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Bible chapter guide
Deuteronomy 1
On the far side of the Jordan, forty years after leaving Egypt, Moses begins to explain the law. He retells how they left Horeb, how leaders were appointed, and how the people refused to enter the land after the spies' report.
Summary written for the Labs; read the chapter itself for the full text.
See it in the Labs
- The Exodus: through the Sea to SinaiArrival at Sinai · The Exodus: through the Sea to SinaiOpen
- The Exodus: through the Sea to SinaiArrival at Sinai: The boundary · The Exodus: through the Sea to SinaiOpen
- The Exodus: through the Sea to SinaiArrival at Sinai: The third day · The Exodus: through the Sea to SinaiOpen
- The Bible Time MapMount Sinai · The Bible Time MapOpen
- The TabernacleMount Sinai · The TabernacleOpen
How sure can we be?
- Strongly supported
The Bible does not give Mount Sinai's location in terms that can be mapped with certainty.
The clues are travel times (eleven days from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea, Deuteronomy 1:2), the Midian setting of Exodus 3 and the stations of Numbers 33, which have not been securely identified.
- Plausible
Jebel Musa is the biblical Mount Sinai.
It fits the southern route and an eleven-day journey to Kadesh-barnea, and the plain of er-Raha could hold a large camp. The tradition is some 1,700 years after the events, and no finds tie the mountain to Israel.
- Speculative
Har Karkom is Mount Sinai.
The cult sites are real, but their date does not fit the biblical chronology, and the mountain is close to Kadesh-barnea rather than eleven days away (Deuteronomy 1:2).