Did Moses Pbuh travel to Saudi Arabia according to the bible?

Did Moses (Pbuh) travel to Saudi Arabia (according to the bible)?

Now this is a very interesting subject, did Moses Pbuh travel to Saudi Arabia. The common answer from a Christian will be no he never traveled to Saudi Arabia Since the bible never tells us he did. What are the chances of any traces from the bible if such a travel was made does the bible give us an clues or hints or any information of Saudi Arabia or the sacred pilgrimage let's find out :

-----------------------

We start off with the book of psalm in the 84th chapter where a  very Interesting statement is found we read david is praising the Lord with all praises alongside blessing it's creations amongst them are those who travel through the valley of baca ? And Interestingly enough baca is the original name for Makkah. 

Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them. 

Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools.

(Psalm 84:5-6)

One wonders what's so special of the valley of baca that he or she is blessed, unless the place itself is sacred.

-------------------------

Another interesting information regarding the sacred pilgrimage is found in the book of Ezekiel, in fact the many chapters of Ezekiel's books speaks of the sacred mosque and pilgrimage. Let's read a portion of  the chapter and the rest we shall leave it for you to complete.

In the Book of Ezekiel (Chapter 40-47) , He tells us about a journey had been done for him by the Lord (or an Angel) in his vision...from his description to this journey we can conclude the following points...:

40:2 In the visions of God brought he me into the land of Israel, and set me upon a very high mountain, by which was as the frame of a city on the south.

"God brought he me into the land of Israel, and set me upon a very high mountain, by which was as the frame of a city on the south."..

The City is in SOUTH to the Land of Israel, Where it's enclosed by Mountains...What is this City?...Without any doubt Mecca just lies in the south of Land of Israel and it's enclosed by Mountains..Yet..Further proofs are followed in his description to that place..!

Ezekiel also describes to us the shape of that place in Chapter 42..:

42:15 Now when he had made an end of measuring the inner house, he brought me forth toward the gate whose prospect is toward the east, and measured it round about.

42:16 He measured the east side with the measuring reed, five hundred reeds, with the measuring reed round about.

42:17 He measured the north side, five hundred reeds, with the measuring reed round about.

42:18 He measured the south side, five hundred reeds, with the measuring reed.

42:19 He turned about to the west side, and measured five hundred reeds with the measuring reed.

42:20 He measured it by the four sides: it had a wall round about, five hundred reeds long, and five hundred broad, to make a separation between the sanctuary and the profane place.

According to this shape, this place is foursquare in shape ..!

------------------

The Sacred House: (Al Ka'aba):

41:4 So he measured the length thereof, twenty cubits; and the breadth, twenty cubits, before the temple: and he said unto me, This is the most holy place.

According to this SHAPE of the HOLY PLACE, it's also foursquare..and it's well known that Al Ka'aba is as well 4square building...Is there any other sacred house having the same shape in Christianity or Judaism?..!

---------------------

Now coming back to the original question did Moses Pbuh travel to Saudi Arabia and the answer is yes.. Shocking for many we find information from the bible and history that Moses Pbuh did go Arabia with the children of Isreal, let's start with the Torah (the Old Testament ) then moving on to the New Testament and then Jewish historical data:

On the third new moon after the people of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that day they came into the wilderness of Sinai. They set out from Rephidim and came into the wilderness of Sinai, and they encamped in the wilderness. There Israel encamped before the mountain, while Moses went up to God. The LORD called to him out of the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel (Exodus 19:1-3)

The Exodus of Moses with the children's of Israel is widely known by all major religions. This mass Exodus to flee from the tyrant pharaoh is found in religious Scriptures and also  well documented in historical archives. Without diverting let's focus on the above passage where the children of Israel coming out the land of Egypt arrived at Sinai?  Now with a little geographical study one can say that Sinai falls in the peninsula of Egypt ! Not this is not what history or tradition tells us as we will find out.

Here's the interesting part according to Paul the founder Christianity and writers of many books of the New Testament tells us in one of his letters to Galatians that Sinai is in Arabia 

He writes: 

“For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar - for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. 

(Galatians 4:24-25)

Notice from the above writing of Paul how he called mount Sinai Arabia? Not only did he call mount Sinai Arabia he also associates it with Hagar and who is Hagar she is the mother of Ishmael Pbuh who were based in Saudi Arabia.

