SINAI
Mount that is also called Horeb. The Israelites arrived at this place in the third month after their departure from Egypt, when they had passed through Marah, Elim, and followed a stretch of the coast of the Red Sea (Ex. 19:1).
Passing through Mount Seir there were eleven days’ march from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea (Deut. 1:2). At the foot of Sinai stretched a desert region, where the people pitched their tents (Ex. 19:2). The mountain was so close that it could be touched (Ex. 19:12), and its top rose above the camp (Ex. 19:16, 18, 20).
The Decalogue was promulgated on this mountain, at the foot of which the covenant that made Israel a nation of which Jehovah would be King was ratified (Ex. 20:1-24:8). It is stated again and again (Ex. 24:12; 31:18; 34:2; Lev. 1:1; 16:1; 25:1; 26:46; 27:34; Num. 1:1; 9 :1) that all the legislation that appears between Ex. 20:1 and Num. 10 was decreed upon Sinai, or at the foot of the mountain.
The only subsequent biblical mention of anyone ascending this summit refers to Elijah fleeing the wrath of Jezebel (1 Kings 19:8).
According to a small number of authors, Mount Sinai would be in the region of Seir, but the prevailing position places it among the eminences of the Sinai Peninsula.
A tradition that dates back to the time of Eusebius of Caesarea, assimilates the Sinai to the Rowan, on the Feirãn wadi. The one that places it in the Jebel Musa dates only from the time of Justinian.
However, this does not prove that the tradition did not exist before. The two opinions continue to be debated. The Rowan is the more imposing of the two.
Visible from afar, it rises solitary, majestic, to a height of 2,050 m., but it does not have at its base an extension of desert that corresponds to what is called Sinai.
Jebel Musa is part of a granite ridge that measures just over 3 km from northwest to southeast. This ridge has two summits: Rãs es-Sûfsãfeh (Willow Peak), at the northern end, has an altitude of around 2,000 m.
Jebel Musa, the traditional Sinai, in the extreme south, reaches 2,314 m. Certain scholars, Tischendorf among them, consider that the plateau at the upper end of the wadi es-Sadad, almost east of Jebel Musa, was the site of the Israelite camp.
But this is too small a space to have contained the entire town. The lower part of Rãs es-Sûfsãfeh consists, in its northwestern part, of a steep wall.
Below this wall extends the er-Rãha plain, with an area slightly less than 3 km2. This plain, close to the esh-Sheikh and ed-Deir wadis, would be very suitable for a camp.