Elim ( he, אֵילִם, ), according to the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...

, was one of the places where the

Israelite The Israelites (; , , ) were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan. The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele o ...

s camped following their

Exodus Exodus or the Exodus may refer to: Religion * Book of Exodus, second book of the Hebrew Torah and the Christian Bible * The Exodus, the biblical story of the migration of the ancient Israelites from Egypt into Canaan Historical events * Ex ...

from

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

. It is referred to in

15:27 and Numbers 33:9 as a place where "there were twelve wells of water and seventy date palms," and that the Israelites "camped there near the waters". From the information that can be gleaned from Exodus 15:23, 16:1, and Numbers 33:9-11, Elim is described as being between Marah and the Wilderness of Sin, near the eastern shore of the

Red Sea The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; T ...

. It was possibly south of the Israelites' crossing point, and to the west of the Sin Wilderness. Thus, Elim is generally thought to have been located in

Wadi Gharandel Wadi Gharandel is a wadi in western Sinai, Egypt. Biblical associations Some associate Wadi Gharandel with the biblical narrative of the Exodus, namely with Elim, the fourth station where the Israelites camped during their journey away from slav ...

, an oasis 100 km southeast of Suez. Professor Menashe Har-El of

Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv University (TAU) ( he, אוּנִיבֶרְסִיטַת תֵּל אָבִיב, ''Universitat Tel Aviv'') is a public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Locate ...

(1968) has proposed Elim to be `Ayun Musa "the springs/wells of Moses." He noted that in 1907 the geologist Thomas Barron had observed that 12 springs existed at this site along with palm trees. Professor

James K. Hoffmeier James K. Hoffmeier (born February 13, 1951 in Egypt) is an American Old Testament scholar, an archaeologist and an egyptologist. He was Professor of Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern History and Archaeology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity S ...

disagrees on the basis that it is too close to the preceding site (seven miles/twelve kilometres) and would require the next four sites (using the Numbers itinerary) to be compressed into only 38 kilometres. The Book of Exodus records that the Israelites left Elim "on the fifteenth day of the second month after leaving Egypt" (Exodus 16:1), heading towards

Mount Sinai Mount Sinai ( he , הר סיני ''Har Sinai''; Aramaic: ܛܘܪܐ ܕܣܝܢܝ ''Ṭūrāʾ Dsyny''), traditionally known as Jabal Musa ( ar, جَبَل مُوسَىٰ, translation: Mount Moses), is a mountain on the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. It is ...

through the Wilderness of Sin. In that the Israelites left Rameses at midnight on the 14th/15th of the first month (Exodus 12:18,29) it was a (lunar) month after this when they departed Elim for Mount Sinai. There is a possibility that the name 'Elim' is derived from a Semitic root meaning 'gods', but this cannot be further substantiated (see El (god)).

References

* {{coord, 29, 18, N, 32, 58, E, source:kolossus-plwiki, display=title Torah_places

See also

References