Kibroth Hattaavah
According to the Book of Exodus, the Israelites remained at the Mountain of God for almost one year. Their arrival on the first day of the third month since their departure from Rameses is described in Chapter 19, but it is not until the tenth chapter of the Book of Numbers that they finally resume their Exodus:
And it came to pass on the twentieth day of the second month, in the second year, that the cloud was taken up from off the tabernacle of the testimony. And the children of Israel took their journeys out of the wilderness of Sinai; and the cloud rested in the wilderness of Paran ... And they departed from the mount of the Lord three days’ journey: and the ark of the covenant of the Lord went before them in the three days' journey, to search out a resting place for them ... And when it rested, he said, Return, O Lord, unto the many thousands of Israel ... And he called the name of the place Taberah: because the fire of the Lord burnt among them ... And he called the name of that place Kibrothhattaavah: because there they buried the people that lusted. And the people journeyed from Kibrothhattaavah unto Hazeroth; and abode at Hazeroth. (Numbers 10:11-12 ... 10:33 ... 10:36 ... 11:03 ... 11:34-35)
It was at the Mountain of God that Moses received the Ten Commandments. It was here that the episode of the Golden Calf took place. It was here that the Ark of the Covenant was constructed as a shrine for the two stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments were inscribed. It was here that the Tabernacle, or Tent of Meeting, was created as a sort of portable temple. By all accounts, this was one of the most significant periods in the history of the Jewish people and their religion.
After leaving the Mountain in the Desert of Sinai, the Israelites next encamped at Kibroth Hattaavah, the Thirteenth Station of the Exodus. In the Book of Numbers, we are simply told:
And they departed from Rephidim, and pitched in the wilderness of Sinai. And they removed from the desert of Sinai, and pitched at Kibrothhattaavah. And they departed from Kibrothhattaavah, and encamped at Hazeroth (Numbers 33:15-17)
The Tabernacle and the Cloud
It was at the Mountain of God that Moses and the Israelites first constructed the Tabernacle, or Tent of Meeting. This structure served as a portable temple. It housed the Ark of the Covenant when the Israelites were encamped, and it contained a Holy-of-Holies, where God appeared to Moses, just as he had appeared to him on the Mountain.
And it came to pass in the first month in the second year, on the first day of the month, that the tabernacle was reared up ... Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle ... And when the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the children of Israel went onward in all their journeys: But if the cloud were not taken up, then they journeyed not till the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the Lord was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys. (Exodus 40:17 ... 34 ... 36-38)
This is repeated in the Book of Numbers:
And on the day that the tabernacle was reared up the cloud covered the tabernacle, namely, the tent of the testimony: and at even there was upon the tabernacle as it were the appearance of fire, until the morning. So it was alway: the cloud covered it by day, and the appearance of fire by night. And when the cloud was taken up from the tabernacle, then after that the children of Israel journeyed: and in the place where the cloud abode, there the children of Israel pitched their tents. (Numbers 9:15-17)
In the course of the Exodus, theophanies—physical manifestations of God—are generally described in terms of either clouds or fire:
And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. (Exodus 3:2)
And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night. (Exodus 13:21)
And it came to pass, as Aaron spake unto the whole congregation of the children of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness, and, behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. (Exodus 16:10)
And the Lord said unto Moses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and believe thee for ever. (Exodus 19:9)
And Moses went up into the mount, and a cloud covered the mount. And the glory of the Lord abode upon mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days: and the seventh day he called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud. (Exodus 24:15-16)
The significance of this phenomenon—whether physical or symbolical—is still debated by scholars, but it need not detain us any further.
Taberah and Kibroth Hattaavah
The account in Numbers 10 mentions a place called Taberah, which is not included in the list of Stations in Numbers 33. A few verses later, it refers to a place called Kibroth Hattaavah, which is included in the list. It appears that the two names refer to the same location, and some scholars have asserted their identity, claiming that the former derives from the Elohist tradition and the latter from the Jahwist tradition. Strong’s Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary, however, does not support this hypothesis. The toponym Taberah is derived from a primitive root meaning to consume, whether by fire or by eating:
But Strong derives Hattaavah from a primitive root meaning lust:
On the other hand, both accounts contain the idea of consuming. In the Elohist account, fire consumes the Israelites who murmured against Moses. In the Jahwist account, a plague is visited upon the Israelites who consumed huge quantities of quails.
