EXPOSITION. all in front of such e. cliff is,'' e.s Dean Ste.nley CHAPTER XIX well remarks, " so reme.rke.ble e. coincidence Vers. f----2. - THE JOUBNEY TO MOUNT with the sacred ne.rre.tive, e.s to furnish a SINAI, From Rephidim in the Wady Feira.n, strong internal argument, not merely of its where they had discomfited A.malek ( eh. xvii identity with the scene, but of the scene itself 8----13), the Israelites moved towards Sinai, pro- having been described by an eye-witness " bably by the two passes known e.s We.dy SoW (Sinai and Palestine, pp. 42-3). All the e.nd We.dy-esh-Sheikh, which gradually con- surroundings a.re such e.s exactly suit the verge and meet e.t the entrance to the plain nD.ITative. " The awful and lengthened of Er-Ra.bah This plain is generally e.llowed e.pproe.ch, e.s to some nature.I sanctuary, would to be "the Desert of Sinai." It is " two have been the fittest preparation for the com- miles long, and he.lf-e.-mile broad" ( Our Work ing scene. The low line of e.lluvial mounds in Palestine, p. 268), nearly flat, e.nd dotted e.t the foot of the cliff exactly answers to the with tame.risk bushes. The mountains which ' bounds ' which were to keep the people 0~ enclose it have for the most pa.rt sloping sides, from • touching the mount.' The p!a.:.r e.nd form e. sort of natural amphitheatre. itself is not broken and uneven and narrowly The pie.in a.buts e.t its south-ea.stem extremity shut in, like e.lmost e.11 others in the range, on abrupt cliffs of granite rock rising from it but presents e. long retiring sweep, against nearly perpendicularly, and known e.s the Ras which the people could ' remove e.nd ste.nd Sufsilfeh. " That ~uch a pie.in should exist e.t a.far off ' The cliff, rising like a huge .tlt1.1r. in 104 THE BOOK OF EXODUS. [en. XIX. 1-2.
front of the whole congregation, and visible children of Israel, 889embled in the pie.ins ol against tl1e sky in lonely grnndeur from end to Er Rahah" (nitr WMk in Pale81ine, p. 26~). end of the whole pie.in, is the ,•ery ime.ge of Ver. l.-ln the third month. The month 'the m,unt thet might be touched,' e.nd from Sivan, corresr.onding nee.rlv with our June which t.he Yoicc of God might be hee.rd fe.r When the children of Ieraei were gone forth. and wide over the pie.in below, widened at Rather, "after the children of Israel he.cl gone forth,'' or " after the departure of the children the.I point to its utmost extent by the con- of Israel ou~ of the le.nd of Egypt." Com- fluence of ell the contiguous valleys. Here, po.re eh. xvi. 1, where the expression used is beyond ell other pe.rtl!I of the peninsnle., is the the sa.me. The BUD.e da:,. Literally, "on adylum, withdre.wn as if in the end • of the the.t day "-which ca.n only mean "on the day that the month began "---011 the 1st of Sivo.n. world,' from ell the stir and confosion of The wilderneaa of llinal. The plain Er-Rahe.h • earthly thingi;" (ib. p. 43). As &11 eminent as is now genere.lly allowed, since the tru~ engineer has observed-" No spot in the che.racter of the We.dy Sehaiyeh has been world can be pointed out which combines in shown by Dean Stanley (Sinai and Paleatine a more reme.rkable manner the conditions of p. 76) and others. Ver. 2.-The:, were departed from Reph a commanding height and of a plain in every idim. See the 'i01nment on eh. xvii. 1, and part of which the sights &nd sounds described compe.re Nnm. xxxiii. 15. There Israel en- in Exodus would reach &11 assembled multitude ca.U1ped before the mountain. The bulk of of more than t.wo million souls." Here the tents were no doubt pitched in the pie.in, then, "·e may well say, in the words UBed by Er-Ra.bah; but this may not he.ve sufficed, the most recent of scientific explorers, " was and some may have been located in the Wady- ed-Deir, north-east of the Bes Sufsifeh, and the scene of the giving of the le.w. From Bes others in the Seil-Leja to the west. The Bes Sufsa.feh the law we.s proclaimed to the Sufs&.feh is visible from both these valleys.
HOMILETICS. "rcr:;. 1-2.-Localitiu sha~to S'U,it Gorls moral purposes. It is scarcely possible to read the descriptions of the Sina.itic localities by modem travellers, who pointedly note their exact adaptation to the scenes transacted among them, without the feeling stealing upon us, tha.t God, in the countless a.ges during which he was shaping a.nd ordering the earth to be a. fitting ha.bita.tion for man was also arranging it in such sort as would best conduce to the exhibition upon it of those supernatural occurrences, which in his counsels were to constitute turning-points in the moral history of man. Ta.ke for inst&nce Jerusalem: a.re we to suppose tha.t the valleys were furrowed a.nd the rocky platform upraised by the elements acting mechanically, as chance might direct, or not rather that God lovingly shaped, a.ge after a.ge, the mount.a.in where he wa.s a.bout to set his name, and which was to be" the joy of the whole earth"? (Ps. xlvili. 2.) Rome a,,,<rain. with its eeven hills: was not this remarkable formation brought inLO existence to oonstitute the site for tha.t capital which wa.s to be, first and la.st, the pivot of the world's secular history; for five hundred years the sea.t .of a.n almost universal empire ; for a thollllll.nd the western ecclesiastical centre; a.nd having in the future possibilities which the wisest forecast ca.n only dimly indicate, but which transcend those of any other existing city. And, if in theBC cases Providence contrived and shaped the geographic features with a view to the future history, must it not have been the 8ame at ~inai ? Must not that vast granite cluster ha.ve been uprea.red in the place it holds by a series of throes which shook all the regions of the ea.st, in order that from it the law might be given in such a way as to impress men deeply? Must not the plain Er- Rahab have been washed by floods into its present level surface to furnish a. convenient 1,l.acc from which the multitudinous host of Israel might a.t once see and hear? Must 11ut the entire Sinaitic region have been so modelled, that here sho~d be the adytum-- bere and here alone in the entire dilltrict, sh-:>1tld be the natural" mmost sanctuary"- 1,er.etr<ile--" holy of holies "-the centre of attraction-the fit spot for supernatural events, on which the future of man.kine. W:LB to hinge for fourteen centuries? To us it ><eems, that God did not so much eelect for his supernatural communications with man the fittest of existing Joca.lities, as design the localities themselves with a view to the oorumunications, shaping them to suit hi1 moral purposes, OH. XIX. 1-2.] TUE BOOK OF EXODUS. 10{