Today, we're in Saudi Arabia, searching for the route of
the Exodus with Andrew Jones. So far in our InGrace
special series, Exodus Found, we've retraced the
steps of a people who started as slaves,
but then were freed. Miracles have been plentiful, none greater than the
parting of the Red Sea. We have seen evidence
of Israel in Egypt and explored the
probable crossing point. Now, we're heading
to Saudi Arabia. Why? Because we want to see
where Midian might have been and search for the
real Mount Sinai. My brother-in-law, Neil Darien, couldn't come on
this part of the trip, but you'll still see him and
I in studio on this episode, discussing the biblical case for the location of the Exodus. Before we go to Saudi Arabia to see all the evidence
of the Red Sea crossing on that side, I wanted to
make a stop over here in Dubai to show you the
Burj Khalifa Tower, the tallest building
in the world. It's about a half mile high. That is the same
depth as the water in the middle of the
Red Sea crossing. But listen, I don't think it's good
enough to look at it from out here. I think we need to go up. Let's go. Can you imagine this much water
crashing down upon the Egyptian army? Unbelievable. We made it to Saudi Arabia. I'm so excited because
we're on this quest to find the real
route of the Exodus. It seems strange to me
that they don't know for sure where Mount Sinai is today, but we think we may
have a bead on it. And we're going to be looking in
the area of Northwest Saudi Arabia to see if we can find all the
clues mentioned in the Bible as to the location, the
real location of Mount Sinai. So buckle up, it's gonna
be quite an adventure. We drove from our hotel in Haql down along the Red
Sea's Gulf of Aqaba to the location directly
across from Nuweiba. We were not allowed to scuba
dive here in these Saudi waters, but we still wanted to explore
where Israel likely walked ashore. Again, we were
keeping our eyes peeled, looking for anything that looked like it
might've come from the Egyptian army. Okay, folks, we're
about to go snorkeling in the Saudi Arabia side of the
Gulf of Aqaba on the Red Sea in the same water, the beachhead
where they came ashore. And here we go, welcome
underwater, everybody. As we continued to look out, I was a little bit surprised
how shallow it was. We were seeing the seagrass and
the shallower waters, the small fish, We had to swim out, what I felt
was maybe about four or five blocks before we found
any depth at all. All right, so this is my first reaction
from swimming in the Gulf of Aqaba, the Red Sea on the Saudi side. First of all, I'm standing. You can see how far off
from shore we are right now. So this is very
gradual drop-off. But as you look that way, look how it's just
such a natural pitch up. There's lots of room
for lots of people as they came up out of the sea. And as we would go
further this way, if we could, it would be about
2,000 feet deep or more, maybe 2,500, 2,700 feet,
but all at a natural slope. The rest of the Red Sea
has these massive drop-offs and really deep points where
it really wouldn't be plausible for people to be able
to get in and back out. But this area from the way
up to this point of the Red Sea, it's totally possible
and probable. And so this is an exciting opportunity for
us to be able to show you what it's like to snorkel here at the Red Sea. And now we go back
underwater, searching around, looking for anything
we could possibly find that might resemble something
from the Egyptian army. We're looking for anything round that would
resemble a coral-encrusted chariot wheel. I'm looking for
anything that's metallic, maybe a sword or a spear,
maybe a piece of body armor. And although snorkeling is a little
harder to get down and stay down, we're able to hold our
breath and get down and examine the deeper
waters where the reef began. And again, it's so beautiful. It's so incredible. Just if all we did was
look down into the water at the corals and
the fish and the life, it would be so worth it. It's so awesome. But although we didn't
find anything here either, we still had an amazing experience on
the Saudi Arabia side of the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea. That was special, only because of what
probably happened here. No, didn't find any
chariot parts, wheels. Obviously, that would
be creme de la creme. But to be able to go
in the water at this spot and see it for
myself, priceless. Now they have made
it through the Red Sea. This is the greatest miracle
since creation, probably, that's ever taken place. This is a nation born. They're now born. They're now a nation. They're free. They will never go
back to slavery, to Egypt. God has taken care of that. And they were