In Deuteronomy 9 it is implied that Taberah and Kibroth Hattaavah are two different places:
And at Taberah, and at Massah, and at Kibrothhattaavah, ye provoked the Lord to wrath. (Deuteronomy 9:22)
But this may simply be due to the fact that the compiler of Deuteronomy drew on two different sources, an Elohist source and a Jahwist source, without realizing that they were doublets of the same episode. Nevertheless, the confusion raises the possibility that both stations are fictitious.
At Taberah, when the people murmur against Moses, God’s anger is kindled and a conflagration rages on the outskirts of the camp, consuming many of the Israelites.
At Kibroth Hattaavah, the people complain that they have no meat to eat, but only manna. God sends them quails (cf Exodus 16), which they devour to the point of gluttony. God’s anger is kindled and he visits a plague upon them.
These accounts are clearly parallel. Something bad happened at this Station that led to the deaths of several Israelites, and we are given two rival explanations to account for this in terms of the sinfulness of the Israelites and the condign wrath of God. This suggests that a genuine tradition lies behind this episode.
I am inclined to accept that the Israelites, after departing from the Mountain of God, travelled in the desert (the Debet Er-Ramleh in my reconstruction) for three days before finding a suitable place to encamp. But during their sojourn at this new station, they were afflicted by some illness which caused several fatalities. Subsequently, the Elohist and Jahwist traditions concocted rival stories to provide this historical episode with a theological or theodician foundation.
Wilderness of Paran
Another discrepancy between the Elohist and Jahwist accounts of the Exodus concerns the Wilderness of Paran. In Numbers 10, it is said that when the cloud was taken up from the Tabernacle, the Israelites marched for three days before encamping at Taberah, or Kibroth Hattaavah (accepting these as two different names for the same place):
And they departed from the mount of the Lord three days’ journey: and the ark of the covenant of the Lord went before them in the three days’ journey, to search out a resting place for them. And the cloud of the Lord was upon them by day, when they went out of the camp ... And when it rested, he said, Return, O Lord, unto the many thousands of Israel ... And he called the name of the place Taberah: because the fire of the Lord burnt among them ... And he called the name of that place Kibrothhattaavah: because there they buried the people that lusted. (Numbers 10:33-34 ... 36 ... Numbers 11:3 ... 34)
But earlier, in the same chapter, it is said that the cloud came to rest in the Wilderness of Paran:
And it came to pass on the twentieth day of the second month, in the second year, that the cloud was taken up from off the tabernacle of the testimony. And the children of Israel took their journeys out of the wilderness of Sinai; and the cloud rested in the wilderness of Paran. (Numbers 10:11-12)
The location of Paran is still a matter of scholarly debate:
Yohanan Aharoni proposed that Paran was actually the ancient Hebrew or Semitic name for the whole of the Sinai Peninsula, and that the name Feiran in southern Sinai preserves that ancient name. He bases this on the fact that the name Paran is mentioned by the early second-century a.d. geographer Ptolemaeus for the area today known as Feiran. This means that the name had been preserved and was known prior to the Byzantine period, when Christian monks sought to identify holy sites. Aharoni also points to a number of biblical references to Paran that support his hypothesis, and he suggests that Paran is used of a specific area around Kadesh and for all of Sinai as well. Most pertinent is I Kings 11:18, which records the flight of prince Hadad the Edomites from Solomon, stating ‘‘They set out from Midian and came to Paran; they took people with them from Paran and came to Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt.’’ According to this reference, Paran was located between Edom/Midian and Egypt. Roland de Vaux likewise wondered if the name for the Sinai during the Old Testament period was not Paran, and ‘‘Sinai’’ merely an area within the southern portion of the peninsula. (Hoffmeier 37)
Paran was no more than three days from the Mountain of God. Two books of the Bible—Deuteronomy 33:2 and Habakkuk 3:3—refer to Mount Paran, which Hoffmeier believes was synonymous with the Mountain of God (Hoffmeier 129).