Arabia in the bible is modern day Saudi Arabia .

1. Arabia in the Bible is always, without exception, the land of Midian. (Modern Saudi Arabia). 
2. Arabia is associated with Kedar. Kedar is called "men of the east" Jer 49:28.
3. Kedar was the son of Ishmael, who intermarried with the Midianites and lived south east of the Dead Sea. "These are their genealogies: the firstborn of Ishmael was Nebaioth, then Kedar" 1 Chronicles 1:29
4. Ishmael settled in Shur and the wilderness of Paran: Gen 16:12; 21:21; 25:18
5. Ezek 27:21 clearly shows that Arabia meant Saudi Arabia: "Arabia and all the princes of Kedar". Kedar was 
6. Isaiah describes Arabia as including Kedar (Ishmael's son): "The oracle about Arabia. In the thickets of Arabia you must spend the night, O caravans of Dedanites. ... all the splendor of Kedar will terminate" Isaiah 21:13, 16
7. In describing the swath of land from Babylon (Hazor) to Saudi Arabia (Kedar) Jeremiah 49:28 tells Hazor (Babylon) to invade Kedar (Saudi Arabia) calling them "men of the east". "Concerning Kedar and the kingdoms of Hazor, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon defeated. Thus says the Lord, "Arise, go up to Kedar And devastate the men of the east. " Jeremiah 49:28
8. Therefore Arabia = Ishmaelites, Midianites, Kedarites, Wildernesses of Shur and Paran, Midian
9. The Ishmaelites, Midianites, Kedarites never lived west of the Arabah valley in the Negev.

Commentary ----

1. "For Sinai is a mountain in Arabia. It calls attention to the geographical position of Sinai, giving definiteness to our conception of the great mountain and silently reminding us that it was the home of Hagar's children. ... For, that Mount Sinai is in the land of Hagar's children, whether or not the mountain bore her name, reveals in clear light the appropriateness of Paul's allegory." (Commentary on Galatians, Joseph Agar Beet, 1885 AD, Gal 4:25, p135)

1. "What is actually new in Paul's argument lies in the first clause. The manuscript tradition of the text shows the problems that early copyists and translators had with this argument. Paul's intention here is to equate Hagar with Mount Sinai in Arabia. How does he arrive at this? The reader is first reminded that Paul himself was in Arabia (cf. 1:17) and will therefore credit him with a certain local familiarity. Arabia is indicated both by the name Hagar as well as by the location of Mount Sinai. Hagar is, to be sure, an Egyptian according to Gen. 16:1, but the region that is later accorded to her son Ishmael and his offspring is to be found in Arabia (cf. Gen. 25:6, 18). There one can also find Hagar as the name of a locality (cf. 1 Chron. 5:10, 19-20; Ps. 83:6), and this name may be preserved today in the place named Chegra. In the vicinity of this modern city of Chegra, however, to which the Hagar/Ishmael traditions seem to be related, is also the possible location (according to the geographic concepts of the Old Testament) of Mount Sinai, on which Moses received the law. Not until around the fourth century C.E. was it located on the peninsula that is known to us as Sinai. The writers of "the five books of Moses" seem to identify the "reed sea" with the Gulf of Aqaba, not with the Red Sea, and to have imagined Mount Sinai in the mountains that one can find in today's atlases south of the city of Tabuk in extreme northwest Saudi Arabia, where the city of Chegra also lies. The only question is whether the mountains actually bore the name Hagar from that city. That, however, is what Paul seems to assert here, for that is where the logic of his argument seems to rest. Paul is apparently referring to information that he acquired during his stay in Arabia (cf. 1:17). After the rationale for equating Hagar with Mount Sinai, the allegorical explanation now goes further, saying that Hagar therefore corresponds to the present Jerusalem because-and here Paul harks back again to 4:1-7-the present Jerusalem is in slavery just as Hagar and her children were." (Galatians, A Continental Commentary, Luhrmann, Dieter, 1992 AD, Gal 4:25)

