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Late Bronze Age setting · Exodus 12 - Numbers 33

The Exodus and wilderness years

Out of the delta, to the mountain, and forty years on the desert margin

SINAIGOSHENNEGEVJUDEASAMARIAPEREAMOABEDOMAMMONGILEADThe Great Sea (Mediterranean)Gulf of AqabaGulf of SuezNileEuphratesTigrisJordanSea of GalileeDead Sea1Rameses2Pithom3Mount Sinai4Ezion Geber5Kadesh Barnea6Petra7Heshbon8Mount Nebo9JerichoN100 km

9 stops · roughly 923 km end to end

Click any stop to see a photograph of the site as it stands today.

Stop by stop

  1. 1

    Rameses

    Exodus 12:37

    Departure from the delta store-city.

  2. 2

    Pithom

    Exodus 1:11
    38 km from Rameses

    The second store-city named as built by the Hebrews.

  3. 3

    Mount Sinai

    Exodus 19 - 24
    288 km from Pithom

    The mountain of the covenant and the law.

  4. 4

    Ezion Geber

    Numbers 33:35
    150 km from Mount Sinai

    On the gulf, at the head of the Arabah.

  5. 5

    Kadesh Barnea

    Numbers 13:26
    137 km from Ezion Geber

    The long halt; the spies sent out from here.

  6. 6

    Petra

    Numbers 20:14-21
    105 km from Kadesh Barnea

    Edomite territory skirted on the way north.

  7. 7

    Heshbon

    Numbers 21:25
    167 km from Petra

    Amorite territory taken east of the Jordan.

  8. 8

    Mount Nebo

    Deuteronomy 34:1-5
    8 km from Heshbon

    The view over the land; Moses dies here.

  9. 9

    Jericho

    Joshua 3:16
    30 km from Mount Nebo

    The crossing into the land opposite Jericho.

What the record fixes

Rameses and Pithom are delta store-cities with excavated remains. The mountain itself is not fixed by any find: the southern Sinai identification is a Byzantine-era tradition, and other candidates exist. Kadesh Barnea is an identified oasis with Iron Age forts. Treat the line between the delta and the mountain as the traditional route, not a surveyed one.