Exodus 17:1-3

MARCH TO REPHIDIM WANT OF WATER, Exodus 17:1-7.

1. From the wilderness of Sin The plain of Murkha . See Introductory Note, (1,) on chapter 16 .

After their journeys Or, rather, breaking up places stations in the desert implying that there were stations between Sin and Rephidim . Two of these, Alush and Dophkah, mentioned in Numbers 33:12-14, are not as yet identified with any known localities, but were probably in Wady Feiran .

According to the commandment of the Lord Literally, the mouth of Jehovah, who regulated their halting places by the pillar of cloud . Moses had lived forty years in this wilderness, and must have had much knowledge concerning its thoroughfares, springs, and oases, which would be of the highest value to him in conducting Israel . How much of this guidance was in this way natural, and how much supernatural, it is impossible to determine .

Rephidim The last station mentioned before the “Desert of Sinai,” though other halting-places may have intervened . Here their progress was contested by the Amalekites . In Wady Feiran, where now we suppose the main body of Israel to have been, we find precisely such a spot as would be certain to be held by a tribe of the desert, and where they would be likely to dispute the passage of this great thoroughfare through their territory. At the northern base of Mount Serbal is a large fertile tract, “the paradise of the Bedouin,” with springs and palm groves, extending for miles along the valley, where, if anywhere in the whole peninsula, the Amalekites would be encamped, holding the wells, and cutting off the advance of an invading host. Israel was thus obliged to halt in a dry part of the wady, before reaching the oasis, and was not able to get to the springs. Thus there was no water for the people to drink. All the members of the “Sinai Expedition,” except Mr. Holland, agree in identifying this spot with Rephidim. Holland locates it farther along, at a pass leading into Wady es Sheikh. A rocky hill, from six to seven hundred feet high, overlooks this palm grove from the northern side of the valley, called Jebel (Mount) Tahuneh. On this hill, in the early Christian ages, stood a church and a bishop’s residence, while a settlement called Paran, whose name survives in the modern Feiran, clustered among the palms below. The walls of an ancient convent still stand on a mound in front of this hill, originally built of dressed sandstone, but repaired with rude stones from Serbal. Stanley says that “the oldest known tradition of the peninsula is, that Rephidim is the same as Paran.” If so, this hill, Jebel Tahuneh, is without doubt the one on which Moses prayed during the conflict with Amalek. (Palmer’s Desert of the Exodus, pp. 158, 276.)