AT length the halt at Rephidim came to an end. In the third month (Ex. xix. 1), the Israelites once more set out in a southerly direction, and after ascending winding valleys and rugged passes and staircases of lofty rocks rising one above the other in long succession, reached a level plain (probably _Er-Raheh_)[69], in front of which “towered the massive cliffs of Sinai,” rising “like a huge altar in front of the whole congregation.” Here in a spot where they could find water and pasture for their flocks and herds, they pitched their tents _before the Mount_ (Ex. xix. 2). The natural aspect of everything around them was of a character calculated to exert a most solemnising influence upon their feelings. They had reached a kind of “natural sanctuary, not made with hands,” which for magnificence and grandeur far exceeded any of those massive Egyptian temples, on which their eyes had rested by the green valley of the Nile. Far removed from the stir and confusion of earthly things[70], amidst a scene of desolate grandeur and a silence unbroken even by the sound of waters or the trickling of rills down the mountain gorges[71], they experienced everything that the natural influence of scenery and association could effect towards fitting their minds for the great and sublime transactions now about to be enacted between them and the Almighty. They were about to receive direct communication from the Lord of all the earth, and to learn why _with an outstretched arm, and signs and great wonders_, they had been delivered from the bondage of Egypt, and thus led forth into the wilderness.