THE ROUTE OF THE EXODUS. 25 



Rameses must not be taken here as meaning the store city 

 of this name, it is the district around it, just as in the case of 

 Succoth, their first station. The fortified city of Pithom did 

 not open its gates to them ; they encamped in the neighbour- 

 hood. At the time of the pilgrimage of Silvia Aquitana which 

 I quoted before, Succoth is spoken of as being a slope of 

 moderate size.* The Israelites seem to have made the 

 journey from Rameses to Succoth in one day, like the officer 

 who followed the fugitives. Along their way they must 

 have followed the canal dug by Rameses which watered the 

 cities of the Wadi Tumilat, and which at the place where it 

 emptied itself into the Red Sea formed those lakes to which 

 the Bedouins asked for access. 



In going to Canaan they had the choice between two 

 different roads. There was one in the north which passing 

 through Tanis and Daphnae, reached the Mediterranean, and 

 skirted its coast. It was decidedly shorter, but it passed at 

 first through cultivated and well irrigated land, and also 

 through important fortresses like Tanis, with large garrisons. 

 It was the way of the great conquerors of the XVIIlth 

 dynasty, and it is styled by Scripture "the way of the land 

 of the Philistines." From the first, before any other indica- 

 tion is given as to the direction they were to follow, it is said 

 that " God led them not by the way of the land of the Philis- 

 tines, although that was near."f The other was the southern 

 road which their ancestor Jacob had taken when he came to 

 Egypt,since, according to the Septuagint, it was at Heroopolis 

 Pithom, that father and son had met after many years of 

 separation. A few years ago the Bedouins coming from 

 Syria frequently followed the same route, which was less con- 

 venient for an army, but well adapted for a people of nomads. 



Leaving Succoth, its pastures, and its lakes, the Israelites 

 had only to push straight forward ; they skirted the northern 

 end of the Red Sea ; they had no river or sea to cross, and 

 they could easily reach the desert. They began carrying out 

 this plan, for "they took their journey from Succoth, and 

 encamped in Etham, in the edge of the wilderness." X 

 Etham is a name which has not yet been satisfactorily 

 explained. From it the desert was named in which the 

 Israelites journeyed during three days. At Etham the 



* " Soccoth autem est clivus modicus in media valle, justa queni colli- 

 culum fixerunt castra filii Israel." 



t Exodus xiii., 17. J Exodus xiii., 20. 



