Wandering in the wilderness

The wilderness wanderings cover roughly 1446–1406 BC in the traditional Exodus chronology, or about 1260–1220 BC in the late-date reading. The route is reconstructed from three biblical sources: the narrative of Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy; the itinerary list in Numbers 33; and scattered place-names in later prophets and psalms. Israel left Rameses in the eastern Nile delta, crossed the Reed Sea (yam suph) somewhere in the chain of bitter lakes between the delta and Sinai, and marched south down the Sinai peninsula’s western coast to Marah, Elim, and the wilderness of Sin. At Mount Sinai (most often identified with Jebel Musa in southern Sinai, though several alternative sites have been proposed) the nation received the law and built the tabernacle. From Sinai they moved north to Kadesh-barnea on the southern edge of Canaan. The refusal at Kadesh to enter the land triggered the forty-year sentence: the wandering generation circled the wilderness of Paran and the Arabah, skirting Edom and Moab to the east, until they camped on the plains of Moab opposite Jericho at the end of Deuteronomy. The forty-two named stages in Numbers 33 cannot all be located on a modern map, but the broad shape — south to Sinai, north to Kadesh, east around Edom, then up the King’s Highway to Moab — is consistent across the biblical witnesses.