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Is Mt. Sinai the Mountain of YEHOVAH? 23

mouth of Salih, a prince of their own nation. The idolatrous Thamudites required of him a
sign: 'Let the mountain, they said, bring forth a she-camel ten months gone with young,
and they would believe him! Then the mountain wailed, as in pangs to be delivered, and
there issued from the rocky womb that she-camel or naga which they had desired of God's
prophet....The days ended there fell a fearful wind, sarsar, the EARTH SHOOK, a
VOICE WAS HEARD from heaven, and on the morrow the idolatrous people were found
lying upon their faces (as the nomads used to slumber) all dead corpses, and the land was
empty of them as it had never been inhabited. A like evil ending is told of Aad, and of the
Midianites. The Syrian Moslems show a mountainous crag (el-Howwara) in this plain,
which opened her bosom and received the orphan calf again (Travels in Arabia Deserta.
Random House, N.Y. Pp. 136-137).

The Jewish historian Josephus was aware of the Arabian traditions regarding a SACRED
MOUNTAIN. In book II of the Antiquities of the Jews, he equates this mountain WITH THAT OF
SINAI. Notice!

Now Moses, when he had obtained the favour of Jethro, for that was one of the names of
Raguel, stayed there [in Midian] and fed his flock; but some time afterward, taking his
station at the MOUNTAIN CALLED SINAI, he drove his flocks thither to feed them.
Now this is the HIGHEST of all the mountains there about, and the best for pasturage, the
herbage being there good; and it had not been before fed upon, because of the opinion
men had THAT GOD DWELT THERE, the shepherds not daring to ascend up to it; and
here it was that a wonderful prodigy happened to Moses; for a fire fed upon a thorn-bush,
yet did the green leaves and the flowers continue untouched, and the fire did not at all
consume the fruit-branches, although the flame was great and fierce (Chapter XII, verse
1)

Further on, in book III, Josephus narrates the account of Moses climbing up the mountain to
commune with God, once again showing the sacred nature of Sinai:

When he [Moses] had said this, he ascended up to mount Sinai, which is the HIGHEST
OF ALL THE MOUNTAINS THAT ARE IN THAT COUNTRY, and is not only very
difficult to be ascended by men, on account of its vast altitude, but because of the sharpness
of its precipices; nay, indeed, it cannot be looked at without pain of the eyes: and besides
this, it was terrible and inaccessible, on account of the rumour that passed about, THAT
GOD DWELT THERE (Chapter 5, section 1).

Peake's Commentary states that "at the beginning of the summer, the grass in the lower pas-
tures begins to be burnt up, and the Bedouin go to the mountain slopes. 'The mountain of God,' that
is, THE SACRED MOUNTAIN, was so called...because the Midianites already regarded it as sa-
cred, as the dwelling-place of deity...." (p. 211).

Locating Horeb

Can we now pinpoint the Mountain of God -- the REAL Mt. Sinai-with exactitude? We
have seen all the evidence plainly pointing our gaze to the ancient and fabled land of Midian. Are

The Berean Voice September-October 2002