Etham

Biblical Record

Etham is an encampment on the route of the Exodus. According to Exodus 13:17-18, God did not lead the people by the nearer way through the land of the Philistines but led them around by the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea. Moses and the people set out from Succoth and "encamped in Etham, in the edge of the wilderness" (Exodus 13:20). The verses that immediately follow record that the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud and by night in a pillar of fire (Exodus 13:21-22).

The list of encampments in Numbers 33 gives the same sequence. The people went from Succoth to Etham and encamped there; they then departed from Etham, turned back to Pihahiroth, which is before Baalzephon, and encamped before Migdol (Numbers 33:6-7). This change of direction corresponds to God's command in Exodus 14:2 that the people "turn and encamp" by the sea. After crossing the sea, the people "went three days' journey in the wilderness of Etham" and encamped at Marah (Numbers 33:8). Exodus 15:22 describes the same stage of the journey as the "wilderness of Shur," and many interpreters therefore take the two names to refer to the same region or to part of it.

Background and Location

The phrase "in the edge of the wilderness" indicates that Etham lay in the border zone where the cultivated land of Egypt met the wilderness to the east. Its exact location is unknown. Scholars have proposed several candidate sites, including areas near the lake region of the present-day Isthmus of Suez, but no consensus has been reached. The meaning of the name is likewise uncertain. Some connect it with an Egyptian word meaning "fortress," but this remains only a hypothesis.

In Korean Bibles the same name, "Etham" (에담), also appears in other passages, for example the "rock Etam" where Samson dwelt (Judges 15:8) and the town that Rehoboam fortified (2 Chronicles 11:6). These are separate places with a different Hebrew spelling (rendered "Etam" in English versions) and should be distinguished from the Etham of the Exodus route.

Significance in Scripture as a Whole

Etham marks the threshold at which the people left the land of Egypt and entered the wilderness. Because the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire, which signify God's presence, are first mentioned at this point, the text emphasizes God's guidance at the very outset of the wilderness journey. The name Etham does not reappear in the New Testament. Paul, however, says that the fathers "were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea" (1 Corinthians 10:1-2), interpreting this journey as an example for the church.

Interpretation and Points of Discussion

• The question of the route: The actual geographic path the people followed when they "turned back" from Etham to Pihahiroth is explained differently depending on the various theories concerning the Exodus route and the location of the crossing of the Red Sea. The biblical text does not give precise coordinates.
• Spiritual application: In preaching, Etham is sometimes presented as "the boundary where one leaves familiar ground and enters the wilderness," the place where God's guidance begins. This is an application drawn from the flow of the narrative; the text itself does not directly assign any symbolic meaning to Etham.