Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Numbers 33 - Introduction
The journey from Egypt to the steppes of Moab
This itinerary includes some places mentioned elsewhere only in J E and others mentioned only in P; and it is probable that it was compiled by someone who had both P and J E before him. It must therefore belong to a late stage of P.
The itinerary may be divided into three sections. The first section (Numbers 33:5) contains the journey from Raamses in Egypt to the Wilderness of Sinai, which is related in Exodus 12:37 to Exodus 19:2; two of the names, however, Dophkah and Alush, are not mentioned in Exod. The route appears to have run not to the south of the Sinaitic peninsula, according to the ordinary view which is represented on most modern maps, but straight across the desert (the route still followed by pilgrims to Mecca) from the frontier of Egypt at the north of the western arm of the Red Sea to Elim (Numbers 33:9) at the northern point of the eastern arm, the Gulf of Aḳaba; and thence to the Wilderness of Sinai in the region of Ḳadesh. See note on Numbers 10:30.
The second section (Numbers 33:16) consists of places visited between the Wilderness of Sinai and the Wilderness of Ẓin (Ḳadesh), viaEzion-geber which was close to Elim or Eloth on the Gulf of Aḳaba (1 Kings 9:26). This is probably a summary of the forty years" wanderings. The Wilderness of Sinai, if not the same as the Wilderness of Ẓin, is a closely adjacent region; and the names do not represent successive stages of one day's march each, but are the names of places, all comparatively near to one another, at which the Israelites encamped for a longer or shorter time. At some of them they must have settled for years. (See prelim. note on ch. 20.)
The third section (Numbers 33:37) contains the march, after the forty years were expired, straight to the borders of Moab, nothing being said of the circuit viathe Gulf of Aḳaba to avoid the Edomites. (See note on Numbers 21:10-11.)
Very few of the names have been identified with any certainty, but the general route is clear from the mention of a few well-known places, such as Ezion-geber, at the northern extremity of the eastern arm of the Red Sea, Ḳadesh, in the desert to the S. of Judah, Dibon-Gad, the same as Dibon (see on Numbers 21:30), Nebo, a few miles S. of Heshbon, the mountains of the Abarim (see on Numbers 21:11), and the steppes of Moab.