And they came to Elim. Moses here relates that a more pleasant station was granted to the people, when they were led to a well-watered spot, even planted with palm-trees, which do not usually grow in a dry soil. But we learn from what precedes, that this was a concession to their infirmity, because they had borne their thirst so impatiently.

Elim - The valley of Gharandel, two hours' journey south of Huwara.
Twelve wells - Read springs; the Hebrew denotes natural sources. These springs may have been perennial when a richer vegetation clothed the adjacent heights.

They came to Elim - This was in the desert of Sin, and, according to Dr. Shaw, about two leagues from Tor, and thirty from Marah or Corondel.
Twelve wells of water - One for each of the tribes of Israel, say the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem.
And threescore and ten palm trees - One for each of the seventy elders - Ibid.
Dr. Shaw found nine of the twelve wells, the other three having been choked up with sand; and the seventy palm trees multiplied into more than 2000, the dates of which bring a considerable revenue to the Greek monks at Tor. See his account at the end of this book, (Exodus 40:38 (note)) and see also the map. Thus sufficient evidence of the authenticity of this part of the sacred history remains, after the lapse of more than 3000 years.
In the preceding notes the reader has been referred to Dr. Kennicott's translation and arrangement of the song of Moses. To this translation he prefixes the following observations: -
"This triumphant ode was sung by Moses and the sons of Israel: and the women, headed by Miriam, answered the men by repeating the two first lines of the song, altering only the first word, which two lines were probably sung more than once as a chorus.
"The conclusion of this ode seems very manifest; and yet, though the ancient Jews had sense enough to write this song differently from prose; and though their authority has prevailed even, to this day in this and three other poems in the Old Testament, (Deut. 22; Judges 5; and 2 Sam. 22)., still expressed by them as poetry; yet have these critics carried their ideas of the song here to the end of Exodus 15:19. The reason why the same has been done by others probably is, they thought that the particle כי for, which begins Exodus 15:19, necessarily connected it with the preceding poetry. But this difficulty is removed by translating כי when, especially if we take Exodus 15:19-21 as being a prose explanation of the manner in which this song of triumph was performed. For these three verses say that the men singers were answered in the chorus by Miriam and the women, accompanying their words with musical instruments. 'When the horse of Pharaoh had gone into the sea, and the Lord had brought the sea upon them; and Israel had passed, on dry land, in the midst of the sea; then Miriam took a timbrel, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and dances; and Miriam (with the women) answered them (להם lahem, the men, by way of chorus) in the words, O sing ye, etc.' That this chorus was sung more than Once is thus stated by Bishop Lowth: Maria, cum mulieribus, virorum choro identidem succinebat - Praelect. 19.
"I shall now give what appears to me to be an exact translation of this whole song: -
Moses. Part I
1. I will sing to Jehovah, for he hath triumphed gloriously; The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.
2. My strength and my song is Jehovah; And he is become to me for salvation: This is my God, and I will celebrate him; The God of my father, and I will exalt him.
3. (Perhaps a chorus sung by the men)Jehovah is mighty in battleJehovah is his name!(Chorus, by Miriam and the women. Perhaps sung first in this place. )O sing ye to Jehovah, for he hath triumphed gloriously: The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.
Moses. Part II
4. Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea; And his chosen captains are drowned in the Red Sea.
5. The depths have covered them, they went down; (They sank) to the bottom as a stone.
6. Thy right hand, Jehovah, is become glorious in power; Thy right hand, Jehovah, dasheth in pieces the enemy.
7. And in the greatness of thine excellence thou overthrowest them that rise against thee. Thou sendest forth thy wrath, which consumeth them as stubble.
8. Even at the blast of thy displeasure the waters are gathered together; The floods stand upright as a heap, Congealed are the depths in the very heart of the sea. O sing ye to Jehovah, etc. Chorus by the women.
Moses. Part III
9. The enemy said: 'I will pursue, I shall overtake; I shall divide the spoil, my soul shall be satiated with them; I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.'
10. Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them; They sank as lead in the mighty waters.
11. Who is like thee among the gods, O Jehovah? Who is like thee, glorious in holiness!
12. Fearful in praises; performing wonders! Thou stretchest out thy right hand, the earth swalloweth them!
13. Thou in thy mercy leadest the people whom thou hast redeemed; Thou in thy strength guidest to the habitation of thy holiness! O sing ye to Jehovah, etc. Chorus by the women.
Moses. Part IV
14. The nations have heard, and are afraid; Sorrow hath seized the inhabitants of Palestine.
15. Already are the dukes of Edom in consternation, And the mighty men of Moab, trembling hath seized them; All the inhabitants of Canaan do faint.
16. Fear and dread shall fall upon them; Through the greatness of thine arm they shall be still as a stone.
17. Till thy people, Jehovah, pass over [Jordan]; Till the people pass over whom thou hast redeemed.
18. Thou shalt bring them and plant them in the mount of thine inheritance: The place for thy rest which thou, Jehovah, hast made; The sanctuary, Jehovah, which thy hands have established.
Grand Chorus by All.
Jehovah for ever and ever shall reign."
1. When poetry is consecrated to the service of God, and employed as above to commemorate his marvellous acts, it then becomes a very useful handmaid to piety, and God is honored by his gifts. God inspired the song of Moses, and perhaps from this very circumstance it has passed for current among the most polished of the heathen nations, that a poet is a person Divinely inspired; and hence the epithet of προφητης, prophet, and vates, of the same import, was given them among the Greeks and Romans.
2. The song of Moses is a proof of the miraculous passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea. There has been no period since the Hebrew nation left Egypt in which this song was not found among them, as composed on that occasion, and to commemorate that event. It may be therefore considered as completely authentic as any living witness could be who had himself passed through the Red Sea, and whose life had been protracted through all the intervening ages to the present day.
3. We have already seen that it is a song of triumph for the deliverance of the people of God, and that it was intended to point out the final salvation and triumph of the whole Church of Christ; so that in the heaven of heavens the redeemed of the Lord, both among the Jews and the Gentiles, shall unite together to sing the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb. See Revelation 15:2-4. Reader, implore the mercy of God to enable thee to make thy calling and election sure, that thou mayest bear thy part in this glorious and eternal triumph.

