HOBAE.
1. After having been thus about a year in the midst of this mountainous region, the Israelites broke up their encampment and began their journey in the or- der of their tribes, Judah leading the way with the ark of the covenant, imder the guidance of the direct- ing cloud (Numb, ix, 15 sq. ; x, 11 sq.). They doubt- less proceeded down wady Sheik, having the wilder- ness of Paran (Debbet er-Ramleh) before them, in a northerly direction ; but having come to a gorge in the mountams not far from Sinai, the}- appear to have struck in a north-easterly direction across some low swells into wady Sal, where the subsequent route obliges us to place the station Taberah. It took the army three daj's to reach this station. Whatever name the place bore before, it now received that of Taberah (fire), from a supernatural fire with which murmurers, in the extreme parts of the camp, were de- stroyed as a punishment for their guilt. Here, too, the mixed multitude that was among the Israelites not onh' fell a-lusting themselves, but also excited the He- brews to remember Eg3'ptian fish and vegetables with strong desire, and to complain of the divinely supplied manna. The discontent was intense and widely spread. Moses became aware of it, and forthwith felt his spirit misgive him. He brings the matter before Jehovah, and receives divine aid bj' the appointment of seventy elders to assist him in the important and perilous office of governing the gross, sensuous, and self-willed myr- iads whom he had to lead to Canaan. Moreover, an abundance of flesh-meat was given in a most profuse supply of quails. It appears that there were now 600,000 footmen in the congregation. See Taberah.
2. The next station was Kibroth-hattaavah (proba- bly at the intersection of their north-easterly course with ^L•adl| Murrali), near which there are fine springs and excellent pasturage. This spot, the name of which signifies "graves of lust," was so denominated from a plague inflicted on the people in punishment of their rebellious disposition (Numb, xi, 33; 1 Cor. x, C). Raumer {BeitrUge z. lib. Geog. p. 6, also Palast. Is50, p. 442) infers from Deut. i, 3, that Dizahab (now Dahali) lav on the route of the Israelites, and there- fore identifies it with Kibrotli-hattavah ; but this is improbable, and requires a large detour. See Ki-
HROTH-HATTAAVAII.
3. Thence they journeyed to Hazeroth, which Rob- inson, after Burckhardt, finds in cl-IIudherah, where is a fountain, together with palm-trees. " The deter- mination of this point," says Robinson, "is perhaps of more importance in Biblical bistort' than would at first appear; for, if this position be adopted for Ha- zeroth, it settles at once the question as to the whole route of the Israelites between Sinai and Kadesh. It shows that they must have followed the route upon
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405
EXODE
which we now were to the sea, and so along the coast to Akabah (at the head of the eastern arm of the Red Sea), and thence, probably, through the great wad}' el-'Arabah to Kadesh. Indeed, such is the nature of the country, that, having once arrived at this fountain, they could not well have varied their course so as to keep aloof from the sea, and continue along the high plateau of the western desert" (i, 2-23). A glance at Kiepert's, or anj' map showing the region in detail, will show that a choice of two main routes exists, in order to cross the intervening space between Sinai and Canaan, which they ccrtainlj^ approached in the first instance on the southern, and not on the eastern side. Here tlio higher plateau surmounting the Tih region would almost certainly, assuming the main features of the wilderness to have been then as they are now, have compelled them to turn its western side nearly by the route bj' which Seetzen came in the opposite direction from Hebron to Sinai, or to turn it on the east b}' going up the 'Arabah, or between the 'Arabali and the higher plateau. Over its southern face there is no pass, and hence the roads from Sinai, and those from Petra towards Gaza and Hebron, all converge into one of two trunk-lines of route (Robinson, i, 147, 151, 2 ; ii, 18(5). One reason for thinking that they did not strike northwards across the Tih range from Sinai is Moses's question when they murmur, "Shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them, to suffice them?" which is natural enough if they were rapidly nearing the Gulf of 'Akabah, but strange if they were posting towards the inland heart of the des- ert. Again, the quails are brought In' "a wind from the sea" (Numb, xi, 22,31); and various travellers (Burckhardt, Schubert, Stanley) testify to the occur- rence of vast flights of birds in this precise region be- tween Sinai and 'Akabah. Again, Hazeroth, the next station after these, is coupled with Dizahab, which last seems undoubtedly the Dahab on the shore of that gulf (Deut. i, 1, and Robinson, ii, GOO, note). This makes a seaward position likely for Hazeroth. Now as Taberah, previously' reached, was three days' jour- ney or more from the wilderness of Sinai, the}' had probabl}'^ advanced that distance towards the north- east and 'Akabah ; and the distance required for this will bring us so near el-IIvidherah (the spot which Robinson thought represented Hazeroth in fact, as it seems to do in name), that it may be accepted as a highh' probable site. Thus they were now not far from the coast of the Gulf of 'Akal)ah. A spot which seems almost certain to attract their course was the wadj' el-'Ain, being the water, the spring of that region of the desert, which would have drawn around it such " nomadic settlements as are implied in the name of Hazeroth, and such as that of Israel must have been" (Stanlej-, p. 82). Stanley nevertheless thinks this identification of Hazeroth a "faint probability," and the more uncertain as regards identitj', "as the name Hazeroth is one of the least likely to be attached to an}' permanent or natural feature of the desert," meaning "simply the inclosures, such as may still be seen in the Bedouin villages, hardly less transitor}' than tents" (Sinai and Palestine, p. 81, 82). We rel}', however, as much on the combination of the various circumstances mentioned above as on the name. The wady Huderah and wady el-'Ain appear to run nearly parallel with each other, from south-west to north-east, nearly from the eastern extremity of the wady es- Sheikh, and their north-east extremity comes nearly to the coast, marking about a midway distance be- tween the Jebel Musa and 'Akabah. After reaching the sea, however, at Ain el-Wascit, the Israelites may have made a detour by way of wady Wetir nearly to its head, and thence passed through the water-course running directly northward into the Derb es-Sanna, thence around the northern face of Jebel Herte, down wady Hessi and wady Kureiyeh to the sea again ; thus avoiding the narrow shore and the difficult pass across