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The Great Ash Heap in the Wilderness! 55

The re peated re quest to be al lowed to go THREE DAYS’ JOURNEY INTO THE
WILDERNESS in or der to sac ri fice is ap par ently un mean ing to one who does not know
SINAI (Ex o dus iii.18, viii.27). But the wa ter-less jour ney of THREE DAYS to Wady
Gharandel im presses it self on any one who has to ar range for trav el ling. It is so es sen tial a
fea ture of the road that this may well have been known as the ‘THREE DAYS INTO THE
WILDERNESS;’ in con trast to the road to Aqabah, which is SIX OR SEVEN DAYS IN
THE WILDERNESS. To de sire to go the ‘three days’ jour ney in the wil der ness’ was prob a -
bly AN EXPRESSION FOR GOING DOWN TO SINAI. -- Re searches in Si nai. E.P.
Dutton & Co. N.Y. 1906. P.203.

This road down into the Si nai pen in sula from Egypt, is de scribed by au thor Werner Keller:

From the Nile to the moun tains of the Si nai pen in sula stretches an ANCIENT BEATEN
TRACK. It was the road fol lowed by the count less la bour gangs and SLAVE GANGS who
had been dig ging for cop per and tur quoise in the Si nai moun tains since 3,000 B.C....IT
WAS ALONG THIS ROAD TO THE MINES THAT MOSES LED HIS PEOPLE. It be -
gins at Mem phis, crosses the top of the Gulf, at what is now Suez, and then bends south
along a wa ter less stretch of 45 miles, with out a sin gle oasis or spring....Fif teen miles far ther
on to the south, ex actly a day’s march, lies Wadi Gharande. A fine oasis with shady palms
and plenty of wa ter-holes. -- The Bi ble as His tory. Sec ond Re vised Edi tion. Wil liam Mor -
row and Co., Inc. N.Y. 1981. Pps.127-128.

In ac tu al ity, this road to the mines of Si nai also ran NORTH as far as the bor der-cross ing at
Sile -- close to the city of Ramesses. Ac cord ing to Sir Charles Marston, “Sir Flinders Petrie has sug -
gested that ‘THE THREE DAYS’ JOURNEY INTO THE WILDERNESS’ was an ex pres sion used
to de note the route to the TEMPLE OF SERABIT in the cen tre of the Si nai Pen in sula, where the
then ex ist ing cer e mo nies and rit ual OF THE HEBREWS were ob served.” (The Bi ble Comes Alive.
Eyre and Spottiswoode, Lon don. 1937. P.64).

The Temple of Serabit

In the win ter of 1904-5, Sir Flinders Petrie led an ex pe di tion of some thirty mem bers into
the cen ter of the Si nai pen in sula. This re gion was lit tle known at the time be cause of its in ac ces si bil -
ity and the gen eral rug ged ness of the ter rain. Werner Keller de scribes the jour ney from its start ing
point on the Suez Ca nal:

From the banks of the Suez Ca nal the ex pe di tion fol lowed the line of the EGYPTIAN
BEATEN TRACK INTO THE WILDS OF SINAI. Through the Wil der ness of Sin as far as
the moun tains IT FOLLOWED THE SAME ROUTE AS ISRAEL.

Slowly the car a van made its way along a wadi and round a sharp bend in the hills....The car -
a van was trans ported straight back into the world of the Pha raohs. Petrie or dered a halt.
From a ter race in the rock face A TEMPLE pro jected into the val ley....A jum ble of pil lars
with one very tall one seemed to be grow ing out of the ground. The yel low sand round a
num ber of lit tle stone al tars SHOWED UNMISTAKABLE EVIDENCE OF THE ASHES
OF BURNT OFFERINGS. Dark cav erns yawned round the cliff-face and high above the

The Berean Voice