practicable routes, but the former the easier. It is a reasonable suggestion that both may have boen utilised, and that the two portions of the congrega- tion, reuniting where the above-mentioned wadys converge, thus entered the Wady er Rahah, "the enclosed plain in front of the magnificent cliffs of Ras SufsMeh," 1 which is now generally admitted to be "the wilderness of Sinai" (Ex. xix. 1), tho camping-ground in which the Israelites assembled to see the Lord "come down upon Mount Sinai " (£b. ver. 11 ). The southern extremity of the mountain, once preferred by many 2 as the probable scene of the descent, is found to have no plain at all at its base, and no place within moderate distance at all suited for a great assembly. 3 Er Rahah and Ras Sufsafeh, on the other hand, answer all the conditions. " No one," says Dean Stanley,4 "who has approached the Ras Sasafeh (Sufsafeh) through that noble plain, or who has looked down upon the plain from that majestic height, will willingly part with the belief that these are the two essential features of the view of the Israelite camp. That such a plain should exist at all in front of such a cliff is so remarkable a coincidence with the sacred narrative as to furnish a strong internal argument, not merely of its identity with the scene, but of the scene itself having been described by an eye-witness. The awful and lengthened approach, as to some natural sanctuary, would have been the fittest preparation for the coming scene. The low line of alluvial mounds at the foot of the cliff exactly answer [?} to the ' bounds' which were to keep the people off from 'touching the mount.' The plain itself is not broken and uneven and narrowly shut in, like almost all others in the range, but presents a long retiring sweep, against which the people could 'remove and stand afar off.' The cliff, rising like a huge altar in front of the whole congregation, and visible against the sky in lonely grandeur from end to end of the whole plain, is the very image of 'the mount that might be touched,' and from which the voice of God might be heard far and wide over the stillness of the plain below, widened at that point to its utmost extent by the confluence of all the contiguous valleys." The opinion here stated rests upon such solid grounds that further exploration can scarcely shake it. The latest and most scientific explorers have given to it their full adhesion. And the trigonometrical survey which these explorers made of the entire neighbour- hood has converted one, 6 who was strongly inclined to the rival view, into a zealous advocate of the opinion here set forth. Finally, the judgment of Sir Henry James, one of our best engineers, coincides with that of the
1 Stanley, p. 42. . • As Ritter, Ke.lisch, Wellsted, Laborde, Strauss, and others. • So far 118 I know, this W118 first pointed out by Dean Stanley in 1856 (' Sinai and Palestine, pp. 75-6). His judgment on the point was completely confirmed by the eng,..neers who ruadc lhe Ordnance Survey in 1868. • ' Sinai and Palestine,' pp. 42-3. • Canon Cook (See the' Spe11ker's Commentary,' vol. i. pt. i. pp. H0-1.) ux,·iii INTRODUCTION.
~fficers who made the survey. Sir Henry believes that "no spot in the world can be pointed out which combines in a more remarkable manner the conditions of a commanding height and of a plain in every part of whioh the sights and sounds described in Exodus would reach an assembled multitude of more than two million souls." 1 There would seem, therefore, to be no reasonable doubt that Sinai and its wilderness have boon identified, and that the Law was given from Ras Sufsafeh to the people of Israel assembled in the Wady of Er Rahah.
LITERATURE OF Ex.onus.