ELIM ; Sept. A/Xcip), the second station at which the Israelites encamped after the passage of the Red Sea. When they had sung their song of triumph over the host of Pharaoh, they went three days' journey into the wilderness of Shur, and found no water.' They then reached the sta tion of Marah, whose waters were bitter ; and afterwards proceeded to -Vim,' where were twelve wells of water (fountains, r151,1), and threescore and ten palm-trees ; and they encamped there by the waters' (Exod. xv. 27 ; Num. xxxiii. 8, 9). The route of the Israelites cannot be mistaken.
It lay along the desert plain on the eastern shore of the Red Sea. Elim must consequently have been in this plain, and not more than about fifty miles from the place of passage. With these data, and in a country where fountains are of such rare occurrence, it is not difficult to identify Elim. Near the south-eastern end of this plain, and not far from the base of Jebel Hummam, the out post of the great Sinai mountain-group, a charm ing vale, called Wady Ghurandel, intersects the line of route. It is fringed with trees and shrub
bery, stunted palms, with their hairy trunks and dishevelled branches ; tamarisks, their feathery leaves dripping with what the Arabs call manna ; and the acacia, with its gray foliage and white blossoms (Stanley, S. and P. 69). Well might such a wady, in the midst of a bare and treeless waste, be called emphatically Film, the trees.' Living fountains still exist in it. The principal one wells out at the foot of a sandstone rock, forming a pool of sparkling water, and sending out a tiny but perennial stream. This, in fact, is one of the chief watering-places in the peninsula of Sinai (Robinson, R. R. i. 68, sq.; Bartlett, Forty days in Me Desert, p. 33, sq.) Wady Useit, some three miles nearer the mountains, is also a claimant for the title of Elim ; but we can scarcely suppose that the thirsty host would pass Ghurun del ; or that Moses, who knew the topography of the whole peninsula, would have failed to take ad vantage of it.—J. L. P.