Wilson.

The Feiran Valley is “the largest and most fertile of all the valleys in that region, and the only one through which a clear rivulet is still flowing for several miles. The exact source of this stream, and its disappearance beneath the rocky soil, have not been by any means sufficiently investigated. Again, in all that rocky wilderness there is no other oasis so beautifully studded with palm-groves, fruit-gardens, and cornfields, as the Wady Feiran.” The Wady es-Sheikh is described by Ritter as “the large, crooked, principal valley, the cleft which connects the Sinai and the Serbal groups in the central range, and the only convenient road by which the two are connected.” Immediately behind the spot at which the rocky hill el-Buéb contracts the Feiran Valley to so great an extent, you enter the longer and broader Sheikh Valley. It winds first toward the northeast, then toward the east and southeast, and lastly toward the south, and thus describes almost a perfect semicircle of ten hours’ journey in length. This great wady continues to ascend gently, but constantly; so that at the point at which it issues into the plain of er-Rahah, at the foot of the Sinaitic group, it is more than twenty-three hundred feet higher than at its junction with the Wady Feiran. The waters of the innumerable side wadies flow into this one; and hence it is well watered for a considerable portion of the year, and contains many tracts of meadow land, with a large number of tarfah-trees. It is especially noted as yielding the largest supply of manna at the present day. Moreover, there is no spot in the whole peninsula so densely populated as this wady and its numerous side valleys. K.

PENINSULA OF SINAI: Geographical Relations, Geology, Climate, and Habitableness.

The Desert Tableland, of which the valley of the Nile and the two gulfs of the Red Sea are depressions, may be divided into three belts: on the north, the sandy desert, which stretches along the Mediterranean from the Isthmus of Suez to the confines of Palestine; south of this is a mass of limestone called the Desert of et-Tih (i.e., the Wandering); next, separated by a belt of sandstone from the Desert of et-Tih, is the terrific group of granite rocks which fill up the southern triangle of the Peninsula of Sinai. The width of the peninsula, in its exacter limits, from Suez along the 30th parallel of north latitude to the hills of Edom, is about 130 miles: its length from its southern point (Ras Mohammed) to the same parallel is about 140 miles, and to the Mediterranean upwards of 20 more. The width of the southern triangle of primitive rocks along the 29th parallel of north latitude is about 80 miles, and its length a little less: in fact, it is nearly an equilateral triangle. The Desert of et-Tih has all the characters of limestone scenery. It is a tableland rising to more than 2500 feet high, broken by ravines, and bounded by long horizontal ranges of mountains, which culminate in the southern range of Jebel et-Tih, whose chief summit (Jebel Elime) rises to 4654 feet. The belt of sandstone (Debbet er-Ramleh), which divides this range from the granite group, and which is continued along the shore of the Gulf of Suez, is almost the only sand in the peninsula, which is therefore a rocky, but not a sandy desert. Finally, the great granite mass, called by the general name of the Tur (i.e., the Rock), is broken into in numerable peaks (like those called horns and needles in the Alps), and shivered into ravines, which in a few cases open out into wider plains. In a northern climate, these plains would be filled with lakes, and mountain torrents would rush down the ravines; but here the want of water causes a silence which adds immeasurably to the awful grandeur of the rocks themselves, and which becomes still more impressive from the clearness and reverberation of every sound that reaches the traveller’s ears. This death-like stillness is broken by mysterious noises among the mountain-tops, and by the winds which roar down the ravines, realizing, in one sense, at least, its description as a “waste howling wilderness.” P. S.

One of the most remarkable historical testimonies to the truth of the scriptural narrative exists in the name of the wilderness Tih-Beni-Israil, which signifies “Wandering of the Children of Israel.” This name is usually shortened to et-Tih, which signifies “The Wandering.” G. E. Post.

