Johann Quisumbing

Google Map Tours of the Bible – Module 2 guided by JQuisumbing

In this module, we will visit the Bible sites significant to the books of Exodus & Joshua – mostly the sites where God used Moses and Joshua to lead the nation of Israel through the wilderness into the promise land.

In module 1, we ended our tour in Egypt… and it is there that we have to pick up the trail.

1 – EGYPT

In the end of Genesis, Israel brought his entire family and household to Egypt. At that time, a different king ruled over Lower Egypt. This was the same king that made Joseph, son of Israel, Prime Minister of his kingdom.

Exodus 1:7
But the sons of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly, and multiplied, and became exceedingly mighty, so that the land was filled with them.

And at that time, Pharaoh saw both a military and economic threat in the growing number of the people of Israel. The Egyptians’ solution was to enslave and dishearten them. This went on for 400 years.

Except for the pyramids of Giza, Google Maps does not offer us much virtual scenery of the archaeological sites of the ancient cities of Lower Egypt. The most I can offer is an aerial view of the area where once stood a city that may have been built by the enslaved Hebrews.

Click LINK 1 – Satellite view of Qantir/Pi-Ramesses

This is the modern day town of Qantir, Egypt. Eons ago, this place was called Pi-Ramesses where the daughter of Pharaoh may have found the baby Moses in a basket amongst the reeds and drew him out.

Pi-Ramesses was the city built as the new capital in the Delta region of ancient Egypt by Ramesses II (known as The Great, 1279-1213 BCE). It was located at the site of the modern town of Qantir in the Eastern Delta and, in its time, was considered the greatest city in Egypt, rivaling even Thebes to the south. The name means ‘House of Ramesses’ (also given as ‘City of Ramesses’) and was constructed close by the older city of Avaris. [from ancienthistorymag.com]

To give you a better idea of what an ancient city of Egypt would look like, let us go to…

Click LINK 1a – Karnak

As you look at the grandeur of Karnak, you can well picture the type of structures that these Egyptians forced the Israelites to build. Four Hundred years, they had to endure under the cruel whips of slavery. For 400 years, the Israelites pleaded for God to intervene… and after 400 years, God did.

Enter Moses…

2 – THE EXODUS [Route 1]

Putting Exodus 5-13 in a nut shell, God sent Moses to lead Israel out of Egypt especially after God forced Pharaoh’s hand with 10 devastating plagues.

Our virtual tour will take us on the Exodus trail of almost 2 million displaced Israelites marching to the legendary mountain of God, Mt Sinai. We will explore two possible routes ending onto two different Mt Sinai locations [please refer to map below].

From 500AD to about the 1990s, the traditional route (note the black line on the map) of the exodus of Israel was always believed to end on a mountain top near the tip of what today is called the Sinai Peninsula. Unfortunately, Google Maps does not provide any other visual reference of any biblical or archaeological sites along the traditional route except the location of …

Click LINK 2 – Mt Sinai 1

You are virtually standing on the top of Mount Sinai (1), traditionally known as Jabal Musa (means Mount Moses in Arabic). It is actually the name of a collection of peaks, sometimes referred to as the Holy Mountain peaks, which consist of Jabal Musa, Mount Catherine and Ras Sufsafeh. For climbers, there are two principal routes to the summit of Jabal Musa. The longer and shallower route, Siket El Bashait, takes about 2.5 hours on foot, though camels can be used. The steeper, more direct route (Siket Sayidna Musa) is up the 3,750 “steps of penitence” in the ravine behind the St Catherine’s Monastery which most visitors are brought to first.

But is Jabal Musa the actual legendary location of where Moses received the Ten Commandments?

For many scholars today, they have found undeniable evidence that the mountain in the peninsula may not be the true mountain of God. So, we will take a closer look at some of the other sites discovered.

3 – THE CROSSING [Route 2]

Let us again refer to the map below but this time we will follow the exodus trail in red to the site of Mt Sinai 2.

Along this route, we will find a number of signs that seem to satisfy biblical accounts. Let us go to where they may have crossed the Red Sea.

