Stations list

The Stations list is the list of the locations visited by the Israelites following their exodus from Egypt found in the Bible.

Under the documentary hypothesis, the list is believed to have originally been a distinct and separate source text. In this hypothesis, it is believed that the redactor, in combining the Torah's sources, used parts of the Stations list to fill out awkward joins between the main sources. The list records the locations visited by the Israelites, during their journey through the wilderness, after having left Egypt. Consequently, the parts which were inserted to join up the sources appear in suitable locations in the Book of Exodus and the Book of Numbers.

However, a slightly variant version of the list appears in full at Numbers 33, and several parts of the journey described in the full list, most noticeably the journey from Sinai to Zin, do not appear in the fragmented version. It is tempting to suggest that the journey from Sinai to Zin was cut out of the fragmented version due to a copying error caused by the similarity in sound of "Sinai" and "Zin". However, as there are 42 locations in the full list, and the Israelites were said to have been in the desert for 40 years, it is possible that several locations in the full list were added to the list of destinations as a literary device. It may even be the case that both of these are true, the full list being the original on which the fragmented version was based.

Both versions of the list contain several brief narrative fragments. For example "...And they came to Elim, where there were twelve wells of water, and seventy date-palms...". It is the matter of some debate as to how much of the narrative is part of the original text of the list, and how much is extra detail added into it by the redactor.

The situation also occurs in reverse, where some brief texts, within parts of the list, and ascribed to the redactor, are usually regarded as not being part of the list of stations, albeit without much conviction. This is particularly true for Numbers 21:14-15, which references unknown events in the lost Book of the wars of the lord, and Numbers 21:16b-18a, describing the digging of the well at Beer.

What follows is a list of the various stops of the Israelites on the Stations Lists, which are also links to the respective underlying articles. The biblical reference is given in the next column. The modern equivalents of these locations, such as are known, are given in the column at right.

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