Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people.
For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? х haa'ªdaamaah (H127)]. The ground 'on which they were encamped' is explained in its actual extent by the preceding hemistich, in which it is said to embrace not the base of mount Sinai only, but the numerous wadys among the adjoining mountains which compose the central range, and among which while the headquarters were no doubt at Sinai, Moses and the elders being there, the people were scattered far and wide in the Sinaitic peninsula, as their necessities required (Benisch).