Click LINK 3 – Nuweiba Beach

As you look across the waters, imagine what happened here.

How do we know that the Israelites crossed the Red Sea from Nuweiba?

A very wise man, King Solomon himself, placed a marker here.

Click LINK 4 – Solomon’s Column on Nuweiba Beach

Solomon also placed another marker on the Arabian side of the crossing, however, the Saudi government had it removed for safekeeping and replaced with another marker.

Were there other evidences of the crossings here? Well, Pharaoh’s army followed the fleeing Israelites into the parted sea and this was what happened…

4 – The Trail into the Wilderness

Click LINK 5 –SAUDI BEACH

When crossing the Red Sea, the Israelites knew that the Egyptians were just behind. They knew their danger. If the Egyptian battle ready army reached them, it could have been a great slaughter and return to slavery. But instead, true to the words of Moses, “Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of the LORD… The LORD will fight for you…” (Genesis 13:13,14), the Israelites saw the closing of the sea on the Egyptian army and could not help but sing.

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Then Moses led the people from the Red Sea. After three days, water became scarce and then when they did find it, it was a stagnant pool of bitter water. After the people grumbled against Moses, he pleaded to God. So, God showed him a tree which Moses threw in the waters and became sweet. Then God gave the people this statute to consider.

And He said, “If you will listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God, and do what is right in His sight, and listen to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have put on the Egyptians; for I, the LORD, am your healer.” (Exodus 14:26)

Exodus 14:27
Then they came to Elim where there were twelve springs of water and seventy date palms, and they camped there beside the waters.

Click LINK 6 – ELIM OASIS

The Elim Oasis is about 27 miles south from where the Israelites made landfall.

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Jethro the Midianite

Before we get back on the trail of the Israelites, southeast from the Elim oasis about 14 miles as the crow flies over a series of mountain ranges is a large valley where Jethro, the priest of Midian once lived. Jethro was Moses’ father-in-law. But I am getting ahead of the story.

As a baby, Moses was saved from Pharaoh’s edict that all newborn Hebrew males must be put to death, by Pharaoh’s daughter. Moses grew up in a privileged life but he always remembered that he was Hebrew. As a man, he saw their hard labors. His first action was to secretly kill an Egyptian who was beating a fellow Hebrew and then buried him in the sand. But Pharaoh found out what he did and attempted to have him killed. Moses fled Egypt in fear for his life and ended up in the lands of Midian. To this same valley, where there was a well.

Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters; and they came to draw water and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. Then the shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and helped them and watered their flock. (Exodus 2:16-17)

Click LINK 7 – WELL OF JETHRO

Jethro, the priest of Midian, invited Moses to become part of his family by marrying his eldest daughter, Zipporah. Moses lived with them for 40 years.

Google Maps offers visitors to another site in this valley where Jethro may have been buried.

Click LINK 8 – CAVES OF JETHRO

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 5 – Wilderness of Sin

From Elim, Moses led the Israelites deeper into mountainous region of the Wilderness of Sin.

Click LINK 9 – WILDERNESS OF SIN

It was in this arid environ that Israel grumbled again to Moses.

“If only we had died by the LORD’S hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread until we were full; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this entire assembly with hunger!” (Exodus 16:3)

At night, the Lord blew in quails which covered the camp. The people gathered a regular portion for each family every 5 days. On the sixth day, the Lord provided double the portion, for on the seventh, there was none. The double portion was meant to remind and emphasize that they must keep the Sabbath.

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REPHIDIM

Exodus 17
1 Then all the congregation of the sons of Israel journeyed by stages from the wilderness of Sin, according to the command of the LORD, and camped at Rephidim, and there was no water for the people to drink. 2 So the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water so that we may drink!” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?” 3 But the people were thirsty for water there; and they grumbled against Moses and said, “Why is it that you have you brought us up from Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?”

5 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Pass before the people and take with you some of the elders of Israel; and take in your hand your staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6 Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.

Click LINK 9 – ROCK OF HOREB

6 – MT SINAI (Arabia)

Exodus 19
1 In the third month after the sons of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that very day they came into the wilderness of Sinai. 2 When they set out from Rephidim, they came to the wilderness of Sinai and camped in the wilderness; and there Israel camped in front of the mountain.

