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"The plain of San (the Arabic form of Zoan) is very extensive, but thinly inhabited;
no village exists in the vicinity of the ancient Tanis . . . . . The field of Zoan is now a
barren waste: a canal passes through it without being able to fertilize the soil."
Tanis or Zoan therefore, is the locality associated with the Exodus of Exod. 12:
Indeed both the ancient name Ha-awar or Avaris, and the latter Zoan, mean "going out"
or "departure", it being a fortress that was built in anticipation of Assyrian attack and so
was placed near the frontier.
Did the Exodus start, however, from Zoan? We know that some distance must have
separated Israel from the Egyptians because of the discrimination made regarding the
effect of the plagues. The record of Exod. 12:, reads:
"And the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth" (Exod. 12: 37).
Not only so, but later, Moses was commanded to write the record of these journeys,
and gives most careful details as to where they pitched and the number of days' march
the journey occupied. This is found in Numb. xxxiii:
"And they departed from Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first
month . . . . . and the children of Israel removed from Rameses, and pitched in Succoth"
(Numb. 33: 3, 5).
Although Rameses and Succoth have not yet been identified by the excavator,
Pithom which is associated with Rameses, has been unearthed. It was a "treasure city"
(Exod. 1: 11), and a monument bearing the name Pa-Tum has been discovered.
M. Naville laid bare the granaries in which corn was stored, and came across thick walls
of crude bricks. Historians have referred to Phitom under the name Heroopolis, this we
now find was a Greek form of Ar the Egyptian word for storehouse. The district around
Pithom however bore the name of Succoth.
"Thuket or Succoth was a district before being a city: its name is often mentioned in
papyri of the nineteenth dynasty . . . . . Its name is generally written with the
determinative of foreign lands, although it was a part of Egypt, thus showing that it was a
border land" (Edouard Naville).
That Succoth and Pithom were both frontier cities and in the midst of pasturage, an
official report of the time of Menephthah makes clear:
"We have allowed the tribes of the land of Atuma (probably Edom) to pass through
the stronghold of King Menephthah, of the land of Succoth, towards the lakes of Succoth,
in order to feed themselves, and to feed their cattle on the great estate of Pharaoh."
At this frontier stronghold Israel passed the first night of their journey. Had Pharaoh
not given his consent Succoth could have effectually prevent Israel's advance. From
Succoth the host of Israel went to Etham, on the edge of the wilderness (Exod. 13: 20).
We learn from the great tablet of Philadelphus, found near Pithom, that this city and
its neighbourhood were the starting point of commercial expeditions to the Red Sea.
While therefore we have not yet discovered Etham, we are practically certain of its