eyewitnesses to this. Certainly, they turned
around and they saw, first of all, maybe they thought they were gonna get captured, but then they saw the
water start to collapse and destroy and pound
this powerful army that would have
easily taken them back. And they sing. Wow. And there are songs of
Moses and a song of Miriam. And these are
songs of deliverance. Amen. Like God has delivered us. And as they were standing there, and as I'm standing
there on this beach, I'm just thinking
about those songs and the fact that God has
done an incredible miracle. Wow. And all of that has
impacted my life, Neil. The reason is because
my Savior was in that family. And from that tribe,
the tribe of Judah, would eventually come
a king named David. And from that king would
come another king named Jesus. Wow. And so, because he's my Savior, all of us that have
put our trust in Christ were almost the same as
going through that Red Sea. Certainly, every Jewish person
went through that Red Sea. After recalling the birth of Israel
on the shores of the Red Sea, we were ready to see
what they would have seen. Adventurer Andrew Jones
will guide us to many sites that tie into the Exodus
story here in Saudi Arabia. Today, we're hoping
to retrace their steps from the landing beach to
several camp spots and oases, eventually to wind up
at the real Mount Sinai. The Bible says that after
crossing the Red Sea, Israel walked three days through
the wilderness of Shur or Etham, eventually coming to what
would be known as Marah. So we're in kind
of a basin area. And you think that this could be what is referred to as Marah, three days' journey
from the crossing site. Yes. They needed water. Yeah, the Bible
says it was bitter. So you do have these pools that would have been
filled up from the rain that they came across and have
been brackish or just undrinkable. And this area now
is called Al Sharaf, and it was a hajj route stop. So on the way to Mecca, this was one of those places
people did stop and had wells of water. But the groundwater here, you can see there's some dried
basins behind us with camels. And so this is a
possible site for Marah. In fact, there's some ancient, or I should say older
maps about 100 years ago, and they do list a similar
name to Marah in this region. Really? They spell it M-R-A-H. So the story was God
told Moses to take a tree and throw it into the water, and the water turned
from bitter to sweet. So you could imagine maybe
one of the acacia trees in this area, cutting it down or
part of the branch and throwing it into
this brackish water. So cool. Oh, again, it's
all fitting together. God is a specialist at
making bitter things sweet. Naomi, Ruth's mother-in-law,
is witness to this. After Marah, we
wanted to find Elim, the next stop for Israel. The Bible describes
that campsite as having 12 wells
and 70 palm trees. Andrew knew of a
spot that fit the bill, but it was way off the
beaten path in the desert. And as we drove through the dry and mysteriously
beautiful wilderness, we came upon
this herd of camels. Right here in Saudi
Arabia, looking for an oasis, one of the oases that the children
of Israel would have stopped at, and we came across
this herd of wild camels. You see all these little
ones, and they're nursing. Beautiful creatures,
incredible creatures. I'm hoping this
one is nice, tame. Hi, how are you? Good to see you. Are you gonna be nice to me? Yeah, you're probably
hungry, aren't you? Yes, you are. Yes, you are. You're a sweetheart. Do you know which way
we should go to an oasis? Oh, that way? Okay, thank you. Good day to you, ma'am. Back in the car after
our camel encounter, we soon arrived at
Tayyib al-Ism Oasis, which is very probably Elim. Oh, this is awesome, Andrew. Yeah, this is one of
the best shots I like. Check it out. So you actually carved this out to give us a better
view of the oasis? I had a team show up
a couple weeks ago. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. But you look at it, it's like
a little portal into the past. You see the Wadi
Tayyib al-Ism Oasis, the possible Elim site. This, to me, looks like
a Hollywood film set. The orange rocks, and then
you have this dream, lush oasis. I don't even want to say
this, but it almost looks fake. Did you, is that a set? Did you build that? That's amazing. So right in here, you're
saying there's 12 wells. We've been driving
through this area, and there's like scrub brush
and a few trees here and there. And then all of a sudden, boom, these big clumps of
palm trees, not just trees, palm trees in the
middle of a desert. I've always heard of oasis. Now I've actually seen one. Yeah, this is a
very beautiful one. That's cool. Andrew, I think it
