Which Journey or Route Did Moses Take Out Of Egypt and Why?.

What made Moses exceptional and what drove him to organise such a dramatic change of history and fortunes for an entire nation?. The Exodus story of escaping from racial oppression started after the conclusion of the Tenth Plague; that led to the death of the Pharaoh’s son and all male Egyptian first born, in contrast to the Israelite children being spared the same fate. Unlike the other nine plagues, although extreme events can be attributed to metrological and North African geo-physical conditions, this event defies explanation and its origins belong to the realms of the supernatural. After this event the Pharaoh reluctantly gave his consent to Moses who started his journey of leading the Israelites out of Egypt.

‘When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by the way of the land of the Philistines ...’

The first populated area that the Israelites stopped was probably The Fortress of Succoth where the Egyptians recorded the movements of nomads through their borders.

Where an Egyptian officer wrote...’We have just finished passing the tribes of Shasu of Edom through the fortress of Merneptah-Hotephirma to the pools of Pitholm...in the domain of the Pharaoh.’ (Weidenfeld, Nicolson, 87)

The coastal route north referred to as the Way of the Philistines was not a viable route because it was very well defended by a network of Egyptian Forts. Reference given to the Philistines in the first passage is misleading because they had not settled in the area until a much later date. This infers that the story of the Exodus was written after the settlement of the Philistines.

Because Moses lived and was educated with the Pharaoh’s children and the name Moses is an Egyptian name; he would have been very knowledgeable about Egyptian culture, customs and territory. This was evidenced by the miracle of transforming his Staff into a serpent; which was either a demonstration of Egyptian magic or God’s power to impress the Pharaoh. Whose belief system like all Egyptians was based on magic and was an everyday part of Egyptian life. It may be argued that much strategic information would have been known to Moses about the Egyptian military presence between the Nile delta and north to the territory of Canaan.

The Egyptian Army would have been able to travel quickly through established northern inland trade routes to Beersheba and Ezion-Gebee, both the army and nomads on those routes would have easily recognised a large group of travelling families. Also there would have been a scarcity of food and water for an estimated Israelite population of 300,000 people along the northern trade routes. They could only have attempted that journey through some means of transport. And for the Israelites, who were walking, the mortality rate would have been unacceptable to maintain political and social control.

Therefore the most favoured route for a large and slow moving group of people to travel with the best chance of survival was to go south through the Wilderness of Shur and then onto the highlands of Sinai. This route may have been have been well known to Moses because of the association between the Amethyst Mines at Serbit-el-Khadim and the Pharaohs Palace which was decorated with Amethyst Crystals.

The strategy that Moses adopted with Gods influence and guidance suggests that the journey had been very well planned using knowledge about resources and known geography of the region within the frontiers of the Egyptian Empire.

‘...the people of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt equipped for battle’

The main crossing point where the Israelites finally escaped in a miraculous way from Pharaoh’s well equipped army is crucial to understanding and reconstructing their journey. The Hebrew name for the Red Sea is an incorrect translation derived from ‘yam suph’ which means Reed Sea or Sea of Marshes and probably refers to papyrus swamps near Per Ramaeses and along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.

‘...and so Pharaoh took 600 of his best chariots...with officers in each’.

The chariot was a light vehicle constructed mainly from wood, leather and some metal parts; this relatively recent innovation had been imported from Western Asia during the Hykos period, circ: 1650BC. It was manned by two soldiers: Charioteer and Warrior; who carried a shield and used a bow or spear as weapons. Although the chariot was unsuitable for a direct attack because it had no shield of armour. It introduced a daunting element of surprise due to its speed and mobility. The officers of the Chariot Corps were given special titles and this suggests that this particular military force was an elite group.

The escaping Israelites were being pursued by an army specially trained for harassing and attacking infantry who posed a very serious threat to these unarmed nomads. The despatch of the charioteers was a decision that was arguably taken much later after the Israelites had been given permission by the Pharaoh to leave; perhaps as much as a few weeks had elapsed which implies the reason of urgency and use of a chariot army to retrieve the escaping Israelites.

It may be said that Moses was not lost in the wilderness, he was following a carefully planned strategy that concealed and protected The Children of Israel and avoided conflict; hence the notion of walls of water protecting this travelling band that became a nation.