Sinai
Region
Of Sin (the moon god), called also Horeb, the name of the mountain district which was reached by the Hebrews in the third month after the Exodus. Here they remained encamped for about a whole year. Their journey from the Red Sea to this encampment, including all the windings of the route, was about 150 miles. The last twenty-two chapters of Exodus, together with the whole of Leviticus and Num. ch. 1-11, contain a record of all the transactions which occurred while they were here. From Rephidim (Ex. 17:8-13) the Israelites journeyed forward through the Wady Solaf and Wady esh-Sheikh into the plain of er-Rahah, “the desert of Sinai,” about 2 miles long and half a mile broad, and encamped there “before the mountain.” The part of the mountain range, a protruding lower bluff, known as the Ras Sasafeh (Sufsafeh), rises almost perpendicularly from this plain, and is in all probability the Sinai of history. Dean Stanley thus describes the scene:, “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, within 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 plain below.” This was the scene of the giving of the law. From the Ras Sufsafeh the law was proclaimed to the people encamped below in the plain of er-Rahah. During the lengthened period of their encampment here the Israelites passed through a very memorable experience. An immense change passed over them. They are now an organized nation, bound by covenant engagement to serve the Lord their God, their ever-present divine Leader and Protector. At length, in the second month of the second year of the Exodus, they move their camp and march forward according to a prescribed order. After three days they reach the “wilderness of Paran,” the “et-Tih”, i.e., “the desert”, and here they make their first encampment. At this time a spirit of discontent broke out amongst them, and the Lord manifested his displeasure by a fire which fell on the encampment and inflicted injury on them. Moses called the place Taberah (q.v.), Num. 11:1-3. The journey between Sinai and the southern boundary of the Promised Land (about 150 miles) at Kadesh was accomplished in about a year.
Named in 18 verses
- Exodus 16:1 They took their journey from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fif
- Exodus 19:1 In the third month after the children of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that same day they came into the wilderness of Sinai.
- Exodus 19:2 When they had departed from Rephidim, and had come to the wilderness of Sinai, they encamped in the wilderness; and there Israel encamped before the mountain.
- Leviticus 7:38 which Yahweh commanded Moses in Mount Sinai in the day that he commanded the children of Israel to offer their offerings to Yahweh, in the wilderness of Sinai.
- Numbers 1:1 Yahweh spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the Tent of Meeting, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they had come out of th
- Numbers 1:19 As Yahweh commanded Moses, so he counted them in the wilderness of Sinai.
- Numbers 3:4 Nadab and Abihu died before Yahweh when they offered strange fire before Yahweh in the wilderness of Sinai, and they had no children. Eleazar and Ithamar minist
- Numbers 3:14 Yahweh spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, saying,
- Numbers 9:1 Yahweh spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying,
- Numbers 9:5 They kept the Passover in the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, in the wilderness of Sinai. According to all that Yahweh commanded Mos
- Numbers 10:12 The children of Israel went forward on their journeys out of the wilderness of Sinai; and the cloud stayed in the wilderness of Paran.
- Numbers 26:64 But among these there was not a man of them who were counted by Moses and Aaron the priest, who counted the children of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai.
- Numbers 33:15 They traveled from Rephidim, and encamped in the wilderness of Sinai.
- Numbers 33:16 They traveled from the wilderness of Sinai, and encamped in Kibroth Hattaavah.
- Deuteronomy 33:2 He said, “Yahweh came from Sinai, and rose from Seir to them. He shone from Mount Paran. He came from the ten thousands of holy ones. At his right hand was a fi
- Judges 5:5 The mountains quaked at Yahweh’s presence, even Sinai at the presence of Yahweh, the God of Israel.
- Psalms 68:8 The earth trembled. The sky also poured down rain at the presence of the God of Sinai— at the presence of God, the God of Israel.
- Psalms 68:17 The chariots of God are tens of thousands and thousands of thousands. The Lord is among them, from Sinai, into the sanctuary.