would be helpful if we take a moment to
kind of get the lay of the land. We've identified the crossing
point across from Nuweiba. We've already been
there, and we looked at that. So where are we now, and what route
may they have taken to get to this oasis, which is possibly Elim? So if you look at
the general region, we're here in Northwest
Saudi Arabia, ancient Midian. So we're just past this
point here on the map in this canyon system. It's known today as
Wadi Tayyib al-Ism, and this means the
Valley of the Good Name. These ancient names are only used usually
once in the Bible for the Exodus camping sites like Elim, Marah, Rephidim. And so it's hard to
pinpoint them today. And those names are
associated with what happened in the time of Moses. At that time, a lot of times they
would have an event happen at a site, then Moses would name
it after what happened. Well, same with Marah. The water was bitter,
so they called it Marah. So now we don't have those
names usually on a map. So you gotta use logic and reasoning
and kind of explore it like we're doing, explore the area
and try to find them. The most important point of
where was the crossing point, where is Mount Sinai,
is that this is Midian. This is where Moses
experienced God, the burning bush, the mountain of God
was all already here. And he knew that
because of Jethro, and this is where he had come
for his 40 years in the wilderness. Yeah, they had a little detour, but it was all God's plan. Look at this. Wow, here we are. There's 12 of these. Yeah, we actually
counted one year. Scattered among
the oasis are 12. Hello. Hello. Kermit the frog's down there. Looks like he would
die soon in that water. Doesn't look too good. Yeah, but these trees
seem to be enjoying it. Yeah, no, it's good
water for the vegetation. It's amazing, though, that there's
palm trees and 12 wells here. In this desolate valley,
nothing else growing. It would fit the
narration of Exodus. Yeah, it's near
the crossing site. Amazing. It fits the story. Incredible, wow. Also, not only are there 12
wells and all the palm trees, but you also have Midianite
ruins and pottery found here. Right behind us, actually, are some of the Midianite ruins, and this is where they
find the pottery pieces. And again, it shows that this oasis
goes back to the time of the Exodus, because you're finding that the Midianites
were living around these watering holes. Show me. Show me where those were. Yeah, let's go up
there and check it out. Yeah. There's one right there. I found it. You sure did, wow. No, I'm gonna give
you all the credit, so tell me about this. We're above the Elim Oasis,
the possible Elim Oasis, and this is a Midianite settlement
that they had uncovered, and archaeologists
say there's pottery here. Sure enough, you find it. Look at that. Little pieces all
walking around. And you can tell it's old just
by the weathering and stuff on it. Oh, yeah, for sure. So it looks like you just
picked up some nice pieces. Look at that. Back behind us
there on the hill. This is definitely
pottery, because it's clay. Yeah, you can
see the curve in it. Yeah, so that had some
sort of a design to it. This one, too,
you see the lines, and even if you look
on the side profile, you see the layers. One side is lighter,
the other side is darker. Amazing. Out of Saudi archaeological
literature for this site, they mentioned that there has
been Midianite pottery found. And right where they
said the settlements were, you pick them up, and
there's pieces laying around. Amazing. Cool. All right, so one last place I wanna
walk is up to the top of that rock. Yeah, it's a good view. Is that doable? Let's try it. Okay, you're gonna
help me, right? Yeah. Help each other. Push! After leaving Elim, we
wanted to find another oasis that could fit the Bible's
next camp location for Israel. Numbers 33, verse
10 says that after Elim, they encamped by the Red Sea. Here at Magna is
a beautiful oasis, and I think a good candidate
for the next camp spot. This is Magna. Magna. And so it's known as
the Springs of Moses. You see, it's a coastal oasis
right beside the Red Sea. Oh, yeah. It has all these springs of water
bubbling up out of the mud here. Let's go check out some
of the springs down here. And any time you find
an oasis in these areas, you start to think, this could have been
one of the stops for Israel. Yeah, you know, they're
always looking for water. They had their flocks of herds, one to two million people. And so, yeah, water
was very important. Well, here down, we have these springs
of water bubbling up out of the mud. Okay. In fact, you see little
fish or tadpoles in there. Sure. Now, some of the
