THE ISRAELITES IN SINAI II. HAVING reached the goal of their pilgrimage, the Israelites encamped near the Mount of God, Har-ha-elohim (Exod. xviii. 5), a word which can also be read as height of the priests. If we identify this goal as Serabit, it follows that they encamped near the outlet of one of the gorges on the northern side of the plateau in the direction of the Wadi Suweig, probably near the outlet of the Wadi Dhaba. This was the side from which there was direct access to the cave of Sopd, and the side on which the Semitic inscriptions were found in the mines. The physical features of the place are in closest agreement with the requirements of Scripture. For here is “a mountain with a wilderness at its foot, rising so sharply that its base could be fenced in while yet it was easily ascended, and its summit could be seen by a multitude from below.”[103] If we go from the sanctuary down in the direction of the Wadi Dhaba and turning back, look up, we see the temple ruins standing against the skyline, with the square cutting, where the holocaust at this period presumably took place, just below it to the right. When the Israelites were encamped, Moses was sought by Jethro, the priest, who carried out the choice of an animal and “took a burnt offering and sacrifices for God” (Exod. xviii. 12). Moses himself ascended the Mount, and after his return sanctified the people, who were now called upon to practise abstinence during three days, avoiding their wives, and washing their clothes against the third day, when “the Lord will come down in the sight of all the people upon Mount Sinai” (Exod. xix. 11). This arrangement was apparently part of a widespread Semitic usage, for in the Koran we read of similar restrictions for the three days preceding the appearance of the new moon (Koran, ii. 193). On the third day there were “thunders and lightnings,” or rather, “voices and flashes,” and the sound of a trumpet (Exod. xix. 16), and the people were led out by Moses and stood on the nether part of the Mount from where they witnessed the theophany. Fire appeared first, then smoke (Deut. v. 23), which shows that they were out before daybreak. “And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly” (Exod. xix. 18). The voice of the trumpet waxing louder, Moses spoke and God answered him by a voice (Exod. xix. 19), whereupon he went up and was charged to set bounds about the Mount. On his return he declared to the people the statutes and judgments (Deut. v. 1; Exod. xx. 1), which were vouchsafed to him.