Click LINK 10 – Mt Sinai 2

What you are looking at is a satellite view of Mt Sinai in Arabia. Northeast of the mountain is the vast valley of the Sinai Wilderness where the Israelites camped for a year. Unfortunately, Google Maps had no 360 views on the mountain. The photo below is the view of the eastern side of the mountain.

Again, can this site be the true Mt Sinai?

Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke because the LORD descended upon it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the entire mountain quaked violently. (Exodus 19:18)

Talking about evidence: It would be interesting to note that geologists had found evidences of scorched materials at the mountain top and that Mt Sinai was not even volcanic.

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Biblically, what happened here? READ Exodus 19-23

After God told Moses of the Law…

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Come up to the LORD, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and you shall worship at a distance. Moses alone, however, shall approach the LORD, but they shall not approach, nor shall the people come up with him.” (Exodus 24:1,2)

After which, Moses reported to the people all the words of the LORD. They responded with one voice that they will obey. Then he got up early in the morning, and built an altar at the foot of the mountain with twelve memorial stones for the twelve tribes of Israel.

Click LINK 11 – ALTAR of MOSES

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Exodus 32 – Beyond 40 days, as Moses was still on the fiery mountain, the Israelites went to Aaron and said, “Come, make us a god who will go before us; for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt—we do not now what happened to him.” So, Aaron fashioned for them a golden calf.

Then, the people worshiped the idol even after they vowed as one voice in Exodus 24.

Click LINK 12 – GOLDEN CALF ALTAR

Click LINK 12a – GOLDEN CALF ALTAR

Note: Golden Calf Altar – archaeological site fenced off by Saudi gov’t.

What happened to the bodies of those 3000 men?

About 4 miles north from the location of the Golden Calf Worship site is a large fenced off area which archaeologists and the Saudi government identified as the possible burial site of those 3000 men. It may also be the burial spot where the 20,000 or so Israelites who died from the plague later told in the book of Exodus.

Click LINK 12b – GRAVEYARD

The site is very ancient and is unquestionably a pre-Islamic mass graveyard because of many upright headstones found which is forbidden in Islam. According to the Doubting Thomas Research Foundation website, no scientific dating has been published thus far. Even so, some researchers believe it is most likely a Bronze Age site due to the style of some of the burials.

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Click LINK 12c – ENCAMPMENT

This large valley you’re looking at is just east of Mt Sinai. You can just barely see its dark peak on the horizon. Imagine, if you will, about 2 million people encamped here for a year. Why?

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7 – The Forty Year Journey

Now in the second year, in the second month, on the twentieth of the month, the cloud was lifted from above the tabernacle of the testimony; and the sons of Israel set out on their journeys from the wilderness of Sinai. Then the cloud settled in the wilderness of Paran.  (Numbers 10:11,12)

Click LINK 13 – PARAN

Link 13 is a 360 aerial view of what was once the Paran Wilderness. We are near the modern day border between Israel and the state of Jordan. North from here, through the distant haze, is the Dead Sea. A little to the left is the Negev Desert. To the east is a line of mountains once called the Seir Range. In those mountains, the descendants of Esau (Jacob’s other son) made their home. Look south, do you see the flat area between the mountains? That is where God told the Israelites that they will wander the wilderness for 40 years.

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Click LINK 13a – PARAN DESERT

Why did the Israelites have to wander the wilderness for 40 years?

In Numbers 13, God commanded that 12 leaders, one from each tribe, to spy out the land of Canaan.

