Bible Dictionary
Sin, Wilderness of
The wilderness of Sin was the desert region between Elim and Sinai where Israel journeyed after leaving Egypt. There the people murmured for food, and God provided manna and quail.
Definition
The wilderness of Sin was the desert region between Elim and Sinai through which Israel traveled after leaving the Red Sea. It was a place where the Israelites lacked food and received divine provision.
Biblical Usage
In the wilderness of Sin, the people murmured because their provisions from Egypt had been consumed. God gave them manna and later quails in abundance.
Historical Background
The wilderness has been identified as the narrow plain of el-Markha along the eastern shore of the Red Sea, though another proposal places it between the Gulf of Suez coast and the route toward Rephidim. The first gathering of manna occurred there.
Scripture References
Historical Bible Dictionaries
Easton's Bible Dictionary
Lying between Elim and sinai (Ex. 16:1; comp. Num. 33:11, 12). This was probably the narrow plain of el-Markha, which stretches along the eastern shore of the Red Sea for several miles toward the promontory of Ras Mohammed, the southern extremity of the Sinitic Peninsula. While the Israelites rested here for some days they began to murmur on account of the want of nourishment, as they had by this time consumed all the corn they had brought with them out of Egypt. God heard their murmurings, and gave them “manna” and then quails in abundance.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
a tract of the wilderness which the Israelites reached after leaving the encampment by the Red Sea. (Numbers 33:11,23) Their next halting-place, (Exodus 16:1; 17:1) was Rephidim, probably the Wady Feiran [Rephidim]; on which supposition it would follow that Sin must lie between that way and the coast of the Gulf of Suez, and of course west of Sinai. In the wilderness of Sin the manna was first gathered, and those who adopt the supposition that this was merely the natural product of the tarfa bush find from the abundance of that shrub in Wady es-Sheikh, southeast of Wady Ghurundel, a proof of local identity.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE)
<p>See WANDERINGS OF ISRAEL.</p>