And they came to Elim,.... On the twenty fifth of Nisan; for, according to Aben Ezra, they stayed but one day at Marah. Elim, as a late traveller (r) says, was upon the northern skirts of the desert of Sin, two leagues from Tor, and near thirty from Corondel; according to Bunting (s) it was eight miles from Marah:
where were twelve wells of water, and seventy palm trees; and so a very convenient, commodious, and comfortable place to abide at for a time, since here was plenty of water for themselves and cattle, and shady trees to sit under by turns; for as for the fruit of them, that was not ripe at this time of the year, as Aben Ezra observes. Thevenot (t) seems to confound the waters here with the waters of Marah; for he says, the garden of the monks of Tor is the place which in holy Scripture is called Elim, where were sventy palm trees and twelve wells of bitter water; these wells, adds he, are still in being, being near one another, and most of them within the precinct of the garden, the rest are pretty near; they are all hot, and are returned again to their first bitterness; for I tasted says he, of one of them, where people bathe themselves, which by the Arabs is called Hammam Mouse, i.e. the "bath of Moses"; it is in a little dark cave: there is nothing in that garden but abundance of palm trees, which yield some rent to the monks, but the seventy old palm trees are not there now. This does not agree with an observation of the afore mentioned Jewish writer, that palm trees will not flourish in the ground where the waters are bitter; though they delight in watery places, as Pliny (u) says; and yet Leo Africanus (w) asserts, that in Numidia the dates (the fruit of palm trees) are best in a time of drought. A later traveller (x) tells us, he saw no more than nine of the twelve wells that are mentioned by Moses, the other three being filled up by those drifts of sand which are common in Arabia; yet this loss is amply made up by the great increase in the palm trees, the seventy having propagated themselves into more than 2000; under the shade of these trees is the Hammam Mouse, or "bath of Moses", particularly so called, which the inhabitants of Tor have in great veneration, acquainting us that it was here where the household of Moses was encamped. Dr. Pocock takes Elim to be the same with Corondel; about four hours or ten miles south of Marah, he says, is the winter torrent of Corondel in a very narrow valley, full of tamarisk trees, where there is tolerable water about half a mile west of the road; beyond this, he says, about half an hour, or little more than a mile, is a winter torrent called Dieh-Salmeh; and about an hour or two further, i.e. about three or four miles, is the valley or torrent of Wousset, where there are several springs of water that are a little salt; and he thinks that one of them, but rather Corondel, is Elim, because it is said afterwards:
they removed from Elim, and encamped at the Red sea; and the way to Corondel, to go to the valley of Baharum, is part of it near the sea, where he was informed there was good water, and so probably the Israelites encamped there; and Dr. Clayton (y) is of the same mind, induced by the argument he uses: a certain traveller (z), in the beginning of the sixteenth century, tells us, that indeed the wells remain unto this day, but that there is not one palm tree, only some few low shrubs; but he could never have been at the right place, or must say a falsehood, since later travellers, who are to be depended upon, say the reverse, as the above quotations show. As to the mystical application of this passage, the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem make the twelve fountains answerable to the twelve tribes of Israel, and seventy palm trees to the seventy elders of the sanhedrim; and so Jarchi: and more evangelically the twelve fountains of water may denote the abundance of grace in Christ, in whom are the wells of salvation, and the sufficiency of it for all his people; and which the doctrine of the Gospel, delivered by his twelve apostles, discovers and reveals, and leads and directs souls unto; and the seventy palm trees may lead us to think of the seventy disciples sent out by Christ, and all other ministers of the word, who for their uprightness, fruitfulness, and usefulness, may be compared to palm trees, as good men in Scripture are, see Psalm 92:12,
and they encamped there by the waters; where they stayed, as Aben Ezra thinks, twenty days, since, in the first verse of the following chapter, they are said to come to the wilderness of Sin on the fifteenth day of the second month; here being everything agreeable to them for the refreshment of themselves and cattle, they pitched their tents and abode a while; as it is right in a spiritual sense for the people of God to abide by his word and ordinances.
(r) Shaw, ut supra. (Travels, p. 314.) (s) Travels, p. 82. (t) Travels into the Levant, B. 2. ch. 26. p. 166. (u) Nat. Hist. l. 13. c. 4. (w) Descriptio Africae, l. 1. p. 82. (x) Dr. Shaw, ut supra. (r)) (y) Chronolgy of the Hebrew Bible, p. 296, 297. (z) Baumgarten. Peregrinatio, l. 1. c. 21. p. 44.

