Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal map
Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal map
Boundary of Promised Land
Map Plains of Moab
Map View from Mount Nebo
Map View from Mount Nebo
View from Mount Nebo
Mount Nebo has the highest summit on the plateau, at 2,300 feet elevation, or 710 meters. That’s an especially good vantage point to view what is now Israel and Palestinian territories since the Dead Sea is about 1,400 feet below sea level, or 430 meters. That’s more than a kilometer above the Jordan River Valley, about three-fourths of a mile.Why God didn't let Moses into Promised Land
Scholars debate why God reacted wouldn't let Moses into the Promised Land of Canaan. Two popular guesses:- God told Moses to merely speak to the rock, but Moses angrily hit it with a stick—twice. Also, Moses seemed to take some credit for the miracle when he said “Do we have to bring water from this rock” (Numbers 20:9). As in God and Moses, the tag team? Some scholars say God’s complaint about Moses and Aaron in Numbers 20: 12 and 24 seem like an overreaction to what the men did.
- So, another guess is that the writer didn’t want to report what really happened. Instead, he wanted to protect the reputation of the men.
Notes
- Mountains east of the Jordan River. It includes Mount Nebo and extends south.
- Across the Jordan River from Jericho.
- It’s unclear where Mount Hor was. There’s a long tradition that connects it to Jebel Nabi Harun (Mountain of Prophet Aaron), roughly a day’s walk south of Edom’s capital city of Petra. Some scholars say that mountain was well inside the country of Edom, which is where the Israelites were forbidden to go. Another contender is Jebel Madurah. It was about a two-day walk northwest of Petra. The mountain is southwest of the Dead Sea, along what would have been the border of the Promised Land and Edom.
- Literally “the waters of Meribah-kadesh.” Meribah means to fight, argue, complain, rebel. Kadesh is a location. Scholars most often identify Kadesh, also called Kadesh Barnea, as the spring-fed oasis at Tel el-Qudeirat, on Egypt’s side of the border with Israel. Another contender is Ain Qadeis, also on Egypt’s side of the border. Bible writers put the location in different deserts: Zin Desert (Numbers 20:1) and Paran Desert (Numbers 13:26). Some theorize there were two Kadesh oases. West Kadesh and East Kadesh. Not many scholars seem to buy into that. The story of Moses disobeying God, as reported in Exodus, says Moses named the site “Pushy Complainers,” or literally in the Hebrew name, “Massah Meribah.” Massah means to test or to get pushy.
Acacia Grove camp
Tent worship center
Tent worship center
Tent worship center
aka The Tabernacle
Temple in a tent
Parked inside: Ten Commandments
Temple à la cart
Replacing the tent with a temple
Migrating quail
Map Exodus – Grumbling at “Pushy Complainers” Spring
Map Exodus - Grumbling at "Pushy Complainers" Spring
Israelite route to the Promised Land
Route to Promised Land
Route to Promised Land
Map of Exodus: Out of Egypt to the Promised Land
Map of Exodus: Out of Egypt to the Promised Land
Out of Egypt to the Promised Land
Exodus Map
Exodus map of Moses and Hebrews leaving Egypt. The map shows a possible route Moses took when he led the Hebrews to freedom. Many Bibles say Moses and the Hebrews crossed the “Red Sea.” But the Hebrew words are yam suph, “sea reeds.” Later in the story, Moses and the Hebrew refugees will escape through a path God makes in this body of water. Scholars usually track Moses and the Hebrews escaping Egypt by walking southeast, out of the Nile Delta fields. That's toward the Red Sea and the Sinai Peninsula. They would have passed through lake regions along what is now the Suez Canal. This connects the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. These lakes and ponds reportedly had reeds growing along the banks, like the ones the Bible says grew along the Nile River and helped anchor Baby Moses in a basket (Exodus 2:3). Compare with other Bible versions at Bible Gateway.Mount Sinai
Horeb is a Hebrew word that can mean “dry,” “desolate,” or “desert.” But here, it reads more like a name. Most Bible scholars say it’s an alternate name for Mount Sinai—much like “Zion” is another name for “Jerusalem.” Some say the mountain is in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Others say it’s in what is now Saudi Arabia, where the people of Midian lived.Sinai, Land of God
Two Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions from about the 1400s BC, around the time some scholars say Moses lived, said the mountainous territory of the Sinai was the “land of the Shasu of Yahweh.” “Shasu” was what Egyptians called the nomads and herders from what is now the areas of Israel, Palestinian Territories, Syria, and Jordan. Yahweh, translated “LORD” in all capital letters, was God’s name (3:14). The inscription might mean the Sinai was the land of nomads who worshipped God or who were known by the name of God—perhaps as “the people of God.” These inscriptions are the two oldest references outside the Bible to anyone worshiping Yahweh, the God of the Israelites, who were ancestors of today’s Jewish people.Map to Promised Land
Map to Promised Land
Exodus here
Map to Promised Land
After 40 years in the desert wasteland, a new generation of Israelites breaks camp and restarts their invasion of the Promised Land.
Diplomacy thumbs down
They try to sweettalk nations in their way, asking for peaceful access to the road through those nations. Didn't work.
Edom refuses, forcing the Israelites on a long and dangerous bypass around them. Many died of snakebites on that trip (Numbers 21).
Everyone else refused, too, and there weren't anymore bypasses. So the Israelites, now young again, fought their way through the enemies. Then they took the land, the livestock, and the kitchen sink. They took it all.
Israel east of the Jordan
Two tribes and half of another didn't go any further to make their home. The tribes of Gad and Reuben and half the tribe of Manasseh settled east of the Jordan River, in what is now the Arab country of Jordan.
They had a lot of livestock, and they fell in love with the green pastures. Who wouldn't, after living 40 years in the desert?
They helped the other tribes conquer some of the land west of the Jordan River, since those tribes had helped East Israel conquer the Moabites, Ammonites, and others in the area.
Centuries later, the Jews got pushed off the eastern land. But the same thing happened to Jews west of the River, too. They disobeyed God and God allowed invaders to conquer them and exile the survivors to what is now Iraq along with parts of Iran.
Read the story in the Bible book of Numbers.
Compare other Bible versions with Bible Gateway.
For overview of the Bible, see Stephen M. Miller's Complete Guide to the Bible.