5. It is generally recognised that in Numbers 14:25 and Deuteronomy 1:40 the instructions given to the people to journey into the wilderness, on the way to the Red sea, are telling them to go by way of the gulf of Akaba as any map showing the journeys of the Israelites will show. Deuteronomy 2:1 clearly connects the Red sea with mount Seir.

6. Scripture tells us that it was eleven days' journey from Horeb (Sinai) by way of mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea (Deuteronomy 1:2). To have got to Kadesh-barnea via mount Seir would appear to have involved a detour; actually going beyond the destination and then coming back if Horeb was in its traditional site! If mount Sinai was in Arabia then reaching Kadesh-barnea via mount Seir would make sense and the time taken would still have been realistic.

7. It is difficult to see how the places that the Israelites visited, as recorded in Numbers 33, can be fitted into the relatively small area of the Sinai peninsula, whereas there is plenty of space in Arabia for these places to be accommodated.

All this would suggest that the land of Midian was further to the east than the Sinai peninsula and in part of what is now Arabia. This would fit in with the view of Moslems and others that mount Sinai is actually in Arabia and not in its traditional spot in the Sinai peninsula. There are substantial archaeological reasons for thinking that the true Sinai is in Arabia, though to go into that would be beyond the scope of this article.

Written May 2000

Revised February 2001

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