The Written Itinerary Remembers Forty-Two Stages

Moses writes the stages, beginning with Egypt's dead firstborn

These are the journeys of the children of Israel, which went forth out of the land of Egypt with their armies under the hand of Moses and Aaron. Moses wrote their goings out according to their journeys by the commandment of the LORD. They departed from Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth day, the day after the passover, with a high hand in the sight of all the Egyptians, while the Egyptians buried all their firstborn, which the LORD had smitten among them; upon their gods also the LORD executed judgments.

The itinerary opens with public departure and Egyptian grief. The firstborn deaths are not hidden. A written list of camps is memory, not a puzzle map for a later life or a prophecy chart.

Forty-two stages carry selected crises to Moab

The list runs from Succoth and the edge of the wilderness through the sea, Marah, Elim, the wilderness of Sinai, Kibroth-hattaavah, Hazeroth, many named camps, the water of Rephidim, Kadesh, and Mount Hor, where Aaron goes up and dies in the fortieth year at one hundred and twenty-three years old. The Canaanite king of Arad hears of their coming. They camp in the mountains of Abarim, then in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho, from Beth-jesimoth to Abel-shittim.

Not every crisis is retold. Water, graves of craving, Aaron's death, and the approach to Jordan are planted in a chain of departures and encampments. Site identifications remain disputed. The list does not yield a certain modern route, and it does not prove every pin.