The Camping Places of Israel Numbers 33:1-50
IN this chapter the places are named, at which the big camp of Israel stopped on their way from Egypt to Canaan. Most of the names are strange to us and hard to pronounce. Perhaps many of them are not now called the same, but when Moses wrote this record, the people who read it knew where all the places were. Much of those lands are still wild, or deserts.
We do not know how many miles they traveled. It is not so very far from Egypt to Canaan, but God did not first take them the direct way, because of a fierce people who liked to war; and afterward they had to go much farther, and be many years longer because they did not believe God.
Now if you count the times in this chapter that the words “pitched” and “encamped” are used, see if you do not find forty times. So they camped at forty different places. We are not told how long they stayed in the places; sometimes it says “many days”; they camped nearly a year beside Mt. Sinai, and built the wonderful Tabernacle.
But, we do know how many years they were altogether on this journey; it was a very long time, forty years! And was very different from any other journey ever made, because God kept His cloud and pillar of fire over them all the way, and fed them with manna.
If you look on a Bible map of Egypt, Arabia and Canaan (now called Palestine) you may find one where the journey of Israel is marked, and you can find some of the places named in our chapter: find Rameses in Egypt where they started; and their last camping place, east of the Jordan river, across from Jericho.
“Ah Lord God! behold Thou hast made the heaven and the earth by Thy great power ... . there is nothing too hard for thee, ...And hast brought forth Thy people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs, and with wonders.” Jeremiah 32:17, 21.
ML 12/05/1937