Numbers 10:11

11. In the second year By comparing Exodus 19:1, it will be seen that the sojourn at Sinai had continued eleven months and twenty days.

The ability of that region to afford sustenance to so vast a concourse for so long a time has been doubted. Manna for man, and water for man and beast were supernaturally supplied. How about the pasturage? Says Prof. E.H. Palmer: “Although the general aspect of the country is one of sheer desolation and barrenness, it must not be supposed that there is no fertility there. There are no rivers, yet many a pleasant little rivulet fringed with verdure may be met with here and there, especially in the romantic glens of the granite district. At Wadies Nasb and Gharandel are perennial, though not continuous, streams and large tracts of vegetation. At that part of Wady Feiran where the valley contracts in breadth, and concentrates the moisture, we find the most considerable oasis in the peninsula, and behind the little seaport of Tor there exists a large and magnificent grove of date-palms.” The Sinai Survey Expedition found remaining to this day many gardens and olive-groves, some cultivated by the monks, and others left in neglect. They report that “even the barest and most stony hillside is seldom entirely destitute of vegetation.” It is probable that the country was more fertile in the time of the Exodus than it is now, since there are scriptural evidences of abundant rain during the passage of the Israelites found in Psalms 68:7-9; Psalms 77:17, where the allusion is evidently to Sinai. “There are abundant vestiges of large colonies of Egyptian miners, whose slag heaps and smelting furnaces are yet to be seen in many parts of the peninsula. These must have destroyed many miles of forest in order to procure fuel; nay, more, the children of Israel could not have passed through without consuming vast quantities of fuel too.” See Exodus 15:22-27, introductory note.