And passed through the midst of the sea— We cannot but recommend our readers to what M. Vignoles has written upon the event; he has given to the sentiment of M. Le Clerc all the evidence of which it is capable, and to the grandeur of the miracle all the light that can be desired. See his Chronol. tom. 1: p. 643, &c.
In the wilderness of Etham— Etham was the second station; the geography of which, says Dr. Shaw, is not much better circumstanced than that of the first. If it appertained to the wilderness of the same name, which spread itself round the Heroopolitic gulph, and made after wards the Saracene of the old geography; then the edge of it (Numbers 33:6.) may be well taken for the most advanced part of it towards Egypt, and consequently to lie contiguous with some portion or other of the mountains of the lower Thebais, or of Mocatte or Mocattem, as they are called, near Kairo. The particular spot of it likewise may probably be determined, by what is recorded afterwards of the Israelites, Exodus 14:2 that upon their removing from the edge of this wilderness, they are immediately ordered to turn [to the south-east] from the course, as we may imagine, of their former marches, which was hitherto in an easterly direction, and to encamp before
Pi-hahiroth. As Pi-hahiroth, therefore, must lie to the right-hand of the wilderness of Etham, within, or on the other side of these mountains; so the second station, or the particular portion of this wilderness of Etham, may be fixed about fifty miles from Kairo. Travels, p. 308. M. de Monconys, in his Travels, speaking of this country, says, "At the end of these mountains (the same as described by Dr. Shaw) is a very wide tract of country, which extends to the Red Sea; the view of which is prodigiously fine for three hundred paces within the mountains; from whence you begin to discern it, and see this admirable natural perspective. We travelled in this plain from two in the afternoon till eight in the evening; and a day or two after we walked again for an hour in the plain, which winds about betwixt the high mountains all the way to the sea, and makes the plain look like an artificial canal, excepting its breadth, which is little less than two leagues." See Travels, in 12mo. Paris, 1695. It is evident, says, M. Vignoles, from what this author has observed, that the city of Etham was but a little way from the Red Sea, and in that wide champaign of which he here speaks. The sacred historian remarks, that Etham was on the edge of the wilderness, because there, indeed, the wilderness of Egypt, now in question, and which begins very near to Kairo, terminates, as M. Monconys and other travellers testify; the desart, which lies beyond the Red Sea, making part of Arabia. On this edge of the wilderness of Egypt, then, the Israelites encamped on the second day of their march. See Vignoles's Chronolog. lib. iii. c. 1. sect. 9.