“Go up there into the Negev; then go up into the hill country. See what the land is like, and whether the people who live in it are strong or weak, whether they are few or many. And how is the land in which they live, is it good or bad? And how are the cities in which they live, are the people in open camps or in fortifications? And how is the land, is it productive or unproductive? Are there trees in it or not? And show yourselves courageous and get some of the fruit of the land.” (Numbers 13:17-20)

After 40 days, they successfully returned laden with the fruit of the land. When they gave their report to the people, ten out of the twelve gave bleak and very negative analysis of what they saw. In Numbers 14, the congregation reacted in fear and in despair to the point that they grumbled greatly. Joshua & Caleb, the two spies that had positive outlooks tried to encourage the people…

“The land which we passed through to spy out is an exceedingly good land. If the LORD is pleased with us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us—a land which flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the LORD; and do not fear the people of the land, for they will be our prey. Their protection is gone from them, and the LORD is with us; do not fear them.” (Numbers 14:7-9)

The people reacted even more badly by wanting to stone them including Moses and Aaron. So, God had enough. He told Moses that He was going to destroy the nation, but Moses pleaded for them (vs 13-19). God did relent. However, those that grumbled against Him must pay a price.

“As I live,” declares the LORD, “just as you have spoken in My hearing, so I will do to you; your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness, all your numbered men according to your complete number from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against Me. Also, your sons will be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, and they will suffer for your unfaithfulness, until your bodies perish in the wilderness…” (vs 26-35)

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S1 – Numbers 13 – God condemned Israel to wander the wilderness for 40 years.

S2 – Numbers 20

Click LINK 14 – MERIBAH??

You are now hovering over another area of the Paran Desert.

Vs1: Death of Miriam (sister to Moses)

Vs2-13: Waters of Meribah – Israel grumbled again about no water. God instructed Moses to ‘speak to the rock before their eyes’ and water would come forth. But Moses struck the rock with his staff in anger, against God’s specific words to speak to it, so God told him & Aaron that they both will not enter the promised land.

Click LINK 14a – EDOM

The mountains you are viewing are the Seir Range which was the territory of the kingdom of Edom. The Edomites were the estranged cousins of the Israelites. They were the descendants of Esau, the twin brother of Jacob. If you look west, that is the Paran Wilderness. The valley below was probably the route that the Israelites wanted to cross through Edomite country.

S3 – Numbers 20:14-21 – King of Edom denied the Israelites passage through their territory.

S4 – Numbers 20:22- 29 – Aaron died as prophesied and was buried on Mt Hor.

Click LINK 14b – Bottom of the Seir Range

You are virtually driving on the Aqaba Highway which cut through the bottom end of the Seir mountain range in the state of Jordan. The Israelites journeyed south, skirting the Seir range to avoid conflict with the Edomites of which they camped by the Red Sea (Bay of Aqaba) before turning east for a short distance. Keep in mind that they have been wandering the wilderness for about 25-30 years already.

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8 – Journey’s End

We come to the end of the 40 year journey of the people of Israel led by Moses who was 120 years old. During the 40 year period of wandering, God inspired Moses to write the five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers & Deuteronomy.

MT NEBO

Click LINK 15 – Mt Nebo

You are looking at a 360 degree panoramic scene from the high vantage view of Mount Nebo. Moses ascended this mountain, which was in the land of Moab (today in Jordan). In Deuteronomy 34, God allowed him to see the Land of Canaan (the Promised Land), which God had said he would not enter. Unfortunately, due to air pollutant haze in the distant west, we do not see what Moses saw back then. It must had been a spectacular sight. Now, if you gaze down a little, you’ll see the Jordan River Valley. Imagine Moses watching a mass of about 3 million Israelites filling the east side of the river. But he did not watch them cross. According to verse 5, Moses then died there and only the Lord knows where he was buried.

Now, if you look south and up a little, you will see the next site for you to visit.

Click LINK 15a – Moses Memorial Church

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9 – Joshua

Click LINK 16 – Jordan River

Days later, they came before…

10 – Jericho

Click LINK 17 – Ruins of Jericho

The ruins of Jericho or Tel-Jericho is located on the western edge of modern day city of Jericho, a Palestinian city on the West Bank.

The rest of the Book of Joshua tells of the conquest of Canaan by Israel.

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Epilogue:

Again, thank you for walking with us through the wilderness. It has always been important for me to point you to the Gospel. After all, the Old Testament goes that way. So, I invite you to another video about the Gospel. Enjoy…

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This ends our tour of Module 2. Thank you for joining me in A Walk through the Wilderness.

Click here to go to MODULE 3 – The Feet of the Judges