SINAI, MOUNT sī’ nī, sī’ nĭ ī (סִינַ֥י; LXX Σ(ε, G1567) ινα; meaning uncertain though miry, clayey, shiny have been suggested; also חֹרֵֽב, LXX Χωρηβ). The name of the sacred mountain before which Israel encamped and upon which Moses communicated with Yahweh. In the Bible, the name occurs almost exclusively in the Pentateuch.
1. Suggested identifications. The exact identification of this mountain is uncertain. Some evidence has been deduced in support of the identification of Mt. Sinai with one of a number of mountains in the vicinity of Kadesh-barnea. In a number of Biblical references Mt. Sinai is mentioned in strong connection with Seir, Edom, Paran and Teman (Deut 33:2; Judg 5:4, 5; Hab 3:3). All of these places are in the vicinity of Kadesh-barnea and imply that Mt. Sinai may have been there too. The fact that Moses requested Pharaoh to allow Israel a three days’ journey into the wilderness is somewhat more in keeping with Kadesh-barnea as an intended destination than is the location of Mt. Sinai in the S of the Sinai Peninsula (Exod 3:18; 5:3; 8:27). However, even this location for the mountain would hardly allow the journey from Egypt to be made in three days. There is also the fact that Rephidim is associated with Meribah and the two together are associated with Mt. Horeb (Exod 17:1-7). Meribah is located in the area of Kadesh-barnea in Numbers 20:2-13 and a number of springs are known to be there. It may be remarked, however, that Meribah, from rîḇ meaning “to strive,” “contend,” “find fault,” should prob. be understood as referring to an event (which occurred on more than one occasion, and in more than one location), rather than to a particular geographical location.
The fact that Deuteronomy 1:2 speaks of an eleven days’ journey from Kadesh to Horeb would seem to militate against the identification of Mt. Sinai with a mountain in the vicinity of Kadesh as well. The reconstruction of the route of the Exodus is rendered well nigh impossible if this identification is assumed.
Some scholars in the 19th and 20th centuries have attempted to locate Sinai in NW Arabia in the ancient land of Midian. One reason given for this is that when Moses fled from Egypt he married into a Midianite family. That in itself, however, would not necessitate a return to Midianite territory following the Exodus, though it might have made it more convenient. Besides that, however, is the fact that the tribe into which Moses married, the Kenites, were prob. wandering smiths (see Kenites) and they may well have located at the traditional site of Sinai with its mines. It is also argued that the description of the events on the mountain with its “thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud...and a very loud trumpet blast...and the smoke...” (Exod 19:16), presupposes a mountain which experienced volcanic activity. The nearest mountains known to have been actively volcanic in ancient times are in Arabia, S of the head of the Gulf of Aqabah. The descriptive language may equally well have been drawn from weather phenomena, however. Alternatively, even if the language itself was drawn from volcanic phenomena, that does not necessitate actual volcanic activity at Mt. Sinai.
Another suggestion made esp. during the 19th cent. is that Mt. Sinai was to be identified with Jebel Serbal (6,730 ft.). Jebel Serbal is located some distance to the W of the traditional Sinai by the Wadi Feiran. Significantly, the city of Pharan (Feiran) was the seat of a bishopric in the 4th and 5th centuries and in the time of Justinian, orthodox monks moved from Jebel Serbal to the traditional site of Sinai (Ptolemy, V. xvii. 3). The Pilgrimage of Sylvia, edited in 1887 and describing the journey of Sylvia of Aquitaine between a.d. 385 and 388, seems to render this identification impossible, however. The account states that the “mount of God” was thirty-five Rom. m. from Pharan. This is the actual distance from the oasis at Feiran to the traditional Sinai. Also, there is no wilderness at the foot of Jebel Serbal which would fit the description given of the plain of encampment in the Pentateuch.