That tract of land which bears the name of the Peninsula of Sinai extends between the Gulf of Suez on the west, and that of Akaba (or the Persian Gulf) on the east. Its configuration is heart-shaped, the broader part lying toward Palestine, the narrower, or apex, stretching southward into the sea. It really consists of three distinct portions. The northern, called the Wilderness of Tih, or, “of the Wandering,” is pebbly, high tableland, the prevailing color being that of the gray limestone. Next, bordering the Tih, comes a broad belt of sandstone and yellow sand, the only one in the desert of the exodus. To the south of this belt, in the apex of the peninsula, lies the true Sinaitic range. This portion consists in the north chiefly of red sandstone, and in the centre of red granite and green porphyry. The prevailing character of the scenery is that of an irregular mass of mountains, thrown together in wild confusion. The highest peak rises to about nine thousand feet. Between these wind torrent-beds, filled, perhaps, for a very short time in winter, but generally quite dry. These are called wadies, and they form the highways through the wilderness. Here and there, where either a living spring rises, or the torrent has left its marks, or where the hand of man is at work, cultivated patches, fair and fruitful, are found; palm-trees spring up, even gardens and fields, and rich pasture ground. But, generally, the rocky mountain-sides are bare of all vegetation, and their bright coloring gives the scenery its peculiar character. The prevailing tints are red and green; but this is varied by what seems a purple, rose, or crimson-colored stream poured down the mountain-side, while, occasionally, the green of the porphyry deepens into black. Over all this unbroken silence prevails, so that the voice is heard in the pure air at extraordinary distances. A. E.

The Peninsula of Sinai is one of the most mountainous and intricate countries in the world; tracts of sand are rarely met with, plains are rather the exception than the rule, and the roads for the most part run through a labyrinth of narrow, rock-bound valleys. It is a desert, certainly, as Major Palmer, R.E., well describes it, “in the fullest sense of the word, but a desert of rock, gravel, and bowlder, of gaunt peaks, dreary ridges, and arid valleys, and plateaus, the whole forming a scene of stern desolation which fully merits its description as ’the great and terrible wilderness.’” In the centre of the peninsula rises a vast crystalline mass, split up into innumerable peaks that attain a considerable altitude, as Jebel Zebir, 8551 feet; Jebel Katerin, 8536 feet; Jebel Umm Shomer, 8449 feet; Jebel Musa, 7375 feet; Jebel Serbal, 6734 feet. Wilson.

The granite mountains lie in such a rugged, tumbled chaos as scarcely to admit of classification. It has been usual to divide them into three clusters—that in the west having Mount Serbal for its highest point, the central or Sinai group, and the group to the south culminating in the magnificent peak of Umm Shomer. But there are several other groups and peaks which are scarcely less grand and imposing. Prof. Palmer.

On the east the mountains descend somewhat abruptly to the sea, while on the west they are flanked by an arid plain which extends almost without interruption to the Mediterranean, and which, for some distance north of Tur, is separated from the Gulf of Suez by a low range of hills of tertiary sandstone. Northward, a broken sandstone district separates the Sinaitic mountains from the limestone plateau of the Tih. The mountains forming the crystalline “core” of the peninsula are composed of granites, sienites, and varieties of gneiss and schists, traversed by dikes of diorite and dolerite. They exhibit every variety of profile: great rounded bluffs, isolated peaks and pinnacles, and serrated ridges rise up to stupendous heights, and blending in wild confusion, present views of the most grand and impressive character. The sandstone district, rich in antiquities and mineral wealth, is broken up into quaint forms which, combined with the rich coloring, give a peculiar charm to the scenery; while on its plains are found the only tracts of deep, heavy sand met with in the peninsula. In the cretaceous and tertiary districts, on the other hand, the features are devoid of interest, and the scenery is monotonous, except when lighted up by the rich glow of the rising or setting sun; this district stretches as far south as Tur, and includes the dreary desert of El Gaah, which for a distance of eighty miles stretches along the western foot of the mountains. Wilson.

