for pasture, supply themselves with water, and wait for flocks of goats and sheep which were always behind. The quickest and most convenient way for them to get away from the sphere of Egyptian authority was upon the transport route leading from Egypt to the northern extremity of the Gulf of al-ʻAḳaba. Upon this route the leader proceeded with his retinue, while the remainder of the Israelites marched with their flocks to the right and left of the route but parallel with it.
If today a tribe numbering five thousand familʻes migrates with its flocks, it forms a column at least twenty kilometers wide and five kilometers deep. The wider the line is, the more pasture the flocks will find, but the more will they lag behind and run the risk of being cut off on their flanks; the deeper it is, the less pasture will remain for the flocks in the rear, the more confusion and disorder there will be, but all the greater will be the facility of repelling a hostile attack.
If the Israelites migrated from Egypt in the month of March and if there had been an abundance of rain on the peninsula of Sinai that year they would have found rain pools of various sizes in all the cavities and in all the hollows of the various river beds, and they could comfortably have replenished their water bags and watered their flocks. Where they had to depend only on wells or deep cisterns, the filling of the water bags and the watering of the cattle would have occasioned them much labor.
We do not know the location of the spot which, because of its bitter water, the Israelites called Mara’ (Bitter).
From Mara’ they reached Êlîm (Ex., 15: 27), where there were twelve springs and seventy palm trees.
If we admit that the Israelites proceeded on the great transport route, we must locate Êlîm in the immediate vicinity of the modern settlement of al-ʻAḳaba, where there are countless springs, where at every spot it is possible to obtain water by digging to a depth of one-half a meter to two meters, and where there are numerous palm trees. I identify this Êlîm with Êl Pârân (Gen., 14: 6) and with the later city of Elôth or Elath (1 Kings, 9: 26; 2 Kings, 14: 22). It is not necessary to locate the camp of the Israelites in the settlement itself, which at that time certainly stood the same important spot; but, rather, two or three kilometers to the west of the settlement, where even today there are several palm groves and where there used to be a ford across the narrow arm of the sea extending as far as ʻEṣjôngeber (Ṛaḍjân and al-Ǧbêl).
According to Exodus, 16: 1, the Israelites went from Egypt to Êlîm within a month. This, of course, is only an approximate statement, as we do not know how long they were in passing through Egypt proper and how many weeks their march through the peninsula of Sinai lasted. From Êlîm (Ex., 16: 1) they entered the wilderness of Sîn, “which is between Êlîm and Sinai,” Knowing the situation of the land of Madian, in which rises Mount Ḥoreb, we know also the direction in which the Israelites departed from Êlîm. They still remained on the great transport route and moved in a southeasterly direction, at first along the shore itself and later at a distance of twenty-five kilometers from the shore of the Gulf of al-ʻAḳaba. According to this interpretation Sîn denotes the mountain range to the east of the Gulf of al-ʻAḳaba. This tallies with Judges, 11: 16,