locals in the past have told friends of mine that there
used to be 12 of these in this area. And so based on that,
in the Exodus account, Elim had 12 springs. So some have assumed
that maybe this was Elim. Many others believe, though, that
this would be the coastal encampment mentioned in Numbers 33, which lists all their campsites from Goshen to
the Promised Land. If so, this fits perfectly because you have an
oasis by the Red Sea, which is just past these trees. And we also have a Midianite
fortress just across the valley here. And so we know during
the time of the Exodus, people inhabited this
area because of the water. And then Jethro's house, city. Just right up this valley. The well, yeah, right up there. So about a 20-minute drive. Right. So it kind of starts to fit. How rare are these oasis
in these desert areas? Oh, yeah, they're rare. There's not many of them. Yeah, so definitely they're taking
advantage of where they can find them. And Moses, who was a
shepherd here for 40 years, he would know where
these were located. Yeah, because it's
literally just dry everywhere. And all of a sudden you have
water coming out of the ground. You have little fish or
tadpoles, palm trees. It's neat. I've never really been
to an actual oasis. Yeah, here's one right in the
middle of the desert beside the ocean. It's really beautiful here. Yeah, in Illinois,
we do have oasis, but they're restaurants
over the expressway. So not quite the same
as this, you know? Yeah, well, maybe you could
get some food around here. Oh, that would be nice. Yeah, even McDonald's here. But you know, if
you come down here, a lot of the locals, they try
to get samples of the water because, you know, this is
where they believe Moses was at. Yeah, you can see how big the oasis
is going all the way towards the sea. Wow. And even down into the
valley towards the fortress. Yeah. Oh, now I see the fort
you're talking about. Yeah, it's pretty big. In fact, they say in the Saudi
archaeological literature, this is one of the most important
Midianite sites in this area. So they've identified
it as Midianite. And again, that's probably shreds
by pottery and other dating methods. And this would have been important
for it because it would protect the- It's protecting
the water source. Water. The water source, yeah. And you also have
the coast here. That's true. They're keeping
an eye on the coast. You're protecting the water. And so when the Israelites
came through the area, they needed water. So they would have
come to this oasis. Quite an extensive oasis. Yeah, and they actually
have nice amenities here. Benches, garbage
cans, bathrooms. They're getting ready
for the Moses tour groups. Yeah. Well, I think this is going
to be a very popular area. Yeah, what a beautiful
view of the Red Sea. Yeah. So again, we are just south
of the Red Sea crossing. And in Numbers
33, in verse 9 and 10, it talks about this
coastal campsite that the Israelites
went to after Elim. Now, this happens to be the only
oasis on the coast in this area of Midian. And so that's why many researchers believe
that this is where the Israelites ended up when they're going on
their journey to Mount Sinai. They came through this. If there's an oasis somewhere, will that typically still be
there thousands of years later? Yeah, in fact, you
see a lot of these oasis, they're still around
for thousands of years. Well, we know this one was
here- Because of the Midianite. Yep. Al-Bad', the same thing. You have these
Midianite Islamic ruins. Even earlier,
they say Neolithic, and it's still now a
modern-day town. Yeah, yeah. So you were talking
about a gentleman that had come through
here many years ago before YouTube and all of
this has been more popularized. Yeah, in fact, there was a
Turkish or Ottoman cartographer, so he was making maps
of the Ottoman Empire, about 300 years ago, who came through this area
of Northwest Saudi Arabia, and he reported about Magna,
this oasis we're in right now, and he said that the locals
showed him a rock nearby that they believed that Moses
struck and the water came out. And so in the biblical account, that is the Rock of Horeb at
the Rephidim camping site, right before they
went to Mount Sinai. So somewhere
nearby was this rock that locals were showing him. And again, it just shows
that they had this tradition of the Israelites coming through
here on the Exodus journey, long before you had any modern
videos being made promoting these sites. And the locals, that would
be a very typical thing, that they would have oral
traditions passed down. It was just the thing they did. So that would not
be surprising to you that that story has survived
