place
Etham
אֵתָם
Etham, a wilderness area on the edge of the desert where the Israelites camped during their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land.
- verses
- 4
- first named
- Exodus 13:20
- last named
- Numbers 33:8
- feature
- settlement
- coordinates
- 30.86°N · 32.35°E
Tell Abu Sefeh (OpenBible)
Scholarship offers 3 identifications for this place. The leading one is shown; the others are recorded in the gazetteer.
Description
Etham in the text
Etham is mentioned in the Book of Exodus and Numbers as one of the places where the Israelites camped during their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. After leaving Succoth, the Israelites camped at Etham, on the edge of the wilderness (Exodus 13:20; Numbers 33:6).
The location of Etham is described as being on the edge of the wilderness, likely referring to the Sinai desert. It was the last stop before the Israelites turned back and camped near Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea (Numbers 33:7).
The name Etham may be derived from the Egyptian word "khetam," meaning "fortress" or "castle," suggesting that it was a border fortification marking the edge of Egyptian territory. Some scholars propose that Etham was located near the present-day Ismailia, on the eastern edge of the Nile delta, but the exact location remains uncertain.
The wilderness of Etham is also mentioned in Numbers 33:8, referring to the area through which the Israelites passed after crossing the Red Sea. This suggests that the name Etham was associated with a larger region, extending from the edge of the Nile delta to the Sinai desert.
Relations
Direct connections
Every entity the graph places in a stated relation with this one, grouped by the kind of link. Each relation is authored once and its inverse derived, so both ends always agree. Rows marked “registry” come from the identity spine rather than from a verse, and a row marked “which bearer is the source’s decision” is one where the name could have meant more than one person. The last group is not a relation at all — it counts the events two entities stand in together.
Site of
Stands in the same events as
- Israel1 event
Read it
Where to read it
Every verse of the text carried here that names this entity — 4, across 2 books.
Onward
Where this page goes
Not the direct relations above — these are one hop further out, ranked so that a rare shared connection outweighs a common one. Descriptions by STEPBible TIPNR.
Where they appear
What happened here
Atlas's reading of each chapter this place appears in, in canonical order. One line per chapter, and each leads to the whole of it.
Sources