Page:The Northern Ḥeǧâz (1926).djvu/314

 month (Ex., 16: 1); from Êlîm to the camp opposite Mount Sinai it took at least sixteen days (Ex., 19: 1 ff.); but they were then advancing much more slowly, as they felt themselves in no danger.

Around Mount Sinai visible bounds were to be set (Ex., 19:12), which the people were forbidden to cross under penalty of stoning and death. Sinai must, therefore, have been an isolated peak, presumably near the šeʻîb of al-Ḫrob on the northeastern border of the undulating plain of al-Hrajbe.

According to Exodus, 19: 16, thunder rumbled, lightning flashed, a heavy cloud rested on the mountain, and a loud voice of a trumpet was heard, so that the people trembled. Moses led the people out of the camp (Ex., 19: 17) and drew them up at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was entirely wrapped in smoke (Ex., 19: 18) because Jehovah had descended upon it in fire, and the smoke from it arose as the smoke from a furnace. The cloud rested on the mountain for six days (Ex., 24: 16).—Many of these phenomena seem to indicate that Sinai was a volcano, but the description is fundamentally different from that of an active volcano. Moreover, it cannot be supposed that Moses would have encamped with the people in the vicinity of an active volcano. The land of Madian, the only place where we can locate Mount Sinai, has always been a notably volcanic region. In the southern half of Madian there is an abundance of volcanoes, many of which were active not only in the middle of the second millennium before Christ but as recently as four to six hundred years ago. The poetical description of the phenomena accompanying the descent of the Lord upon the mountain must have been taken from actual experience, and the punishment incurred by those who crossed the bounds and encroached upon the mountain was the usual one among the tribes guarding sacred places. Not wishing to touch the culprit, they would discharge arrows at him if he was some distance away or throw stones at him if he was near by.

We have no other particulars indicating the position of Mount Sinai. In Deuteronomy, 33: 2, it is mentioned that Jehovah came from Sinai and shone to his people from Seʻîr; he gleamed from Mount Pârân and came from Merîbat Ḳadeš.—

Concerning Seʻîr, we know that it extends to the south-southeast of the Dead Sea. Pârân is situated to the south of the Dead Sea, parallel with the southern part of Seʻîr. Merîbat Ḳadeš is located on the northern border of Pârân near Petra by Seʻîr. As, therefore, all the places through which Jehovah passed with the Israelites are situated to the south and southeast of the Dead Sea, we must look for Sinai also in the same direction, and this brings us to the land of Madian.

According to Judges, 5: 4—5, Deborah praised Jehovah, who came out of Seʻîr and proceeded from the fields of Edom. The mountains trembled before Jehovah; even Sinai, before Jehovah, the God of Israel.

“Even Sinai” is certainly a remark of the expositor. It was thence taken by Psalms, 68: 9; but in Psalms, 68: 18, it is directly stated that God came from Sinai, and in Nehemiah, 9: 13, it is noted that God descended upon Mount Sinai, where he gave the laws.—

From this it is clear that one tradition calls the mountain of God Ḥoreb, the other Sinai, but that in both the same place is meant. This place must be located in the land of Madian to the southeast of the modern settlement of al-ʻAḳaba.