for thousands of years. Correct. Amazing. After Magna, the children of Israel would pass through
Moses' father-in-law, Jethro's hometown. Al-Bad, the name
of the town today, has several ruins and traditions that link to the
Midians and Jethro. This is a museum, and this is in the place where
Jethro, we think, might've lived. We're not talking about
Beverly Hillbillies here. We're talking about
the Jethro of the Bible, Moses' father-in-law,
the priest of Midian. So what are the proofs
that this is Midian? How do we know that
Moses would've come here? And that also sets
up the crossing site. It sets up where the
Mount Sinai would be, Correct, yeah. All of it focuses on
this being Midian. Well, if you look at just the
geography of northwest Saudi Arabia, you'll notice that there are
very limited water sources here, and that they have these major
oases where people lived and dwelled in because of the water and the
greenery around for their sheep. And so it was in
this one big oasis, now called Al-Bad', that all the archeological evidence
points to as this being Midian. We have the Midianite pottery. We have ancient maps, like from the time of the classic
periods of the Roman and Greeks, that say this is
the town of Midian. They took the land of Midian
from the time of the Exodus. They converted it down and condensed
it now to this town that we're in. So you find that not just local
tradition placing Moses and Jethro here, like they call him Shuaib
for Jethro in the Quran, but you also have the archeological
evidence and the geography pinpointing this
as being Midian. So it's very much undisputed
that this is the land of Midian here. And then some of
these ancient maps, you're still seeing
that it's not accurate. Obviously, we have the advantage today of
having satellite mapping and all this stuff. Some of the confusion
of where Sinai has been, that they didn't depict the Gulf
of Aqaba on these ancient maps. So then when people were
looking for where it would have been, it just kind of fell
down the wrong area. They just picked the Gulf of Suez because
it's the only one they had on the maps. And there's a lot of
ruins here at this site, the tombs that are
Nabataean, but they're also- You have like this photo, for example,
shows what they call the Prophet Shuaib, the tombs of Shuaib
there in Arabic. The facade, they're
Nabataean-style tombs. The Nabataeans,
they had an empire running from their
capital in Petra, Jordan, all the way down through this
area that used to be Midian. And so they obviously reused the
same places that the Midianites lived, the same oasis. They were in this area,
just like the Midianites. What's interesting
about this photo display, you actually see one of the very rare
inscriptions that mentioned the name Midian. And so this was later
after the time of the Exodus, but even centuries later, they still associated
this area as being Midian. And we see they
had distinct pottery. Here's an example, they
called it painted pottery because they had very fancy geometric
patterns painted on these pottery pieces. And this is what they
call Midianite pottery or painted ware because
of the painted pottery. And you find this
only from this area. And it was distributed
up into Israel, but you don't find this
anywhere in the Sinai Peninsula, like the southern part
of the Sinai Peninsula, where people try
to put Mount Sinai. There's no examples
of this being down there. The Midianites came from, just probably descended
from someone. They were from Abraham's
third wife, Keturah. So she was the lesser
known wife of Abraham, but she had a number of children and they inhabited this
area, their descendants, like Dedan, Midian, this area
of Northwest Saudi Arabia. You'll have some people try to
say that the Midianites were nomads and they didn't really
have a true home. And so maybe later,
because they were traders, they did long distance trading. Sure, but they had to
have had a home base. Exactly. And they're not gonna go super
far with their flocks and stuff. Well, but you notice even
the story of the Exodus, when Moses is at Rephidim
with the Israelites, the split rock, Jethro says he returned
to his home or his land. So he had a piece of
land that he called his own, even though he was a nomad, he came back to this certain area
of the modern day town of Al-Bad', right near the well probably. Amazing. And he was the
high priest of Midian, so he had a location that
people knew who he was. The Bible says high priest. Can you elaborate
on that a little bit more? Did he have knowledge
of the one true God? Would he have been a
worshiper of the one true God? The Bible doesn't give a lot of
details about what Jethro believed, but you'll notice that he was very
