The acceptation of _two_ mountains of God, Serbâl and Gebel Mûsa, is, as far I can tell, here attempted for the first time. It is certainly, the _necessary, only not yet enounced consequence, for all those who place Raphidîm in Firân_. In this there seems to me to lie an evident proof with reference to the critical examination of the text, that both mountains are again to be found in _Serbâl_. The greater security of the plain of Râha would not be very high for a “harnessed” (Exodus xvi. 18,) host of 600,000 men, after they had taken a firm footing, and Serbâl would also have always offered a safe place of retreat. The cold in the lofty mountains, causing water to freeze (Ritter, p. 445-630) in February in the convent (5,000 feet above the sea), according to Rüppell and Robinson, would alone have made an open camp on the plain of Râha impossible during the winter, for a population accustomed to the Egyptian climate, to the vegetation of those districts, which is certainly differently described by the different travellers; the thought there is no doubt of the Israelites having at one period been there, may partially have induced several to accept more shrubs in the neighbourhood than they actually saw at the time, partly there, no question that the season of the year may make some difference; I therefore willingly observe, that I visited the peninsula at about the same season of the year in which, according to the Mosaic account, the Israelites came thither. Finally, Ritter has again spoken upon the Sinai question in a more popular essay: “The Sinaitic Peninsula, and the Route of the People of Israel to Sinai,” in the _Evangelischen Kalender_, for 1852, edited by F. Piper, pp. 31, sqq. Here, too, he places Raphidîm in Firân, and perceived the mountain of God at Raphidîm, in Serbâl. Against the identity of Serbâl and Sinai, he brings these two chief objections. As it has now been perfectly settled that the so-called Sinaitic inscriptions are of heathen origin, and prove Serbâl, to which they chiefly point as the “centre of an ancient worship,” this remarkable mountain could not be “a mountain of Jehovah, if it were already a sacred mountain of the idolaters” (p. 51). And further on (p. 52):--“The holy mountain of Israel did not lie in the territory of Amalek, like Serbâl, but in the east and south parts of the territory of Midian,” for it is expressly said in Exodus (iv. 19):--“And the LORD said unto Moses, _in Midian_, Go, return into Egypt,” in order that they should sacrifice to him on these mountains, Horeb and Sinai, in Midian (Exodus iii. 1-12).” Of these two points, however, the first seems to me a very important argument _for_ Serbâl-Sinai. Serbâl was also a holy mountain for the tribes in the peninsula at a later period, as it is not called “Idol Mountain,” _before_ the giving of the Law, but “Mountain of God” (Exodus iii. 1, iv. 27, xviii. 5), just as it was _after_ the giving of the Law (Exodus xxiv. 13; 1 Kings xix.