2. The traditional identification. Since the 4th cent., the more or less continuous Christian tradition has been that Mt. Sinai is represented by what is now called Jebel Musa (mountain of Moses). This is located in the high mountains of the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula. Various legends and traditions are associated with the site and a number of chapels and shrines have been built in the area. Catherine of Alexandria is said to have been carried by angels after her martyrdom, to the top of the mountain that now bears her name (8,536 ft.). This story dates from the 4th cent. The summit of Jebel Katarin is some two and a half m. SW of Jebel Musa. By the 4th cent., communities of monks had retired to the region and were subjected to various massacres at the hands of the Saracens. One, Ammonius, of Canopus in Egypt made a pilgrimage to Mt. Sinai in c. a.d. 373 evidently reaching it in eighteen days from Jerusalem. In a.d. 536, Mt. Sinai, Raithou (on the coast of the Red Sea), and the church at Pharan are noted as being under the presbyter Theonos. On the NW slope of Jebel Musa, Constantine’s mother, Helena, built a small church in the 4th cent. The present Monastery of St. Catherine, famous for the fact that Tischendorf found Codex Aleph there in 1859, was built on the same site and is traced back to Justinian in a.d. 527.
Approaching the region from the N one may enter the valley of esh-Sheikh to the E or the Valley of er-Raha to the W. The latter is some two m. long and at its southeastern end opens into a plain about a m. wide at the foot of the steep cliffs of Ras es-Safsaf. Ras es-Safsaf is the NW peak (6,540 ft.) of a ridge which has Jebel Musa as its highest peak (7,363 ft.) two and a half m. to the SE. The plain of er-Raha may well have been the site of the encampment of Israel (Exod 19:1, 2; Num 33:15).
To the SE of Jebel Musa is the Wady es-Sebayeh with its valley up to a m. wide and two and a half m. long. This valley is sometimes identified as the place of the encampment though the former is generally preferred. Christian tradition generally claims Ras es-Safsaf as the Biblical Horeb and Jebel Musa as Sinai.
Josephus describes Mt. Sinai in fearful terms as being “...the highest of all the mountains that are in that country, and is not only very difficult to be ascended by man, on account of its vast altitude, but because of the sharpness of its precipices also; nay, indeed, it cannot be looked at without pain of the eyes: and besides this, it was terrible and inaccessible, on account of the rumour that passed about, that God dwelt there” (Antiq. II. xii. 1; III. v. 1). From St. Catherine’s monastery with its Chapel of the Burning Bush (cf. Exod 3:2) the summit of Jebel Musa can be reached after a hard climb of one and a half hours. Part way up, a little spring is passed and said to have been the place where Moses tended Jethro’s flock (Exod 2:15ff.); at 6,900 ft. is the Chapel of Elijah (1 Kings 19:8ff.). Ras es-Safsaf takes its name from the Arab. word for willow and is a reference to Moses’ rod (cf. Exod 4:2). A large block of granite some eleven ft. high is said to be the rock from which Moses brought water (Num 20:8ff.). A hole in the rock is said to be the mold used for the golden calf (Exod 32) and the place where the earth swallowed up Korah and his followers is identified (Num 16).
3. Mount Sinai in the Bible. The Israelites reached Mt. Sinai in the third month after their departure from Egypt and camped at its foot where they could view the summit (Exod 19:1, 16, 18, 20). Yahweh revealed Himself to Moses here and communicated the Ten Commandments and other laws to the people through him. God established His covenant with the people through Moses as mediator, and this covenant has been remembered throughout Israel’s history (e.g. Judg 5:5; Neh 9:13; Ps 68:8, 17; Mal 4:4; Acts 7:30, 38).
Elijah later visited Horeb in a time of particular discouragement and depression (1 Kings 19:4-8). In the allegory of Galatians 4:24ff., Mt. Sinai is representative of the bondage of the law in contrast to the Jerusalem above which is free.
Bibliography E. Robinson, Biblical Researches in Palestine, I (1841), 90-144; E. H. Palmer, The Desert of the Exodus (1871); W. M. F. Petrie, Researches in Sinai (1906); B. Rothenberg, God’s Wilderness (1961); G. E. Wright, Biblical Archaeology (rev. ed. 1962), 60-66 and passim. See also the commentaries, esp. on Exodus.