Fraas mentions a fact which strongly strikes the notice of the traveller—how, in coming from the sea to Sinai by Feiran or Hebran, “every intermediate formation between the newest sea-deposit on the shore and the oldest crystalline mountains is absolutely wanting, and has always been wanting. Of later upheavals in palæozoic times, or in the second or third age of the world, there is not one indication. Rugged and steep, in undisturbed and restful majesty, from Serbal to Umm Shomer, and from Umm Shomer to Ras Mohammed, rises in vertical cliffs the primeval gneiss and granite, or, in mineralogical terms, the masses of colorless quartz, fleshed felspar, greenish hornblende, and black mica. Never, from the time of their formation, have these crystalline masses mingled with any other geological period whatever; from the beginning of things have they thrust their heads out of the ocean untouched by Silurian or Devonian, by Dyas and Trias, by Jura and chalk. Only at the foot of the mountain fastness has the Red Sea, on the one side, drawn a wreath of corals about Mount Sinai, and with its help formed in modern times a coast; and on the other side has the sea in the cretaceous era spread out on the north the chalk plateau of et-Tih (four thousand feet above the sea), which extends over all Syria to Lebanon.” S. C. B.

The valleys or “wadies” of the peninsula are deeply cut, and descend rapidly to the sea; they frequently rise in open plains or “fershes,” covered with desert vegetation, that lie at the foot of the higher peaks and form one of the most interesting topographical features of the interior. In the granite district the valleys wind in broad reaches between lofty hills amid the grandest of mountain scenery, or break through the mountain barriers by narrow defiles, sometimes not more than twelve feet wide, in which vertical walls of rock, several hundred feet high, rise up so as almost to shut out the light of the sun. In the sandstone district the cliffs are lower, but the richness of their coloring produces bright pictures of which the eye never grows weary; while in the limestone district the traveller is glad to hurry through the dreary valleys and escape from the scorching rays of the sun, which are reflected with intense power from the white rocks on either hand. The two great valleys of the peninsula are the Wady Feiran with its innumerable feeders, one descending from the base of Jebel Musa, on the west; and the Wady Rahabeh draining an almost equal extent of country on the east. The former, from its open character and gradual ascent, is marked out by Nature as the great high road into the interior; and it was the route by which the Israelites probably approached Sinai.

The climate of the peninsula is perhaps one of the most healthy in the world, especially of that portion of it which is elevated from three to five thousand feet above the sea. There is generally a great difference between the night and day temperatures, from 40° to 50°, and even on the plains the thermometer falls in winter to within a few degrees of the freezing-point. No one who has travelled in the desert can forget the exhilarating effect of the fresh morning air, or the joyous feeling of life and strength that it brings with it; the mere act of breathing is a pleasure, and we can hardly be surprised at the stories which have been handed down of the great age attained by many of the hermits and anchorites, or that they believed that man needs in the desert “hardly to eat, drink, or sleep, for the act of breathing will give life enough.” In summer the heat is intense, especially in the limestone districts; while in winter the cold in the mountains is severe, and the frost brings down huge masses of rock which, rolling down the steep mountain-sides, cause the mysterious noises often heard in the higher districts. The most remarkable features of the climate are its intense dryness and the clearness of the atmosphere, enabling places to be seen at extraordinary distances. No less remarkable, too, is the stillness; there is often no sound that the sharpest ear can detect, and for days together the silence is unbroken even by the wind. The coloring too is so varied, so gorgeous, and at times so fantastic, that any attempt to convey an idea of it either by words or on canvas must fail. In winter the peninsula is frequently visited by heavy gales of wind unaccompanied by rain, and the effect of these in the mountains is wonderfully grand. Whirlwinds often start up like magic from the beds of the valleys, and hurry along with great force until they are broken by some obstacle; and on the plains the khamasin blows, parching and drying up the air, and striking the face like a blast from a furnace; the whole air is filled with fine sand, which penetrates everywhere and presents the appearance of a dense haze, while sometimes the heavier particles are caught up and driven across the level ground in a wild sand storm. The average annual rainfall is small, but it varies in different years; snow falls every year on the higher mountains, though never lying long, and rarely reaching below fifty-five hundred feet above the sea. The peninsula is subject to violent rain-storms, which fill the dry beds of the valleys with roaring torrents, and are sometimes attended with loss of life. Wilson.

Productiveness; Rainfall; Plant and Animal Life.

