We find in the Bible a geographical name which has the form of a gentile noun derived from Sin, and is usu- allv held to a[)ply to two ditferent nations, neither con- nected with the city Sin. In the list of the descendants of Noah, the Sinite, "'pD, occurs among the sons of Ca- naan (Gen. X, 17; 1 Chron. i, 15). This people, frum its place between the Arkite and the Arvadite, has been supposed to have settled in Syria north of Palestine, where similar names occur in classical geography, and have been alleged in contirmation. Tiiis theory would not, however, necessarilv imply that the whole tribe was there settled, and the supposed traces of the name are by no means conclusive. On the other hand, it must be observed that some of the eastern towns of Lower Egypt have Hebrew as well as Egyptian names, as Heliopulis and Tanis; that those very near the bor- der seem to have borne only Hebrew names, as Migdol; so that we have an indication of a Shemitic influence in this part of Egypt, diminishing in degree according to the distance from the border. It is difficult to ac- count for this influence by the single circumstance of the Shepherd invasion of Egypt, especially as it is shown yet more strikingly by the remarkably strong- characteristics which have distinguished the inhabi- tants of North-eastern Egypt from their fellow-country- men from the days of Herodotus and Achilles Tatius to our own. Nor must we pass by the statement of the former of these writers that the Palestine Syrians dwelt westward of the Arabians to the eastern boundary of Egypt (iii, 5). Therefore it does not seem a violent hypothesis that the Sinites were connected with Pelu- siura, though their main body may perhaps have settled much farther to the north. The distance is not greater than that between the Hittites of Southern Palestine and those of the valley of the Orontes, although the separation of the less powerful Hivites into those dwell- ing beneath Mount Hermon and the inhabitants of the small confederacy of which Gibeon was ajiparently the head is perhaps nearer to our supposed case. If the wilderness of Sin owed its name to Pelusium, this is an evidence of the very early importance of the town and its connection with Arabia, which would perhaps be strange in the case of a purely Egyptian town. The conjecture we have put forth suggests a recurrence to the old explanation of the famous mention of " the land of Sinim," n^3"'D yiX, in Isaiah (xlix, 12), supposed by some to refer to China. This would appear from the context to be a very remote region. It is mentioned after the north and the west, and would seem to be in a southern or eastern direction. Sin is certainly liot re- mote, nor is tiie supposed place of the Sinites to the north of Palestine; but the expression may be prover- bial. The people of Pelusium, if of Canaanitish origin, were certainly remote compared to most of the other Canaanites, and were separated by alien peoples, and it is also noticeable that they were to the south-east of Pales- tine. As the sea bordering Palestine came to designate the west, as in tiiis passage, so the land of Sinim may liave passed into a proverl)ial cx|)ression for a distant and separated country. See, however, Sinim; Sinitk.
2. A " wilderness" ("|^p"~i3'l'p ; Sept. tpjjjuoc S/v ; Vidg. (kxertum Sin) which the Israelites reached after leaving the encampment by the Hed Sea (Numb, xxxiii, 1 1, 12). Their next halling-jjlace (Exod. xvi, 1 ; xvii. 1 ) was Rephidim, either Wady Ecirfin, or the mouth of Wady es-Shcikh [see Uki'IIIOI.m] ; on which supposition it would follow that Sin must lie between those wadies and the coast of the (Iidf of Suez, and of course west of Sinai. Since the)' were by this lime gone more tiian a month from Egypt, the locality must lie too far towards the S(»ulh-east to receive its name from the Egyptian
Sin of Ezek. xxx, 15, called Sai'c by the Sept., and identitied with Pelusium. (See above.) In the wilder- ness of Sin the manna was first gathered, and those who adopt the supposition that this \vas merely the natural product of the t(irf<i bush find from the abundance of that shndj in Wady es-Sheikh, south-east of Wady (ihurundel, a proof of h)cal identity. See Elim. As the previous encampment by the Ked Sea must have been in the plain of Mukhah, the "wilderness of Sin" could not well have been other than the present plain el-Kan, wiiich commences at the mouth of Wady Tai- yibeh, and extends along the whole south-western side of the peninsida. At first narrow, and interrupted by spurs from the mountains, it soon expands into an un- dulating, dreary waste, covered in part with a white gravelly soil, and in part with sand. Its desolate as- pect appears to have produced a most depressing effect upon the Israelites. Shut in on the one hand by the sea, on the other by the wild mountains, exposed to the full blaze of a burning sun, on that bleak plain, the stock of provisions brought from Egypt now exhausted — we can scarcely wonder that the^' said to Moses, " Would to (lod we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh-pots, when we did eat bread to the full ; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger" (Exod. xvi, 3). See Exodk.