The Exodus
Egypt → Sinai
After long years in Egypt, Israel walked out in a night. Moses led them from the brick pits of Rameses to the edge of the sea, through its parted waters, and into the desert to the mountain where the LORD promised to meet them.
Who walked it
- Moses
- Aaron
- Miriam
- Pharaoh
- Joshua
The road
- Rameses
- Succoth
- Etham
- Pi-hahiroth (Sea crossing)
- Marah
- Elim
- Wilderness of Sin
- Rephidim
- Mount Sinai
Moments on the road
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Succoth
The first camp · Exodus 12
The first camp out of Egypt. Here they baked unleavened bread from the dough they had carried out in haste, for they had been driven out in a single night.
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Etham
The pillar of cloud and fire · Exodus 13
Camped at the edge of the wilderness, Israel first followed the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. The LORD himself went ahead of them, and the pillar never left its place before the people.
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The Sea Crossing
Pi-hahiroth · Exodus 14
Trapped between Pharaoh’s chariots and the water, Israel watched the sea divide. They crossed on dry ground with the water a wall on their right and left, and the army that followed them did not come out.
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Marah
Bitter water made sweet · Exodus 15
Three days without water ended at a spring too bitter to drink. Moses cast a log into it at the LORD’s word, and the water turned sweet.
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Elim
Twelve springs · Exodus 15
Twelve springs and seventy palm trees. After the bitterness of Marah, Israel camped here by the water and rested.
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Bread from Heaven
Wilderness of Sin · Exodus 16
Here the grumbling for bread was answered from heaven. Quail covered the camp at evening, and in the morning manna lay on the ground like frost. Each gathered what he needed, and it did not fail.
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Rephidim
Water from the rock · Exodus 17
No water again, and the people quarreled. The LORD brought water out of the rock at Horeb, and Israel prevailed over Amalek so long as Moses’ hands were held high.
At a glance
- Span
- About 1446 or 1260 BC, per dating view
- Distance
- Roughly 200 miles to Mount Sinai
- Duration
- About three months to the mountain
- Scripture
- Exodus 1 to 19
- Route
- Rameses, the sea crossing, then Sinai
The story
Israel had come to Egypt as a favored family and stayed to become slaves, worked hard under taskmasters who set them to building store cities. When the LORD sent Moses with plague after plague, Pharaoh at last let them go, and they left Rameses in haste on the night of the Passover. They marched to Succoth and Etham, then found themselves trapped against the sea with Pharaoh’s chariots closing behind.
That night the LORD drove the sea back with a strong east wind, and Israel crossed on dry ground while the waters stood like walls on either side. The same sea that saved them drowned the army behind them. Free at last, they still had to be taught to trust: bread came down each morning as manna, water came from a struck rock, and Amalek was beaten back at Rephidim before they reached Sinai.
The Exodus became the pattern of every rescue that Scripture tells. Israel would sing of it forever, and the prophets would point back to the night the LORD brought them out with a mighty hand. Long after, on the mountain of the Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah spoke with Jesus of the departure He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem, another exodus, out of a deeper bondage than Egypt.