Psalms 78:16

16. Caused waters to run down like rivers An important circumstance for their ready supply at all times without inundating the camp. As in Psalms 78:15 the quantity of water is

mentioned, so is here its distribution, a point next in importance for the convenience of tents and flocks extending several miles down the valley es-Sheikh. The general approach of the Israelites to Sinai was from the northwest, and must, from the well-ascertained conformation of the land, have been through the broad wadies Feiran and es-Sheikh, which latter heads at the northeast base of Sinai. If we accept Jebel Mousa as the place of receiving the law, and the cleft at the “nether end” of Ras Sufsafeh as the point of its proclamation to the people, and the vast plain er-Rahah as the audience-room for assembling the people, (all which seems fully established,) then the rock in Horeb from which the waters flowed must have been somewhere along the base of Sufsafeh, or farther west at the mouth of Wady el-Lejah. Tradition locates it at the latter place. From thence the water would flow eastward along the base of Ras Sufsa-feh, where the winter torrent still flows, through a deep-cut channel, into Wady es-Sheikh, and thence through Wady Feiran into the Gulf of Suez. This whole distance of connecting valleys is about seventy miles. At the time of smiting the rock, the camp of Israel was at Rephidim, which we must locate, according to some, in the beautiful Wady Feiran, not far from where it unites with and receives the waters of es-Sheikh, twenty-miles from Horeb; or, according to others, in Wady es-Sheikh, twelve miles from the latter place; for God had said to Moses, “Go on before the people… and I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb.” Exodus 17:5-6. In obedience to this order, Moses probably took the shorter route, impassable for caravans, up the Nagb Hawa, a wild gorge leading into er-Rahah from the north. After smiting the rock the people advanced up the circuitous caravan route of Wady es-Sheikh, and encamped in its broad plains at Sinai, near to where it unites with the great plain er-Rahah. We may suppose that they also occupied the numerous neighbouring wadies, many of which were fertile. This section of the valley is called, in Scripture, “the desert of Sinai.” Exodus 19:1-2. They were now chiefly in a broad, open valley, in the bed of which flowed the copious brook or river from the rock Horeb the same that is alluded to Deuteronomy 9:21; Exodus 32:20. This stream continued to flow during all their stay at Sinai, about eleven months, Numbers 10:11-13. Comp. Exodus 19:1. During this time we must suppose that er-Rahah served as an audience room, where the people assembled to receive the law from Moses, who, for this purpose, is supposed to have stood in the notable cleft at the perpendicular front of Ras Sufsafeh. From this point, also, they beheld the awful scenes of Sinai, for it is said that for this purpose “they were brought forth out of the camp,” (Exodus 19:16-17,) a phrase which does not at all comport with their tenting in er-Rahah, but exactly suits their encampment in es-Sheikh and neighbouring valleys. From the plain er-Rahah the bluff of Ras Sufsafeh, the northern terminus of Horeb, rises abruptly about 2,000 feet. The bluff itself is divided by a deep chasm into two peaks, and so perpendicularly does it rise from the plain, that one can easily approach and touch the mount with his hand. See Hebrews 12:18, and compare Exodus 19:21; Exodus 20:18; Exodus 20:21; Deuteronomy 4:11. The plain er-Rahah is 4,000 feet above the sea, measuring over two miles in length by a third to two thirds of a mile in width, and is capable, by actual measurement, of furnishing standing room for 2,500,000 persons, allowing a square yard for each person, (Palmer,) and is hemmed in on all sides, except the broad gap of wady es-Sheikh on the southeast, by “lofty granite ridges, with shattered peaks a thousand feet high.” From these suggestions, assisted by the accompanying diagram and cuts, the reader may form some idea of the locality of the camp and miracles alluded to in the text. The rock of Horeb is mentioned by the apostle Paul as a type of Christ, (1 Corinthians 10:4,) from the miraculousness, copiousness, and the life-giving virtue, of its waters.