And they removed from the Red sea, and encamped in the wilderness of Sin.
This verse is one line in a long travel list: Israel moves on from the Red Sea into the wilderness of Sin. Two questions follow. Why did God record it? And what was this desert like?
Chapter 33 looks back over the whole journey. Israel stood on the edge of the land. One commentator says the list matters because God is the one remembering.
Numbers 33 testifies to another beautiful truth: the Lord remembers all the past. He remembers all our journeys, all the scenes of difficulty caused by our weakness, and sometimes worse than that, and solemn judgments too. Here we have it repeated. It was good to think of His ways with them — good for those who were about to enter a new scene to look back on every step of the journey. So this is far from being an unimportant chapter, or, as it might seem to the superficial, a mere dry list of names. There is no part of Scripture which has not a divine as well as a moral purpose in it.
Exodus jumps straight from Elim to the wilderness of Sin. Numbers keeps the stop by the sea that Exodus leaves out. One writer explains why God sent them back there.
In Exodus 16 they "came to the wilderness of Sin." There is no mention here of a most telling fact, recorded in Numbers 33:10: "And they set out from Elim and camped by the Red Sea." Oh, you say, I thought they had finished with the Red Sea forever. Why were they there again? Simply because they had lost, if I may put it that way, the sense of the mighty power of the hand that had opened the Red Sea for them. Within three days they were murmuring and wondering what they were to do. God turns the bitter water sweet, brings them to the twelve wells and the seventy palm trees, and then says, Go and have another look at the way by which I have brought you out of Egypt.
The name of this desert carries a picture of the world under the curse.
It is in the wilderness of Sin that the manna falls for the first time. "Sin" is connected with seneh, a "thorn-bush," the word used for the bush in which God revealed Himself to Moses. We are already familiar with the thorn as the sign of the ground cursed for man's sake, and we must not forget it here… The sun beats down. The warm heavenly influence turns into scorching heat. Water, the picture of the Spirit, is held back. The barren soil grows plants that run into weapons of attack. Such is the world as the place of need into which the Son of God came as Son of Man.
This camp sits at a turning point in Israel's story.
Israel is still in the wilderness, no doubt, but this is a most important and significant stage of it: "between Elim and Sinai." At Elim they had just tasted the refreshing springs of divine ministry. At Sinai they got off the ground of free and sovereign grace altogether, and placed themselves under a covenant of works… Here they are the subjects of the same grace which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, and so God meets all their murmurings at once with His supplies.
In this desert the people complained that Egypt had been better. God's answer was not what they deserved.
God answers their murmuring with the words, "Come near before the Lord, for He has heard your grumbling." He does not judge them. Instead He lets His glory draw near, so that the very light of His presence might shine in on this murmuring people… Which was better — to toil making bricks for Pharaoh, or to travel in the desert with God? They had forgotten their slavery. All they remembered was what they had eaten.
If God mapped Israel's route stage by stage, the same hand arranges the road of every believer.
It is a great comfort to the poor, weary pilgrim to know that the infinite love and unerring wisdom of God mark out every stage of his wilderness journey. He is leading His people by a right way, home to Himself. He carefully orders every circumstance in their lot and every ingredient in their cup… And then, when our desert wanderings are over — when we have walked the last stage of the wilderness — He will take us home to be with Himself forever.
- Recorded — the list is not filler. It is God's memory of every step, failures included, written for people about to enter something new.
- Red Sea — Exodus leaves out this camp by the sea. God sent a forgetful people back to look again at the power that freed them.
- Thorns — "Sin" is linked to the thorn-bush and the cursed ground. This is the world as a place of need, and here the manna first falls.
- Grace — between Elim and Sinai, Israel was still on the ground of grace. Grumbling drew supplies, not judgment. That changed at Sinai, where they put themselves under law.
- Home — the same hand that marked this stage marks yours, and He is leading by the right way home to Himself.
And they removed from the wilderness of Sin, and encamped in Dophkah.
Dophkah is only a name in a list of camps, with no event attached to it. A name with no story raises the question of why God bothered to write it down at all.
Dophkah belongs to the stretch between the wilderness of Sin and Rephidim. One writer sets it in that sequence:
Leaving the wilderness of Sin, they came in due course to Rephidim, with two stations in between: Dophkah and Alush (Num. 33:12-14). At Rephidim they wanted water, so they murmured again. There was nothing wrong in being hungry in the wilderness of Sin, or thirsty at Rephidim. These are the natural conditions of creatures no longer in Paradise. Their failure was in murmuring, and in treating Moses as the cause of their having no water. God had led them through the Red Sea, and He was leading them still. We read: "All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the LORD" (17:1). If God was leading, then their arrival at Rephidim must be right.
Commentators treat the list itself as the message — God going back over the road with His people before they leave it behind:
Numbers 33 testifies to another beautiful truth: the LORD remembers all the past. He remembers all our journeys, all the scenes of difficulty brought on by our weakness — and sometimes worse than that too — and His solemn judgments. And here we have it all gone over again. It was good to think of His ways with them. Those about to enter a new scene did well to look back on every step of the journey. It is therefore far from an unimportant chapter, and far from the dry list of names a shallow reader might take it for. Every part of Scripture has a divine and a moral purpose in it.
Mackintosh reads the chapter as God retracing the whole route Himself:
Think how He stooped to keep such a record of the journeys of His poor people. It covers the moment they marched out of Egypt until they crossed the Jordan — from the land of death and darkness to the land flowing with milk and honey. "He knows your going through this great wilderness. These forty years the LORD your God has been with you. You have lacked nothing." He went before them every step of the way. He travelled over every stage of the wilderness. In all their afflictions He was afflicted... Here He retraces the whole way His hand had led them. He records each stage of that wonderful pilgrimage with care, and every spot in the desert where they had stopped. What a journey! What a travelling companion!
Dophkah left no incident behind. Yet it stands in a chain of places that writers read as lessons for believers now:
Elim, Sin, Dophkah, Alush and Rephidim follow in quick succession. Each one holds lessons for us, more or less valuable, if we are ready to learn them. For is it not written that "these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come" (1 Cor. 10:11)?
The same chapter that looks back over Israel's route points forward. Ridout links the two:
A whole volume might be written from this backward-looking chapter. Every name surely has a special meaning. Those meanings, and the memories attached to many of them, would recall the whole wilderness journey. What a day it will be when, at the judgment seat of Christ, He will review all our pathway with us, pointing out our failures and His faithfulness!
If God chose the site of a camp no one remembers, He also orders the ordinary days of a believer's life:
The poor, weary pilgrim finds great comfort in this: God's infinite love and unerring wisdom mark out every stage of his wilderness journey. He is leading His people by a right way, home to Himself. He Himself orders every circumstance in their lot, and every ingredient in their cup, with care and with direct reference to their present profit and their everlasting happiness.
- Led — Israel left the wilderness of Sin at God's command, not by their own planning. If He was leading, the next camp had to be right.
- Recorded — God kept an account of every halt, retracing the whole road from Egypt to the Jordan.
- Purposed — the list is not filler. Every part of Scripture has a divine and moral purpose, names included.
- Instructive — Elim, Sin, Dophkah, Alush and Rephidim carry lessons written for our instruction, even where no event is attached.
- Reviewed — one day God will go over this same road with us at the judgment seat of Christ, showing our failures and His faithfulness.