It is a mistake to suppose that the wilderness offered no means of support to those who inhabited it. Even now it sustains a not inconsiderable population, and there is abundant evidence that, before neglect and ravages had brought it to its present state, it could, and did, support a very much larger number of people. There were always Egyptian colonies engaged in working its large copper, iron, and turquoise mines, and these settlers would have looked well to its springs and cultivated spots. Nor could the Israelites, any more than the modern Bedouin, have had difficulty in supporting, in the desert, their numerous herds and flocks. These would again supply them with milk and cheese, and occasionally with meat. A. E.

Long before the children of Israel marched through the wilderness, the mines were worked by the Egyptians, and the destruction of trees was probably going on. It is a well-known fact that the rainfall of a country depends in a great measure upon the abundance of its trees. The destruction of the trees in Sinai has, no doubt, diminished the rainfall, which has also gradually been lessened by the advance of the desert, and decrease of cultivation on the north and northwest; whereby a large rain-making area has been gradually removed. Holland.

Ample proof exists that the Sinaitic peninsula was, in old time, a well-wooded region. To this day trunks of palm-trees are often washed up on the shores of the Red Sea, as silent witnesses of rushing floods sweeping down valleys, whence water and palm-trees have for centuries disappeared. Travellers constantly find remains of dwellings of stone, gardens, and enclosures, testifying to the existence, in past ages, of a settled population; and even as late as the sixth and seventh centuries of our era numerous inhabitants existed in regions now utterly desolate. Even now the rainfall absolutely is not inconsiderable, but nothing is done to husband it.

Before the country was denuded of woods it must have been very large, lying, as the Peninsula of Sinai does, just north of the great Indian Ocean, whence every southern wind would come laden with clouds. But the whole country has been so ravaged by the Arabs, both before and since the time of Mahomet, that all its fertility has disappeared, and yearly it sinks still lower in the scale. For the Bedouins ruthlessly destroy the remaining acacia-trees to make them into charcoal, which now forms the chief—perhaps it might be said the only—traffic of the peninsula. R. P. S.

There is no doubt that the vegetation of the wadies has considerably decreased from the violence of the winter torrents, the reckless waste of the Bedouin tribes (who have of late years ruthlessly destroyed the acacia-trees for charcoal). The Wady er-Rahab (at Sinai), which was “a vast green plain” in the sixteenth century, is now entirely bare. Seetzen gives a list of sixty-three places as a proof that the region from the Hijaz to the neighborhood of Damascus, now arid and desolate, was once extremely populous. The gardens at the Wells of Moses (Ayun Musa) and at Mount Sinai are conspicuous examples of successful attempts to produce vegetation in this desert. There seems to be no deficiency of rain. Human fostering hands might extend the prospect of possible resources from the present “transparent coating of vegetation” in the wilderness of Sinai to a point as far in excess of present facts as were the numbers of the Israelitish host above the six thousand Bedouins computed now to form the population of the desert. R. S. Poole.

That rain actually fell during the passage of the Israelites through the country we learn from Ps. 68:7-9. “The earth shook, the heavens also dropped at the presence of God.” “Thou, O God, didst send a plentiful rain,” etc. And such passages as “the clouds poured out water” (Ps. 77:17), where the allusion is evidently to Sinai, also tend to confirm the supposition that the peninsula was better supplied with water at the time of the exodus. Prof. Palmer.

Wherever there is running water, abundant vegetation is found; the gardens in the valleys round Jebel Musa are well stocked with fruit-trees, and in the lower valleys there are fertile and beautiful oases, such as the great palm-grove in Wady Feiran, and the lesser-known oases of Dhahab, En Nuweibeh, Ain Hudherah, Hebran, Tor, etc. The general vegetation is sparse, but there are not wanting indications that it was formerly more plentiful, and even now there is, at certain seasons of the year, a considerable amount of vegetation on the upland plains. The rimth, abeithiran, shiah, marr, sekkerae, the rose of Jericho, and other almost sapless herbs and shrubs peculiar to desert soils, are found at different altitudes, affording sufficient pasturage for the Bedawi flocks and herds; and after the winter rains small patches of grass may be seen on the hill-sides, creeping plants of various kinds come to life, and in some places the ground is covered with a profusion of small flowers. Of larger trees, the tarjah, or tamarisk, from which the traditional manna exudes, occurs in several localities, often in dense thickets; the ban-tree grows on the sides of the hills; the retem, or broom, the “juniper” of the Bible, under which Elijah “lay and slept,” is found in most of the valleys, and puts forth in spring beautiful white and purple blossoms; while the plains and open valleys are dotted with the sepal, or acacia, the “shittah-tree” used so largely in the construction of the tabernacle and ark of the tabernacle. Wilson.