1. ""one [covenant coming] from Mount Sinai..., that is Hagar; but Mount Sinai lies in Arabia, yet it corresponds to the present Jerusalem": This is the reading of the oldest Pauline manuscript. (P46) and it is supported by several others. Another well attested reading is: "Now Hagar means Mt. Sinai in Arabia." In either case, wishing to emphasize that the slavery the Law introduced was the condition of the rejected son of Abraham, Paul identifies Hagar with the Sinai pact and the "present Jerusalem." Verse 25a is a geographical detail explaining how Hagar, although connected with a holy place outside of the Promised Land, is yet equated with the "present Jerusalem." Geographically, Hagar represents a place in Arabia, but even so she stands for enslavement and so corresponds to Jerusalem. But why does Paul mention Arabia at all? possibly because Mt. Sinai is in Arabia, which is Ishmaelite territory: he thus associates the Sinai pact with the eponymous patriarch of Arabian tribes (see Gn 25:12-18; Ps 82:7). He thus suggests that the Law itself stems from a situation extrinsic to the promised Land and to the real descendants of Abraham. Paul's Jewish colleagues would not have been happy with this allegory. (The Jerome Biblical commentary, Brown, R. E., Fitzmyer, J. A., & Murphy, R. E. 1968 AD, Gal 4:25)

------------------------------

Historians and their findings 

In Apostle Paul's time, "Arabia" covered a wide area that "included the Sinai Peninsula" as well as what we now call Saudi Arabia, according to Cambridge scholar Graham Davies.

Davies, Wilderness (1979) pp. 30, 99 n. 1, emphasis added. In Herodotus ca. 450 B.C., not only was the Sinai Peninsula considered PART OF ARABIA but, surprisingly, so was all of the eastern desert half of what WE now call EGYPT on the continent of AFRICA. In Greek and Roman Empire days, the bulk of the Sinai Peninsula was left to the Nabateans as "Arabia Petrea," until their conquest by the Romans in 106 A.D. The southern and central Sinai were then merged into the new Province of Arabia. Even in modern times, Wilhelm Gesenius listed both MT. SINAI and the Sinai Peninsula as PART OF "ARABIA," in his famous 1834 Hebrew Lexicon. (Herodotus II:8, 11, 158; Michael Avi-Yonah, "Sinai," Encycl. Judaica, vol. 14, p. 1595; Eckenstein, Hist. Sinai, p. 91; Davies, Wilderness, p. 30; Avraham Negev (ed.), The Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land [AEHL] (Thomas Nelson, Nashville, Tenn., 1986 rev.) pp. 65, 221-223, 276, 292, 351; Samuel P. Tregelles (transl.), Gesenius' Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon (Baker, Grand Rapids, Mich., 1979 reprint [London, 1847, 1857]) p. 584 (Strong's no. 5514).

Josephus 

Josephus says that Mount Sinai was "the highest of all the mountains thereabout," yet Helena chose Mt. Musa at 7,497 feet when the highest mountain is nearby mountain Mt. Catherine at 8,625 feet. Mt. Al-Lawz in north Saudi Arabia is 8,464 feet. That is 100 feet higher than Mt. Musa. 

Abraham after this married Keturah, by whom six sons were born to him. ... Now, for all these sons and grandsons, Abraham contrived to settle them in colonies; and they took possession of Troglodytis, and the country of Arabia the Happy, as far as it reaches [north] to the Red Sea [Gulf of Aqaba]". (Josephus, Antiquities 1.238)

1. When Moses had said thus, the multitude requited him with marks of respect; and chose twelve spies, of the most eminent men, one out of each tribe, who, passing over all the land of Canaan from the borders of Egypt, came to the city of Hamath, and to Mount Lebanon; and having learned the nature of the land and of its inhabitants, they came home, having spent forty days in the whole work. (Josephus, Antiquities 3.303)
2. The lot of Simeon (inside Judah), which was the second, included that part of Idumea [Edom] which bordered upon Egypt and Arabia. (Josephus, Antiquities 5.82)
3. This place is between Arabia and Judea, beyond Jordan, not far from the country of Heshbon. (Josephus, Antiquities 12.233)
4. So when Jonathan was returned thence, he went into Arabia, and fought against the Nabateans (Josephus, Antiquities 13.179)
5. Now Arabia is a country that borders upon Judea. (Josephus, Antiquities 14.15)
6. She also petitioned Antony to give her Judea and Arabia: and in order thereto desired him to take these countries away from their present governors. (Josephus, Antiquities 15.92)

-----------------------

Conclusion from biblical and historical understanding Moses Pbuh must have travelled to Saudi Arabia after all this  is a very scared place !