DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27910#0012
MOUNT HOREE.
pIIE identification of the mountains and other natural features of the peninsula of Sinai mentioned in
the Bible, is one of the greatest difficulties of sacred geography. We have not alone to bear in mind
lb at there is no trustworthy local tradition to aid us, but also that there is great uncertainty as to the
precise meaning of the names employed in the Scriptures. The great group of heights of the head of
the peninsula appears to be called indifferently Sinai and Horeb, and these names again to be applied
in the same manner to the mount from which the Law was given. The name of the Mount of God
seems to be also applied to this sacred height, unless, indeed, as Ritter suggests, another mountain be intended by it.
In the present day, Sinai is commonly held to be that lofty ridge of granite, about three miles in length, which lies
between the parallel valleys Wadee Shu’eyb and El-Lejh. The northern end of this ridge is conjectured to be Horeb,
and the southern, called by the Arabs Jebel Moosa, is supposed to be Sinai. These are arbitrary suppositions, but
there are strong grounds for holding that the modern Horeb is the true Mount of the Law.
Horeb alone, as far as observation has been carried, fulfils the requirements of the sacred narrative. It rises
grandly and at once from the great plain Er-RaM, which having a surface of full one square mile, and, including its
extensions, of twice as much, is amply sufficient for the Israelite encampment. Without attempting anything like a
positive decision of this much-contested point, we are of opinion that at present the balance of probabilities is very
greatly in favour of this identification.
If this view be more than probable, how great an interest has the scene in which we may look up, as did the
Israelites, to the Mount! The place is fit for the solemn event. What a grand simplicity of outline and form, filling
the beholder with awe as he stands beneath, and sees the mountain rise heavenward from the plain! How must they
have felt who stood here when the mountain it was death to touch burnt with fire, and the terrible sounds and sights
shadowed forth the severe justice of the dispensation they announced. Even now we seem in Sinai to see the Law,
noble and true, but devoid of the tenderness of the Gospel, like the vast barren mountain whence it was given to man,
with no final resting-place for a human soul except in the promises of a better future. As in the Law there was this
glimpse of life, so here in the valley, beneath the Mount of the Law, we see, as the symbol of the Gospel, a hospitable
convent, whose garden invites the wearied eye to rest in its shade.
Would that we could again mentally people this great plain, and recall the incidents of the stay beneath the
Mount. How marvellous must have been the aspect of the desert inhabited by so vast an army—those whose bones
were afterwards to whiten its surface! The great wonders we dare not attempt to realize • we too may not pass the
limits that have been set for us. But the lesser events would be full of interest—the noble presence of Moses and
Aaron, the strange fickle people, now reverent, now disobedient, one day fearing to be near the Mount, the next
making an idol to worship beneath it, while the echoes of the thunders had scarcely died away. In such views as
these we rejoice that neither nature nor man can change the main features of the scene, and thus disturb our efforts to
read history by the light of our own impressions.
pIIE identification of the mountains and other natural features of the peninsula of Sinai mentioned in
the Bible, is one of the greatest difficulties of sacred geography. We have not alone to bear in mind
lb at there is no trustworthy local tradition to aid us, but also that there is great uncertainty as to the
precise meaning of the names employed in the Scriptures. The great group of heights of the head of
the peninsula appears to be called indifferently Sinai and Horeb, and these names again to be applied
in the same manner to the mount from which the Law was given. The name of the Mount of God
seems to be also applied to this sacred height, unless, indeed, as Ritter suggests, another mountain be intended by it.
In the present day, Sinai is commonly held to be that lofty ridge of granite, about three miles in length, which lies
between the parallel valleys Wadee Shu’eyb and El-Lejh. The northern end of this ridge is conjectured to be Horeb,
and the southern, called by the Arabs Jebel Moosa, is supposed to be Sinai. These are arbitrary suppositions, but
there are strong grounds for holding that the modern Horeb is the true Mount of the Law.
Horeb alone, as far as observation has been carried, fulfils the requirements of the sacred narrative. It rises
grandly and at once from the great plain Er-RaM, which having a surface of full one square mile, and, including its
extensions, of twice as much, is amply sufficient for the Israelite encampment. Without attempting anything like a
positive decision of this much-contested point, we are of opinion that at present the balance of probabilities is very
greatly in favour of this identification.
If this view be more than probable, how great an interest has the scene in which we may look up, as did the
Israelites, to the Mount! The place is fit for the solemn event. What a grand simplicity of outline and form, filling
the beholder with awe as he stands beneath, and sees the mountain rise heavenward from the plain! How must they
have felt who stood here when the mountain it was death to touch burnt with fire, and the terrible sounds and sights
shadowed forth the severe justice of the dispensation they announced. Even now we seem in Sinai to see the Law,
noble and true, but devoid of the tenderness of the Gospel, like the vast barren mountain whence it was given to man,
with no final resting-place for a human soul except in the promises of a better future. As in the Law there was this
glimpse of life, so here in the valley, beneath the Mount of the Law, we see, as the symbol of the Gospel, a hospitable
convent, whose garden invites the wearied eye to rest in its shade.
Would that we could again mentally people this great plain, and recall the incidents of the stay beneath the
Mount. How marvellous must have been the aspect of the desert inhabited by so vast an army—those whose bones
were afterwards to whiten its surface! The great wonders we dare not attempt to realize • we too may not pass the
limits that have been set for us. But the lesser events would be full of interest—the noble presence of Moses and
Aaron, the strange fickle people, now reverent, now disobedient, one day fearing to be near the Mount, the next
making an idol to worship beneath it, while the echoes of the thunders had scarcely died away. In such views as
these we rejoice that neither nature nor man can change the main features of the scene, and thus disturb our efforts to
read history by the light of our own impressions.