The nearest route to Canaan would have been the usual caravan route, which runs in a north-easterly direction along the coast of the Mediterranean, and would not have occupied more than a few days. But it would have brought the host into collision with the warlike and powerful nation of the Philistines, and for such an encounter they were as yet totally unfit. From RAMESES, therefore, which was probably on the eastern skirts of the Delta in the _Wady Tumeilat_, they proceeded in a southerly course, and after a day’s journey halted for the first time at SUCCOTH (Ex. xii. 37), the place of _booths_, “formed by the luxuriant foliage of tamarisk, sycamore, and palm” at the verge of the cultivated land of Egypt. The next day’s halt was at _Etham in the edge of the wilderness_ (Ex. xiii. 20). At this point the Lord Himself in an outward and visible form assumed the direction of their march, appearing by day in a Pillar of Cloud, and by night in a Pillar of Fire. Such a miraculous intervention was indeed needed to confirm the faith of the host, for instead of being conducted round the northern extremity of the Red Sea, so as to escape with all speed beyond reach of their Egyptian oppressors, they were commanded to turn and encamp before Pihahiroth (_the place of sedge_), between Migdol (a frontier _Watchtower_) and the western side of the Red Sea over against Baal-zephon. Here they had scarcely encamped, when lifting up their eyes the Israelites discerned the terrible horses and chariots of Pharaoh pursuing after them. Astonished that the people had not made good their flight into Asia, and deeming them entangled in the land and shut in by the wilderness, the monarch had directed all his forces to give chase to the fugitives. In wild alarm the Israelites cried out to Moses, and already complained of their deliverance from the bondage of Egypt. But the faith of their leader was not shaken. He bade the trembling, panic-stricken host stand still and _see the salvation of the Lord_.