Where is Mt. Sinai?
18
I invite attention to Galatians 4:25, that declares that Mt. Sinai is in Arabia: I don't know Paul's definition of ‘Arabia’, but what the maps call ‘Mt. Sinai’ probably is not the real one;* consider: When Moses fled from Pharaoh he stopped in Midian (Exodus 2:15). Midian lies on the east side of the eastern ‘rabbit-ear’ of the Red Sea (the Gulf of Aqaba), in present day Saudi Arabia. It has never been part of the so-called ‘Sinai Peninsula’. It was at “Horeb, the mountain of God” that Moses saw the ‘burning bush’ (Exodus 3:1), and in verse 12 God tells Moses: “when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain”. Mt. Horeb has always been in Midian. (Present day Saudi Arabia calls it ‘el Lowz’, and has it fenced off.) As God continues with Moses' commission, He specifies “three days' journey into the wilderness” (verse 18). According to Exodus 4:27 Aaron met Moses at “the mountain of God” (Horeb, in Midian), and they went together to Egypt.
When the people left Egypt, God led them on a forced march; notice the “so as to go by day and night” (Exodus 13:21). Three days of forced march (Exodus 3:18) would have gotten them close to Ezion Geber (present day Elath), and just another two days would have put them well into Midian. But then God told them to “turn back” and “encamp by the sea, directly opposite Baal Zephon” (Exodus 14:2). To do this they had to leave the established route from Egypt to Arabia, and head south into the wilderness, and this led Pharaoh to conclude that they had lost their way (obviously he would have spies following them, mounted on good horses, to keep him informed). It would have been simply impossible for them to lose their way between Goshen and the western arm of the Red Sea (the Gulf of Suez), but this is what those who place Mt. Sinai in today's ‘Sinai Peninsula’ are obliged to say—an evident stupidity. The Israelites would have hunted and explored all over that area, down through the years. (And why the chariots? Pharaoh could have surrounded them with foot soldiers.)
God led them down a ravine called ‘Wadi Watir’ which comes out on a surprisingly large beach called ‘Nuweiba’ (it is the only beach on that gulf large enough to accommodate that crowd of people and animals). Most of the Gulf of Aqaba is many hundreds of feet deep, with sheer sides, but precisely at Nuweiba there is a land bridge not far below the surface that goes from shore to shore, the width of the gulf at that point being close to 10 miles—the width of the land bridge is several hundred yards, so there was an ample ‘causeway’ for the crossing. The ravine that opens out on Nuweiba is narrow, with steep sides, so when God moved the pillar of cloud to the mouth of the ravine, Pharaoh and his chariots were blocked. They could not pass the pillar, they could not climb the sides of the ravine with chariots, and with over six hundred chariots in a narrow ravine they would have a proper ‘gridlock’ (lots of unhappy horses!). I suppose that God removed the pillar of cloud while part of the crowd was still on the land bridge, which encouraged Pharaoh to chase after them; and we know the rest of the story. If God let them get out to the middle, they would be five miles from either shore, too far for most people to swim.† I take it that God's purpose was to destroy the Egyptian army so it could not be a threat to Israel in the early years.
* 18: The difficulty here is not in the Text itself, but in the circumstance that almost all modern maps, whether in Bibles or elsewhere, place Mt. Sinai in the peninsula between the two gulfs, Suez and Aqaba; so much so that the peninsula itself is even so named. But such a location for the mount makes the Biblical account out to be ridiculous, as I explain below, and an inspired Text should not be ridiculous. † 18: In our day chariot pieces have been discovered along that land bridge.