they came to Elim, where were twelve wells of water--supposed to be what is now called Wady-Ghurandel, the most extensive watercourse in the western desert--an oasis, adorned with a great variety of trees, among which the palm is still conspicuous, and fertilized by a copious stream. It is estimated to be a mile in breadth, but stretching out far to the northeast. After the weary travel through the desert, this must have appeared a most delightful encampment from its shade and verdure, as well as from its abundant supply of sweet water for the thirsty multitude. The palm is called "the tree of the desert," as its presence is always a sign of water. The palms in this spot are greatly increased in number, but the wells are diminished.

Elim, the next place of encampment, has been sought from olden time in the Wady Gharandel, about six miles south of Howra; inasmuch as this spot, with its plentiful supply of comparatively good water, and its luxuriance of palms, tamarisks, acacias, and tall grass, which cause it to be selected even now as one of the principal halting-places between Suez and Sinai, quite answers to Elim, with its twelve wells of water and seventy palm-trees (cf. Rob. i. pp. 100, 101, 105). It is true the distance from Howra is short, but the encampments of such a procession as that of the Israelites are always regulated by the supply of water. Both Baumgarten and Kurtz have found in Elim a place expressly prepared for Israel, from its bearing the stamp of the nation in the number of its wells and palms: a well for every tribe, and the shade of a palm-tree for the tent of each of the elders. But although the number of the wells corresponded to the twelve tribes of Israel, the number of the elders was much larger than that of the palms (Exodus 29:9). One fact alone is beyond all doubt, namely, that at Elim, this lovely oasis in the barren desert, Israel was to learn how the Lord could make His people lie down in the green pastures, and lead them beside still waters, even in the barren desert of this life (Psalm 23:2).