Page:Keil and Delitzsch,Biblical commentary the old testament the pentateuch, trad James Martin, volume 1, 1885.djvu/560

pi being simply the Egyptian article), which name has undoubtedly been preserved in the Ajrud mentioned by Edrisi in the middle of the twelfth century. At present this is simply a fort, which a well 250 feet deep, the water of which is so bitter, however, that camels can hardly drink it. It stands on the pilgrim road from Kahira to Mecca, four hours' journey to the north-west of Suez (vid., Robinson, Pal. i. p. 65). A plain, nearly ten miles long and about as many broad, stretches from Ajrud to the sea to the west of Suez, and from the foot of Atâkah to the arm of the sea on the north of Suez (Robinson, Pal. i. 65). This plain most probably served the Israelites as a place of encampment, so that they encamped before, i.e., to the east of, Ajrud towards the sea. The other places just also be sought in the neighbourhood of Hachiroth (Ajrud), though no traces of them have been discovered yet. Migdol cannot be the Migdol twelve Roman miles to the south of Pelusium, which formed the north-eastern boundary of Egypt (Eze 29:10), for according to Num 33:7, Israel encamped before Migdol; nor is it to be sought for in the hill and mountain-pass called Montala by Burckhardt, el Muntala by Robinson (pp. 63, 64), two hours' journey to the northwest of Ajrud, as Knobel supposes, for this hill lies too far to the west, and when looked at from the sea is almost behind Ajrud; so that the expression “encamping before Migdol” does not suit this situation, not to mention the fact that a tower (מגדּל) does not indicate a watch-tower (מצפּה). Migdol was probably to the south of Ajrud, on one of the heights of the Atâkah, and near it, though more to the south-east, Baalzephon (locus Typhonis), which Michaelis and Forster suppose to be Heroopolis, whilst Knobel places it on the eastern shore, and others to the south of Hachiroth. If Israel therefore did not go straight into the desert from Etham, on the border of the desert, but went southwards into the plain of Suez, to the west of the head of the Red Sea, they were obliged to bend round, i.e., “to turn” from the road they had taken first. The distance from Etham to the place of encampment at Hachiroth must be at least a six hours' journey (a tolerable day's journey, therefore, for a whole nation), as the road from Suez to Ajrud takes four hours (Robinson, i. p. 66).
This turn in their route was not out of the way for the passage through the Red Sea; but apart from this, it was not only out of the way, but a very foolish way, according to human judgment. God commanded Moses to take this road, that He might be honoured upon Pharaoh, and show the Egyptians that He was Jehovah (cf. Exo 14:30, Exo 14:31). Pharaoh would say of the Israelites, They have lost their way; they are wandering about in confusion; the desert has shut them in, as in a prison upon which the door is shut (על סנר as in Job 12:14); and in his obduracy he would resolve to go after them with his army, and