friendly to Moses and the Israelites. He helped them. He helped organize the
Israelite system for the judging. His daughter was
married into the Israelite, like they're distant cousins. Whether they had the correct
understanding, 100% of the true God, I don't know. But definitely this is the area we believe
that God put the mountain of Moses, Mount Sinai. There's something
special about that mountain. It just kind of says mountain
of God before the burning bush, before Sinai. So there was already
something about this place. Yeah, it's a mystery. Because you do have Moses just
writing that he took the flocks of Jethro to the mountain of God. It doesn't say where the name came
from or how long it was named that or why did God
choose this mountain. It just doesn't say. And you know, there are other places
on the planet that are important to God. Jerusalem, of
course, is the one. But there's something
else very important here. He wanted his
people to come here. The law, the
tabernacle, you know, he's feeding them in
the wilderness, the water. All of these things are
happening right in this area. So there's something important
to God about the spot that we're in. Yeah, I guess somebody will
hopefully find out in heaven. Like why was this chosen? There's a lot that I wanna know. Lots of lost Moses too. Yeah, we kinda stumble
through, you know, thinking about stuff
and then, you know, trying to do some
research and all that. But there are still plenty
of unanswerable questions that I think we'll spend eternity
learning more and more about. Yeah, archeology only
gives you a little hint. And a lot of times they
misinterpret archeological data. And so definitely
we'll find out in heaven. Next, we arrived at a well that some have ascribed to the location
that Moses had fled to earlier in his life and had helped
Jethro's daughters. So we're still in Al-Bad'. Yes. Which is where we
think Jethro lived. Okay. The home, like the capital
of Midian, you could say. Yeah. One of the most important
archeological sites here. Yeah, Midian's an area, but
it's also the home of a town. Yeah. And that's where we are. And we're heading toward a well. Yeah, so this is known
as the Well of Moses. It's a local Islamic tradition that goes all the way
back to the Middle Ages. Basically, they
knew this story too, that Moses, when
he fled Pharaoh, he came to the land of Midian and it said he sat
down by a well. Moses wrote about
this experience where he met his
future wife, Zipporah. The Midianites lived
around these water sources, like these oases. And so they all had big wells where they could
water their flocks. So they had a
well, and then also- It's a central location, yeah. Like a pool that they could fill ahead of
time for the animals or something like that. Yeah, and you do find this here, even though this is
a later time period, this is from the later Mamluk
in the Islamic time period. But again, it follows an older tradition
of where you have a water source and you have water
storage nearby. So they could easily
water their flocks by filling up the water storage. Well, let's recount that
story of Moses coming here. Yeah, in Exodus, Moses wrote that
he had to defend Jethro's daughters. They kind of said
this was their well, or they basically took over and
said, we're gonna water our flocks first. The men. Yeah, these other men. And Jethro only had daughters. And so these women were defenseless
against these other local men. And so they had
to wait, basically, until actually Moses showed
up and he defended them. And he allowed them
to water their flocks. They got, I guess, so excited, it seemed like they ran
off and told the father, Jethro, what happened. And he's like, well,
where's this stranger? Where's this guy? Bring him over, right? Yeah, and they had
left him at the well. And then that begins
a longtime relationship, of course, marrying Zipporah. Yeah, and Moses then ended up having
two children here in the land of Midian while he was 40
years exiled here. He started a new
career as a shepherd. Imagine that going from
basically a prince of Egypt to a shepherd. What a change. I'm sure God had
a lot to teach him and he had to learn a lot of
stuff that he learned in Egypt to become the leader, to
lead the Israelites out of Egypt. Yeah, so you have a man who would
have been very highly educated, right? To be out here in the desert, just watching sheep. The dumb sheep. You're trying to make sure
they don't go off anywhere. Well, that's kind of what
God says about us, right? All we like sheep
have gone astray. We have turned
everyone to our own way. All right, well,
show me the well. Yeah, we're just right up
