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Taking it for granted, then, that the court of Pharaoh at the time was at Zoan, and that the Rameses of Exod., xii., 37, was at the place now called Abu Keisheid, we afford abundant opportunity for the frequent communications between Pharaoh and Israel, by the agency of Moses, which are mentioned in the Scripture narrative. The people were fully informed of these communications by Moses and Aaron from time to time, and were daily expecting leave to depart. At last, after repeated refusals on the part of Pharaoh, the Lord declared to Moses (Exod., xi., 1), that after "one plague more" the king would let Israel depart; and ordered him to " speak in the ears of the people, and let every man borrow of his neighbour, and every woman of her neighbour, jewels of silver and jewels of gold." Farther (chap. xii., 3),

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Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take unto them every man a lamb," &c.; "and ye shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month; and thus shall ye eat it, with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and ye shall eat it in haste." Moses, in giving his own directions to the elders on this sacrifice, tells them (ver. 22), "None of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning." Then came that night of terror, when the angel of Death visited every house in the land of Egypt, from the monarch's palace to the lowliest hovel. The proud heart of Pharaoh gave way, and he called for Moses and Aaron "by night," and said, "Rise up, and get you forth from among my people, both ye and the children of Israel."

From the above narrative three things may be gathered: first, that the people had indeed made preparation for departure, under the direction of Moses, before

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the fatal night of the fourteenth; but, secondly, that they were not gathered into any one place, but were scattered in "their houses" and "among the Egyptians” until that very night; and thirdly, therefore, that although Rameses was probably the headquarters of Moses, Aaron, and the elders, the host of Israel was not collected there.

Finally, the summons came. In the length and breadth of Goshen, from Heliopolis to the borders of Philistia, the terrified Egyptians urged the people of Israel to depart out of their land in haste: " and they departed from Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the month: on the morrow after the Passover the children of Israel went out with an high hand in the sight of all the Egyptians." From the Tanitish arm of the Nile, along the river bank even to Cairo, they streamed forth from their dwellings, and the long lines of men, women, and children, with caravans of flocks and herds, took their march in the direction of the "mountain" (Horeb) where God had commanded them to worship. The gathering hosts from all parts of the land would thus converge towards the head of the Gulf of Suez. Their first encampment was at Succoth. How much time elapsed before this halt is not stated, nor can the place of Succoth itself be determined, if, indeed, any particular town was so designated. The word means "booths." The next camping-place was Etham. Here, again, the time of journeying is not mentioned. The position of Etham cannot be accurately known, but it is stated (Exodus, xiii., 20; Num., xxxiii., 6) to be "in the edge of the wilderness." Probably it was in the eastern part of Egypt, north and west of the head of the gulf. Hengstenberg well remarks, that what "Rüppell says (Reise, i., p. 209) shows that the eastern part of Egypt deserves

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the name of a wilderness as well as Arabia Petræa." But as it was not in the wilderness, but on the edge of it, that Israel encamped, we may place Etham farther west than the hypothesis of those who advocate the view that the passage of the Red Sea was effected at Suez, will allow. Perhaps the encampment at Etham was not far from the water-shed between the Nile and the Gulf of Suez, in the neighbourhood of Gebel Aweibid. Thus far, the front of the advancing hosts, coming in whatsoever direction they might, had been directed towards Suez as their nearest route to Horeb. But at Etham their course was changed. "The Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they turn and encamp before Pi-ha-hiroth, between Migdol and the sea, over against Baalzephon: before it shall ye encamp by the sea. For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, They are entangled in the land; the wilderness hath shut them in" (Exodus, xiv., 1–3). This injunction must have at once arrested their march towards Suez. There is no "wilderness" in that neighbourhood of a character to give rise to any such expression on the part of Pharaoh. It was "by the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea," and not by the "wilderness of Etham," that God was to lead them; and that, too, in order to show his might by a miracle of deliverance, and his vengeance by the destruction of Pharaoh and his host. What Hengstenberg, with inimitable naïveté, calls "an inexplicable misunderstanding," through which the Israelites" thrust themselves again into the midst of danger," was the purpose of God, as is clearly set forth in the sacred narrative. God determined to "be honoured upon Pharaoh, that the Egyptians might know that he was the Lord."

Israel turned, then, to the right, and advancing south

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ward, passed up the Besatin road on the west of Gebel Atakah, and then bearing east, and passing between Gebel el-Gharboun and Gebel Atakah, came into the open country, which declines gently, as I remarked (before this digression as to the Exode), to the southeast, into the valley of Ramleyeh. At this point we resume the course of our own personal narrative.

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THE WILDERNESS.

CHAPTER X.

ROUTE OF THE ISRAELITES.

Wady et Tawarik. -"The Wilderness."-Gebel Atakah.-Pi-ha-hiroth.— The Red Sea.-Conditions of the Scripture Narrative not fulfilled at Suez. -Plain of Baideah.- Comparison of the different Routes proposed.— Raumer's View.-No limitation of the Times of journeying set in Scripture.-Conclusions.

THE Wady er Ramleyeh opens into the Wady et Tawarik, which leads directly down to the Red Sea. The chasm that connects them is a terrible defile, walled in on the south by dark, precipitous mountains, which a daring hunter could scarcely scale; and on the north, by the black and broken masses of Gebel Atakah, which preclude the possibility of passage in that direction. Both these ranges project into the sea on the east. When information was conveyed to Pharaoh that Israel had turned from the highway leading to the head of the gulf, and advanced into this "wilderness of the Red Sea," he said, "They are entangled in the land: the wilderness hath shut them in."-Exod., xiv., 3. On the third day we realized the full force of this declaration of Pharaoh, and how natural it was for him to resolve to pursue them, as it was impossible for them to escape out of that wilderness except through the sea; for as we descended the Valley of Ramleyeh about two o'clock P.M., the rugged and lofty mountains on the south projected across the valley and joined themselves to Gebel Atakah. They presented in front of us a dark, precipitous mountain wall, through which no passage appeared. We approached within a hundred yards of the frowning precipice before we could see a rent to