Inhaltsangabe
Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1869. Excerpt: ... XVI. THE DESERT. So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur. -- Exodus Xv. 22. The shore on which the Israelites stood, when they had come up out of the bed of the sea, was the outer margin of that wide and indefinite region which is commonly known as the desert or wilderness, on its front towards Egypt. The country they had reached is the Arabia Petrea of geography, the stony Arabia, as distinguished from the sandy plains of the interior, and the rich fields of the southern extremity. It is for the most part a confused mass of rocks and mountains, with green valleys and arable lands here and there nestling among them. There the descendants of Ishmael and Esau and of the sons of Abraham by Keturah roamed then, and roam still, leading an unsettled, nomadic life. The land was familiar to Moses; for he had passed forty years in it, feeding the flocks of his father-in-law, Jethro the Midianite, unconsciously at school for the scenes and works upon which he was now entering. And there, even then, were his wife and children; Zipporah, with his two sons, having withdrawn thither to the protection of her father, by the direction of Moses it might seem, after the failure of his mission to Pharaoh. This rocky tract is separated from Egypt by that 11 large expanse of water, which from ancient times has been known by the name of the Red Sea, a name of uncertain derivation. Perhaps as probable an explanation of it as any, is that which makes it equivalent to the sea of Edom, or Esau, whose territories came down to its northeastern shore. Edom, or Esau, signifies red, and upon this supposition, the color of Esau's hair, which gave him his name, has singularly enough perpetuated itself in this appellation. The cliffs of sandstone, of a reddish color, on...
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