Exodus 15:27

27. Elim Trees. Here were palm trees and waters, or springs, around which they encamped, (rested and refreshed themselves,) probably for from two to three weeks, since it was just a month from the time of their leaving Rameses that they broke up from Elim . Exodus 16:1. As the next encampment was “by the Red Sea,” according to the itinerary in Numbers xxxiii, which gives a fuller catalogue of the stations, it is plain that Elim took them back from the shore, within sight of which they had been moving . Just below Hawwarah, and surrounding three sides of Jebel ( Mount) Hammam, there are several fertile wadies, through and across which their route now led them, which perfectly met their requirement. Jebel Hammam is a bare, picturesque cliff of flinty limestone, warm sulphur springs rising from its northern base, which comes down to the Sea in steep bluffs five miles long, thus cutting off the plain already described as the “Wilderness of Shur,” and compelling caravans from Suez to go round and over its northern shoulder in order to reach the plain which skirts the Sea below the Mount, and which we suppose to be the “Desert of Sin.” Exodus 16:1. The Israelites were probably spread through all these wadies around Mount Hammam, while the headquarters of the host were encamped where there were wells corresponding in number to the tribes, and where there was a grove of palms corresponding to the tribal families the Wady Gharandel . Gharandel is the principal halting place and the most fertile spot between Suez and Sinai; Wady Feiran alone comparing with it in richness and loveliness . It is in some places nearly a mile broad, its running brook fringed with trees, while water can be anywhere found by digging a little depth . “Here are the wild palms,” says Stanley, “successors of the threescore and ten. Not like those of Egypt or of pictures, but either dwarf, that is, trunkless, or else with savage, hairy trunks, and branches all dishevelled. Then there are the feathery tamarisks, here assuming gnarled boughs and hoary heads; the wild acacia; a tangled, spreading tree, which shoots out its gay foliage and blue blossoms over the desert.” Sinai and Pal., p. 65. Here, too, the bright green grass is most refreshing to the eye wearied by the hot, white desert, but it is coarse and rough to the touch. Tischendorf says, “This is a glorious oasis… enclosed like a jewel between the chalky cliffs. We reposed for a long time in the grass, which was as tall as ourselves; tamarisks and dwarf palms stretched like a garland from east to west.” (Quoted by Kurtz.)

The wadies which succeed Gharandel resemble it somewhat in character, but are much inferior in fertility, although Useit once surpassed it in its palm-grove. Through these valleys we suppose the Israelitish camp to have spread, round the northern shoulder of Jebel Hammam, perhaps into Wady Taiyebeh, a beautiful valley, winding between steep cliffs of red sandstone, flinty chalk, and variegated conglomerates, down to the plain el Murkha, which skirts the Sea. When they left Elim they encamped at the mouth of the wady, and scattered along this plain, “by the Red Sea.”

Numbers 33:10. As they descended the mountain pass, between the high steep walls, then as now curtained here and there with the green, creeping caper, and painted, as they neared the Sea, with bright bands of red, and brown, and black as they poured down into the plain and spread along the shelly beach they caught one more view of the distant hills of Egypt across the blue waters that had swallowed up the chariots and horses of Pharaoh.

From Gharandel to the Sea at Ras (Cape) Zelinea is, by this route, about eight hours’ travel, an easy day’s journey for the men of Israel after their long rest at Elim, but quite long for the remainder of the host, who, it is likely, had generally to come only from Useit, or the upper part of Taiyebeh. Palmer, who has thoroughly surveyed all these wadies, decides that Taiyebeh is the only valley by which they could have descended to the Sea.