Sinai

Of Sin (the moon god), called also Horeb, the name of the mountain district which was reached by the Hebrews in the third month after the Exodus. Here they remained encamped for about a whole year. Their journey from the Red Sea to this encampment, including all the windings of the route, was about 150 miles. The last twenty-two chapters of Exodus, together with the whole of Leviticus and Num. ch. 1-11, contain a record of all the transactions which occurred while they were here. From Rephidim (Ex. 17:8-13) the Israelites journeyed forward through the Wady Solaf and Wady esh-Sheikh into the plain of er-Rahah, “the desert of Sinai,” about 2 miles long and half a mile broad, and encamped there “before the mountain.” The part of the mountain range, a protruding lower bluff, known as the Ras Sasafeh (Sufsafeh), rises almost perpendicularly from this plain, and is in all probability the Sinai of history. Dean Stanley thus describes the scene:, “The plain itself is not broken and uneven and narrowly shut in, like almost all others in the range, but presents a long retiring sweep, within which the people could remove and stand afar off. The cliff, rising like a huge altar in front of the whole congregation, and visible against the sky in lonely grandeur from end to end of the whole plain, is the very image of the ‘mount that might be touched,’ and from which the voice of God might be heard far and wide over the plain below.” This was the scene of the giving of the law. From the Ras Sufsafeh the law was proclaimed to the people encamped below in the plain of er-Rahah. During the lengthened period of their encampment here the Israelites passed through a very memorable experience. An immense change passed over them. They are now an organized nation, bound by covenant engagement…

(thorny). Nearly in the centre of the peninsula which stretches between the horns of the Red Sea lies a wedge of granite, grunstein and porphyry rocks rising to between 8000 and 9000 feet above the sea. Its shape resembles st scalene triangle. These mountains may be divided into two great masses-that of Jebel Serbal (8759 feet high), in the northwest above Wady Feiran, and the central group, roughly denoted by the general name of Sinai. This group rises abruptly from the Wady es-Sheikh at its north foot, first to the cliffs of the Ras Sufsafeh, behind which towers the pinnacle of Jebel Musa (the Mount of Moses), and farther back to the right of it the summit of Jebel Katerin (Mount St. Catherine, 8705 feet) all being backed up and. overtopped by Um Shamer (the mother of fennel, 9300 feet), which is the highest point of the whole peninsula.

a bush; enmity

SI'NAI (burning bush?), a name of a peninsula and of a mountain, or group of mountains. The peninsula of Sinai is a triangular region lying between the two arms of the Red Sea. On the west it extends along the Gulf of Suez for about 190 miles, and on the east along the Gulf of Akabah about 130 miles, while the base of the triangle, on a line from Suez to the north end of Akabah, is 150 miles long. It includes an area of about 11,500 square miles, or a little less than that of Massachusetts and Connecticut. Physical Features. - This district consists largely of sterile ranges of mountains, furrowed by wadies, or valleys with watercourses, which are scantily filled only after a rain. Projecting into it wedgewise from the north is the desert of Tih, or "wilderness of wandering," of limestone formation. South of the hills of the Tih plateau is a broad belt of sandstone, extending nearly from Suez to Akabah. South of this is a great cluster of granite mountains, in such a rugged, tumbled chaos as scarcely to admit of classification, the highest peaks reaching to an elevation of between 8000 and 9000 feet. Between the mountains are deeply-cut valleys, through which a large company might march into the very heart of the mountain-region. The mountain-ranges extend down the east side of Suez and down the west side of Akabah, the two ranges meeting in an angle at the southern portion of the peninsula, where the mountains are the most precipitous and elevated, and where they often assume fantastic shapes and take on gorgeous colors. This huge range is composed of gneiss and granite, or, more exactly, of colorless quartz, felspar, green hornblende, and black slate, with Sinai and the plain of Er Rahah. (After photograph of Ordnance Survey) considerable outcropping of limestone. It…

SI'NAI (burning bush?), a name of a peninsula and of a mountain, or group of mountains. Physical Features. - This district consists largely of sterile ranges of mountains, furrowed by wadies, or valleys with watercourses, which are scantily filled only after a rain. Projecting into it wedgewise from the north is the desert of Tih, or "wilderness of wandering," of limestone formation. South of the hills of the Tih plateau is a broad belt of sandstone, extending nearly from Suez to Akabah. South of this is a great cluster of granite mountains, in such a rugged, tumbled chaos as scarcely to admit of classification, the highest peaks reaching to an elevation of between 8000 and 9000 feet. Between the mountains are deeply-cut valleys, through which a large company might march into the very heart of the mountain-region. The mountain-ranges extend down the east side of Suez and down the west side of Akabah, the two ranges meeting in an angle at the southern portion of the peninsula, where the mountains are the most precipitous and elevated, and where they often assume fantastic shapes and take on gorgeous colors. This huge range is composed of gneiss and granite, or, more exactly, of colorless quartz, felspar, green hornblende, and black slate, with Sinai and the plain of Er Rahah. (After photograph of Ordnance Survey)

considerable outcropping of limestone. It is rich in mineral wealth of iron, copper, and turquoise, so that the Egyptians called it the "land of copper." Mines were once extensively worked in this region by the ancient Egyptians and others, but they have been long neglected. The most important were probably the mines of Maghara, situated on the slope of a precipitous mountain, about 145 feet from the bottom of the valley. The opening is broad but low, and the…