here against this side of rocks. We have this hole in the ground. And this is the well? Yes. Of Moses. Where they believe
Moses met Zipporah. Quite a deep well. In fact, it's big enough, they
have stairs spiraling down. Stairs are carved in, and that is a way they
would do the wells, right? Because that's give
them access up and down. And then they would have,
most of the time though, they would have the water system with the
buckets would draw it out and store it nearby. So you're not always
pulling it out from here. You have easier access for like a
storage unit nearby or like a cistern. And this well dates
to around what time? Well, they say that the earliest
they know of is the Islamic period, like the middle ages. But of course we do know
that this was an ancient oasis. They're finding pottery
going back to Midian. And then before they're finding
evidence of people living here. So the general area
has always had water, whether this was the specific
well during the Exodus or not, it was in this general area. Okay. So we believe this
would have been somewhere really close
nearby where Jethro lived. Yeah, it was his hometown. It was here that Moses
ended up settling for 40 years. Wow, wow. And he would have
had, of course, a home, but they were also nomadic in that they
would tend their flocks in different areas, but it wouldn't have
been too far away. It would have been. Yeah, even today you
have the Bedouins doing that based on the seasons and
how the temperatures are. They'll move their flocks
from the lower elevations to the higher mountains behind us
here and find the locals doing that. And we believe that's what Moses was
doing when he went to the mountain of God and saw the burning bush. Right, and the Bible
says he went to the, what does it say? The back side of the wilderness? Yeah, the back side or the
west side of the wilderness. Right. Depending on
how you translate it. And so between here, there's
different ways you can look at it. If that is Mount Sinai over
there on the mountain range, then between this oasis and
the mountain is a wilderness. So on the back side from
here would be Mount Sinai. And it's a distance that the sheep and a
shepherd could go to, a normal distance. It's not like he would have had to go
all the way around the Gulf of Aqaba to the traditional Mount
Sinai in Egypt today. It doesn't make any sense. They don't, shepherds
don't do that. Right, no, no, and
you wouldn't do that. So it's a shorter transition,
seasonal transition, looking for cooler temperatures,
better vegetation for the animals. What an awesome
feeling it is to stand here where Moses likely stood,
where he did something good. He defended women, you
know, and he did the right thing. I love that when people in
the Bible do the right thing. And Moses normally did. Most of the time he
did the right thing. It must have felt good for him
because he had just killed somebody. He flees his country, lost
his position in the royal family. He must have been
really depressed. And now he can help
some local Midianite women. Yeah, and become
part of a family. You know, you kind
of lose your family. You come find a new family, and they would have been
distantly related too through Abraham, so really amazing. I just get, I love
the sense of history, the sense of the
Bible coming to life. This is far away
from the land of Israel, but it all connects. This spot connects to Israel. Yeah, this is like their
journey from Egypt. Didn't go straight to
Israel, the promised land. God had them come out
here to this wilderness location to meet him on a mountain. Yeah, and he had
a purpose for that. The plan was for
them to come out here and become a people,
become a nation, to give laws. All of these things
transpired from this area. Even the tabernacle, the form of
worship, the nationalness of Israel. And then they could have gone right
then up into the promised land, of course, because of complaining. And it starts pretty
much right away. You know, they had
this big Red Sea miracle, and wow, God is great. And then it isn't too long until you start
to hear people complaining and murmuring. And it happened over
and over, unfortunately. It's a recurring pattern
through the Exodus. And I think we can all
see it in our own lives, how quickly we forget what
God has done and how good he is, and we start complaining
about something. A lot of lessons to be
learned from the Exodus story. Yeah, for sure. Today, we've seen much
evidence that this is Midian, and therefore, where Moses was
taking the people to God's mountain, where he had seen
the burning bush. Next time, we're gonna see
more archeological evidence that this is where Jethro
and the Midians lived, as well as the
split rock of Horeb