If the Israelites journeyed eastward across the Debet Er-Ramleh (Plain of Sand) for three days, they would have been forced to climb up to the Tih Plateau. It is surely significant that the mountains that overlook the Plain of Sand are known in Arabic as Jabal Et-Tih, or Mountains of Wandering. Many commentators have understood this to be a reference to the wanderings of the ancient Israelites:
The Tih Plateau is a desolate area. The Arabic word tih means ‘‘wandering,’’ leading some scholars to associate at least part of this region with the area where the Israelites spent the majority of their wandering period, as described in the book of Numbers. The wilderness of Paran, some think, lies in the eastern side of this plateau. (Hoffmeier 44)
The Debet Er-Ramleh is a desolate stretch of sand, so perhaps it makes sense that it took the Israelites three days to find a suitable place to encamp. Against this we must bear in mind that the conditions at the time of the Exodus were probably not as arid as they are today.
James Strong derives Paran from a primitive root meaning to gleam:
In an earlier article in this series, we saw that some commentators derive Sinai from a root meaning to shine (Orr 2802). So perhaps Paran and Sinai are just different names for the same place.
Identity
Whether this Station was called Taberah or Kibroth Hattaavah, or even Paran, we still need to determine where it was located. Let us make the following assumptions:
The Mountain of God was at Serabit El-Khadim.
When the Israelites departed from the Mountain, they travelled east-southeast across the Debet Er-Ramleh for three days.
The Israelites covered between 24 and 32 kilometres per day (Hoffmeier 120).
In conclusion, then, they would have skirted the Jabal Et-Tih (Mountains of Wandering) on the Tih Plateau. If they wished to circumvent the steeper ascents—a sensible course of action—they would have joined what is now the St Katherine-Nuweibaa Road, which follows the natural contours of the land. This would have led them in the general direction of ’Ain el-Hudhera, which is traditionally identified with the next Station of the Exodus, Hazeroth.
72-96 km from Serabit el-Khadim along this route brings us to the stretch of road between St Catherine International Airport and White Canyon. ’Ain el-Hudhera lies about 1 km north of White Canyon.
Scanning the map in this area, however, I fail to see any modern names reminiscent of Taberah, Kibroth Hattaavah, or Paran. There are, however, several pools (Arabic: moiyet) in this area, so it could have provided the Israelites with a suitable resting place after their crossing of the arid Debet Er-Ramleh.
Before proceeding to the Fourteenth Station of the Exodus, Hazeroth, we must examine the claim that the true location of Kibroth Hattaavah is indicated by ancient inscriptions to the south of Serabit el-Khadim.
To be continued ...
References
- James K Hoffmeier, Ancient Israel in Sinai: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Tradition, Oxford University Press, Oxford (2005)
- James Orr (General Editor), The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Volume 4, The Howard-Severance Company, Chicago (1915)
- James Strong, Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary, in The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Eaton & Mains, New York (1890)
Image Credits
- Moses with the Ten Commandments (Rembrandt): Moses breaking the Tablets of the Law (detail), Rembrandt (artist), Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, Public Domain
- The Western Sinai Peninsula: University of Texas Libraries, Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, Aqaba, Suez, D Survey, Great Britain War Office and Air Ministry (1960), Public Domain
- Building the Tabernacle: Caspar Luyken (artist), The Phillip Medhurst Picture Torah, © Philip De Vere, Creative Commons License
- From Serabit el-Khadim towards ’Ain el-Hudhera: Google Maps, Map Data © 2020 Mapa GISrael, ORION-ME, Fair Use
- Map Symbol Plane Clip Art: Openclipart, Public Domain
- Moses Elects the Council of Seventy Elders (Jacob de Wit): Jacob de Wit (artist), Royal Palace of Amsterdam, Public Domain
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