Page 24 - BV17

24 Is Mt. Sinai the Mountain of YEHOVAH?

there any clues that will lead us right to the very slopes of the mountain of the lawgiving? Keep
reading, for there certainly are!

Returning to Peake's Commentary once again, we learn the following: "It [Mt. Sinai] is
sometimes called HOREB (E, D), sometimes SINAI (J, P), the names appearing to be interchange-
able. Some think that Horeb refers to the range and Sinai to the peak; others the opposite. Heinisch
holds that there is much
to be said for the conjec-
ture of Sandra (Moses
und der Pentateuch
(1924), 37, 359) that
Horeb represents the
Midianite name for the
mountain and Sinai the
one used by the
Canaanites and the
Amorite population of
the peninsula. It is thus
Jabel el Lawz -- The Real Mt. Sinai
called Horeb here, since
Moses is among the
Midianites...." (p. 212).

This explanation is CLOSE, but not one-hundred percent correct! The British author and ar-
chaeologist H. St. John Philby spent a significant portion of his life exploring the wadis and moun-
tains of northwest Arabia -- the biblical land of Midian. In the book he wrote following his
exploration of Midian, Philby outlines his adventures in that mountainous land:

From here my guide and I climbed up the cliff to visit The 'Circles' of Jethro on the summit
of Musalla ridge, from which we climbed down quite easily to our camp on the far side.
[Alois] Musil tells us that he had to fetch a circuit of two kilometres to approach the ridge
from the north; but the more direct approach presented no difficulty. A cairn marked the
spot where Jethro is supposed to have prayed, and all round it are numerous circles, the
significance of which is difficult to guess: presumably some stance marked out for the
benefit of pilgrims visiting the scene of Jethro's argument with the Midianites. from here I
had a magnificent view of the whole of the Midian mountain range: with LAUZ and its
sister peaks in the northeast and Maqla' a very little north of east, with the valley of
al-Numair separating the latter from the long low ridge of All Marra, extending from east to
south-east, where the TWO PEAKS OF HURAB stood out in front of the great range of
Zuhd, which runs down to a point not far from the sea to our southward...the spot that held
my imagination was the smooth, double-headed, granite boss of HURAB (pronounced
HRUB by 'Id), AN OBVIOUS CANDIDATE FOR IDENTIFICATION WITH THE
MOUNT HOREB OF THE EXODUS, with the burning bush and the tablets of the Law:
THE ONLY CANDIDATE FOR THE HONOUR WHICH CAN CLAIM TO HAVE
PRESERVED THE NAME.

Philby goes on to explore the area –

The Berean Voice September-October 2002