Came unto the wilderness of Sin— The children of Israel continued some time at Elim, according to the account given in this verse, compared with the note on Exodus 16:27 of the former chapter. It was now just a month since they had left Egypt. "We have a distinct view of Mount Sinai from Elim," says Dr. Shaw; "the wilderness, as it is called, of Sin, lying betwixt them. We traversed these plains in nine hours; being all the way diverted with the sight of lizards and vipers, which are here in great numbers. We were afterwards near twelve hours in passing the many windings and difficult ways which lie betwixt these deserts and those of Sinai. The latter consist of a beautiful plain, more than a league in breadth, and nearly three in length, lying open towards the north-east, where we enter it; but it is closed up to the southward by some of the lower eminences of Mount Sinai.
In this direction, likewise, the higher parts of this mountain make such encroachments upon the plain, that they divide it into two, each of them capacious enough to receive the whole encampment of the Israelites. That which lies to the eastward may be the desert of Sinai, properly so called, where Moses saw the angel of the Lord in the burning bush, while he was guarding the flocks of Jethro, ch. Exodus 3:2. A convent, called the convent of St. Catherine, is built over the place of this divine appearance. It is near three hundred feet square, and more than forty in height, being built partly of stone, partly with mud and mortar mixed together. [That which is supposed to have been] the more immediate place of the Shechinah is honoured with a little chapel, which the old fraternity of St. Basil has in such esteem and veneration, that, in imitation of Moses, they put off the shoes from off their feet whenever they enter it."