is, least the people should rise against them, and destroy them.
There was another way which led south-west, upon Beer-sheba and Hebron, in the middle, between the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean. This was the direction in which Abraham, Lot, and Jacob, are supposed to have reached Egypt. But there was neither food nor water there to sustain the Israelites. When Abraham and Lot returned out of Egypt, they were obliged to separate by consent, because Abraham said to his brother, "The land will not bear us both*[1]."
The third way was straight east into Arabia, pretty much the road by which the Pilgrims go at this day to Mecca, and the caravans from Suez to Cairo. In this track they would have gone round by the mountains of Moab, east of the Dead Sea, and passed Jordan in the plain opposite to Jericho, as they did forty years afterwards. But it is plain from scripture, that God's counsels were to make Pharaoh and his Egyptians an example of his vengeance; and, as none of these roads led to the sea, they did not answer the Divine intention.
About twelve leagues from the sea, there was a narrow road which turned to the right, between the mountains, through a valley called Badeab, where their course was nearly south-east; this valley ended in a pass, between two considerable mountains, called Gewoube on the south; and Jibbel Attakah on the north, and opened into the low stripe of
- ↑ * Gen. chap. xiii ver. 6th. Exod. chap. xiii. ver. 17th.
