Exodus 12:37

THE EXODE, Exodus 12:37-42.

37. From Rameses to Succoth Probably not the treasure-city Rameses, or Raamses, mentioned Exodus 1:11, but the district or province spoken of Genesis 47:11, which is the same as Goshen, the border-land, of Egypt toward Palestine . From all parts of the province they started, the families and tribes gradually gathering, concentrating in and around Succoth at the end of the first day . The name Succoth, which signifies booths, indicates that this was a mere temporary caravan or military station, though it may possibly have been a town named from such a station. We are to think of the people as falling into the host with their flocks and herds for the first two days, when they rallied behind the pillar of cloud at Etham, “in the edge of the wilderness.” It seems most likely that their course for the first days lay along the Wady Tumeylat, which runs in an easterly direction towards the ancient bitter lakes. In this wady the Israelites were probably most thickly settled. From all parts of Rameses or Goshen there was a movement eastward through this rich valley in the heart of the province, along the line of the canal, which had the same general direction as the present Sweet-water Canal constructed by Lesseps. (See note on Goshen, Genesis 48:6. ) Although they are said to have started from Rameses, they did not get fairly beyond its limits till they passed Etham .

Some, following Sicard, have supposed that the Israelites took the ancient caravan route from the Nile due east to the Red Sea, along the Wady et Tih, which is shut in on the north and south by mountain ranges, and terminates in the broad plain of Baideah on the Gulf of Suez. The northern range is broken by a branch valley, twenty-three miles from the Nile, where is the only fountain in the wady, and it ends in the promontory of Ras Attah-kah, which stretches into the Gulf, twelve miles below Suez. (See map of Goshen.) But the northern route above described much better fits the requirements of the text.

Six hundred thousand This is given as the round number; by the census taken the next year in the wilderness of Sinai the actual number was six hundred and three thousand five hundred and fifty. Numbers 2:32. See further in Concluding Note .