The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 441

NOTE ON THE TWO LISTS OF ST ATIONB BETWEEN EGYPT AND THE JORDAN, There can be no question that the chief interest of the Itinerary here given is due to its literary character as a document containing elements at least of extreme and unquestioned antiquity. At the same time it is a matter of some importance to com- pare it with the history as given at large in Exodus and Numbers, and to note cam- fully the points of contact and divergence. It is evident at first sight that no pains have been taken to make the two lists of stages agree, each list containing several names which the other lacks, and (in some cases) each having a name of its own for what appears to be the same place. With respect to the latter point, the explanation usually given seems quite natural and satisfactory: the names were in many cases given by the Israelites themselves, and in others were derived from some small local peculiarity, or belonged to insignificant hamlets, so that the same encampment may very well have received one name in the official record of the movements of the tnbemacle, and retained another in the popular recollection of the march. With respect to the former point, it may fairly be argued that the narrativb only records as a rule the names of places where something memorable occurred, and indeed does not always mention the place even then, while the Itinerary is simply concerned with the consecutive encampments as such. It would be more correct to say that the narrative is essentially fragmentary, and does not purport to record more than certain incidents of the wanderings. We have, therefore, no difficulty in understanding why the Itinerary gives us the nameR of three stations between Egypt and Mount Sinai not mentioned in Exodus. 1'here is much more difficulty with the ensuing notices, because the name of Kadesh only occurs once in the list, whereas it is absolutely necessary, in order to bring the narrative into any chronological sequence, to assume (what the narrative itself pretty clearly intimates) that there were two encampments at Kadesh, separated by an interval of more than thirty-eight years. It has accordingly been very generally agreed that the Rithmah of the Itinerary is identical with the nameless station " in the wilderness of Paran," afterwards called Kadesh in the narrative. This is of course an assumption which has only probabilities to support it, but it may fairly be said that there is nothing against it. The reeem, or broom, is so common that it mnst have given a name to many different spots-a name too common, and possessing too few associations, to stand its ground in popular remembrance against nny rival name (see note on ver. 18). It has been argued by some that the whole of the twenty-one stages enumerated in vers. 16-35 were made on the one journey from Sinai to Kadesh ; and as far as the mere number goes there is nothing improbable in the supposition; the "eleven days" of Deut. i. 2 are no doubt the days of ordinary travellers, not of women and children, flocks and herds. It is true that the supposition is commonly connected with a theory which throws the whole historical narrative into confusion, viz., that Israel spent only two years intead of forty in the wilderness; but that need not cause its rejection, for the whole thirty-eight may be intercalated between ver. 36 and ver. 37 of the Itinerary, and we could explain a total silence concerning the wanderings of those years better than we can the mention of (only) seventeen stations. The only serious difficulty is presented by the name Ezion-geber, which it is very difficult not to identify with the place of that name, so well known afterwards, at the head of the ElaniUc Gulf; for it is impossible to find the last stage towards Kadesh at a spot as near to Sinai as to any of the supposed sites of Kadesb. 490 THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. [CH. XXXIII. 1-49.