In every wady which descends from the dark range of the Tih Mountains to the Ped Sea is a long line of vegetation; and almost everywhere in these wadies water, more or less potable, could be obtained by digging. In many places, as in Wady Gharandel and Wady Hamr, springs exist from which camels and Arabs can drink. In the wadies and on the plateaus there are hundreds of species of plants, many of them annuals, with no great depth of root, and others very succulent, and suggesting, by their fat, juicy leaves, a copious source of moisture beneath or above the soil. In many places there are thickets of acacias, tamarisks, palms, retem (juniper), jujube, and other trees and bushes, furnishing fuel, pasturage, and a certain amount of fruit. In addition to these springless regions, with moisture enough beneath the surface to support the growth of trees, shrubs, and herbs, there are a number of oases, in which are gardens, wells, and even streams of limpid, drinkable water. In the Tih, where, in place of the rugged mountain-chains and narrow wadies of Sinai, there is a broad plateau traversed by low ranges of barren hills, there are some tracts of soil, from which, in seasons when rain falls, abundant harvests can be gathered. Throughout Sinai and the Tih there are at times copious rains, as the complete denudation of the mountains of soil and the great granite and sandstone bowlders carried down by the torrents testify. There are, in several of the wadies, remnants of lacustrine deposits, which show that dikes must once have crossed and dammed up the valleys, and that chains of lakes existed.

There is also considerable animal life in the desert. The ibex and gazelle, and many small mammals, and lizards and snakes, exist among the mountains of Sinai. Birds of many kinds abound in the various regions of the wilderness. The Arabs raise large droves of camels and asses, and, in some places, sheep and goats. For all these animals there are watering places, known to themselves and their masters, and they all find pasturage. Pos'.

Mount Serbal, and the View from its Highest Peak.

Serbal, next to Sinai, is the most interesting mountain in the peninsula. It is even more grand and striking in outline than its honored rival. It rises high above the neighboring summits—“all in lilac hues and purple shadows,” as the morning sun sheds upon it his bright beams. It is a vast mass of peaks. The highest peak is a huge block of granite. On this you stand and overlook the whole Peninsula of Sinai. The Red Sea with the Egyptian hills opposite, on the east the vast cluster of what is commonly called Sinai, and towering high above all, the less famous but most magnificent of all, the Mont Blanc of these parts, the unknown and unvisited Umm Shomer. Porter.

The entire Sinaitic group presents the most impressive indications of the terrible convulsions by which its labyrinth of mountain heights has been rent and torn since its first upheaval. From the summit of Mount Serbal, as from a watch-tower in high heaven, one looks down upon a perfect sea of mountain ridges, often precipitous, always intensely steep, and culminating in a sharp edge at the height of two, three, or four thousand feet from their base. The entire line of these mountains is seen to have been rent transversely by clefts from the base to the summit, filled with injections of basaltic rocks, striping the mountain on every side with black bands. The whole assemblage is a perfect ganglion of ridges thrown up in wild confusion with its strata dislocated, disjointed, dipping in all directions and at every angle from horizontal to perpendicular. The mountains of Sinai form no system, no regular ranges, like the Alps, the Apennines, the Pyrenees, or the mountains of America. Coleman.

