The location of the Mount Sinai of the Exodus has undergone a lot of scrutiny in recent decades. Both believers and skeptics have taken their turns at attempting to pinpoint the exact location of the mountain where Moses brought the people of Israel out of Egypt to form a nation and receive their Law from the hand of the one true God. Most people usually assume that Mount Sinai is the traditional site on Egypt=s Sinai Peninsula, a peak called Jebel Musa, but the fact is that there is no clear evidence for this location that goes back to the time of the Exodus or even before the fourth century.

The serious student of the Scriptures can easily get confused with the plethora of competing theories for Sinai=s location. We have known since the time of the Exodus where ancient Jerusalem is, where Jericho is, where all of the major topographical features are like the Nile, the Red Sea, the Dead Sea, the mountains of Edom, and the Jordan River. The location of Mount Sinai, though, does not seem to be pinpointed in any exact way in the Bible. This problem is exasperated by the fact that some of the other places mentioned near Sinai are also vaguely located or completely unknown. The passage of over three thousand years of history in this sparsely settled region has seemed to have broken any continuous link to many of the original place names of the Exodus. The deserts south of Israel are covered with mountains and rugged areas that might produce hundreds of candidates for the Mountain of God. Finding that one peak among this maze of topographical features has frustrated most scholars attempting to lay this question to rest. A half a dozen or so explorers have announced that they have, without a doubt, discovered at last the true location of Mt Sinai, but they all point to different mountains in very different locations and yet they each seem to be convinced that theirs is the real one.

The amazing fact about all of this is that there is such a wealth of clues given in the Hebrew Scriptures about the location of the Mount Sinai, yet serious scholars have pinpointed it all the way from the mountains of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, to the hills of southern Israel, to the vast deserts of Saudi Arabia! The Bible gives us times traveled, dozens of landmarks, place names, events, geological descriptions, and even prophetic poetry that all point to that place called Sinai. A battle was fought nearby, the earth shook, fire descended, multitudes camped, alters were built, markers were erected, flocks were grazed, children played, and families lived; graves were excavated, arrows were shot, and latrines were dug. A tent city of perhaps two million people spread out on the valley floor for almost a year in the shadow of this lost mountain. If no one has found any traces of all this yet, maybe we can examine the evidence again and see if they might have just been looking in the wrong places.

The question remains, though, why does it matter? Filling in another piece of the Bible=s geographical puzzle is certainly a good reason, but there is an even more compelling reason. It matters because the story of Mount Sinai is not over. Someday it will again be the centerpiece of God=s visible intervention in the affairs of men. It will play a key role in the fulfillment of precise predictions detailed thousands of years ago by the Hebrew Prophets and Apostles. Mount Sinai, the real one, will become the stage for the most stupendous event in the history of mankind.