Smith's Bible Dictionary.pdf - Online Christian Library

Smith's Bible Dictionary
in man, and of the need of expiation by sacrifice to renew the broken covenant between man and
God. In considering this subject, it must he remembered that the sacrifices of the law had a temporal
as well as a spiritual significance and effect. They restored sin offender to his place in the
commonwealth of Israel; they were therefore an atonement to the King of Israel for the infringement
of his low.
Sin, Wilderness Of
a tract of the wilderness which the Israelites reached after leaving the encampment by the Red
Sea. (Numbers 33:11,23) Their next halting-place, (Exodus 16:1; 17:1) was Rephidim, probably
the Wady Feiran [Rephidim]; on which supposition it would follow that Sin must lie between that
way and the coast of the Gulf of Suez, and of course west of Sinai. In the wilderness of Sin the
manna was first gathered, and those who adopt the supposition that this was merely the natural
product of the tarfa bush find from the abundance of that shrub in Wady es-Sheikh, southeast of
Wady Ghurundel, a proof of local identity.
Sina, Mount
the Greek form of the well-known name Sinai. (Acts 7:30,38)
Sinai, Or Sinai
(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.
•Names .—These mountains are called Horeb, and sometimes Sinai. Some think that Horeb is the
name of the whole range, and Sinai the name of a particular mountain; others, that Sinai is the
range and Horeb the particular mountain; while Stanley suggests that the distinction is one of
usage, and that both names are applied to the same place.
•The mountain from which the law was given .—Modern investigators have generally come to the
conclusion that of the claimants Jebel Serba, Jebel Musa and Ras Sufsafeh, the last the modern
Horeb of the monks—viz. the northwest and lower face of the Jebel Musa, crowned with a range
of magnificent cliffs, the highest point called Ras Sufsafeh, as overlooking the plain er Rahah—is
the scene of the giving of the law, and that peak the mountain into which Moses ascended. (But
Jebel Musa and Ras Sufsafeh are really peaks of the Same mountain, and Moses may have received
the law on Jebel Musa, but it must have been proclaimed from Ras Sufsafeh. Jebel Musa is the
traditional mount where Moses received the law from God. It is a mountain mass two miles long
and one mile broad, The southern peak is 7363 feet high; the northern peak, Ras Sufsafeh is 6830
feet high. It is in full view of the plain er Rahah, where the children of Israel were encamped. This
plain is a smooth camping-ground, surrounded by mountains. It is about two miles long by half a
mile broad, embracing 400 acres of available standing round made into a natural amphitheatre by
a low semicircular mount about 300 yards from the foot of the mountain. By actual measurement
it contains over 2,000,000 square yards, and with its branches over 4,000,000 square yards, so
that the whole people of Israel, two million in number, would find ample accommodations for
697
William Smith