The view from Mount Serbal was wide, and in its kind superb—a vast mass of seamed, ragged, bare, parti-colored mountains, intersected by a twisted maze of deep narrow valleys, that were sharply marked by their sand-colored beds. Its wildness seemed like a caprice of Nature—a peep into some other world, almost as strange as the surface of the moon seen through a powerful telescope. It was such a scene as can be witnessed probably nowhere else but on this peninsula; and it well repaid the toil. Our starting-point at Suez was indicated by the clear peak of Jebel Atakah, south of which could be seen the long line of African mountains, and on this side the blue waters of the Red Sea. We could see where we had crossed the plain of El Murkha, the mouth of Wady Feiran, and south of that the long, unbroken plain of El Gaah, the palm-grove of Tor, the depression that forms the end of Wady Hebran. From Jebel Atakah eastward the eye ran along the range of et Tih, the heights of Sarabit el Khadim, the sand-plain of Debbet er Ramleh, and apparently the mountains of Edom in the northeast, till it rested upon St. Catherine and Umm Shomer, of the Sinai group, in the southeast. In the circle between lay Wadies Feiran, es-Sheikh, Solaf, and a whole network of valleys twined round among this mass of dark-red mountains, rendered as distinct to the eye by their lighter beds as though they had been purposely colored on a map. The geography of the peninsula indeed lay here almost completely mapped out to the sight. Thus we could trace the whole coastline as far as Tor, and see the entire practicableness of a journey to the mouth of Wady Hebran. S. C. B.

Serbal rises so perpendicularly that its five separate masses appear like gigantic columns, lifting their heads against the sky. We stood on the brow of a precipice, which might well make one shudder as he advanced to the point of the cliff, and looked over to a depth of four thousand feet. We saw beneath us a panorama as extensive as that seen from the Righi; but instead of the smiling cantons of Switzerland, with green fields and waving forests and crystal lakes, we saw only the barrenness of utter desolation, yet in such awful forms as produced an impression of indescribable grandeur. All round us the horizon was piled with mountains. Indeed the whole peninsula is a sea of mountains, in which peaks on peaks are tossed up like waves. It seems as if they had been thrown up out of a lake of fire; as if in a remote geological period, when the body of our planet was a molten mass, and material forces were acting with an intensity and violence of which we have no conception, in some tremendous convulsion the flaming crests were tossed against the sky, and then suddenly arrested by the Creator’s hand, which held them fixed in their utmost wildness, so to remain forever. Between these awful mountains, and winding round among them in countless turnings, are the wadies or river beds, through which in the time of rains and storms there pour furious torrents, which as quickly pass away to the sea, leaving behind them only the traces of the ruin they have made. Of these wadies, one here obtains the most complete view. See how they wind and wind, turning hither and thither in endless confusion! Here then we have the complete anatomy of the Sinaitic peninsula. One takes it in at a glance in its whole extent, from end to end, and from side to side. It is enclosed on the east and the west by the two arms of the Red Sea—the Gulfs of Suez and of Akaba. The former seemed to lie at our feet, and following it with the eye, we could almost see the city of Suez itself. The Gulf of Akaba was farther away, and was hidden from us by intervening mountains. It lies in a depression, but over it and beyond it we saw distinctly the long range of the mountains of Arabia, as across the Gulf of Suez we saw the mountains of Africa; while southward rose the great heights of Mount

Catherine and Umm Shomer. What a glorious vision of mountains to be embraced in one view! One such sight were enough to repay a hundred times the fatigue of our climb to the summit of Serbal. And what memories did those names recall! That Gulf of Suez was the sea across which Moses led the Israelites; on the Gulf of Akaba sailed the fleets of Solomon; while turning northward the eye rested on a long line of white cliffs—the escarpment of a tableland which was the Great and Terrible Wilderness in which the Israelites wandered forty years. Thus a wonderful nature was chosen for a wonderful history. It is this mingling of the moral sublime with the sublime in nature which makes the great interest of the Peninsula of Sinai. Beyond all the stupendous altitudes of the mountains, beyond the Alpine heights and fathomless abysses, in power to stir the soul with awe, is the human history that has been enacted amid these great forms of nature. F-eld.

THREE ENCAMPMENTS. DOPHKAH AND ALUSH. REPHIDIM: IN FEIRAN OR ES SHEIKH? SMITING THE ROCK. BATTLE WITH AMALEK.