Numbers 34:5

And the border shall fetch a compass from Azmon unto the river of Egypt, and the goings out of it shall be at the sea.

River of Egypt - the ancient brook Sihor, the Rhinocolura of the Greeks, a little to the south of El-Arish, where this wady gently descends towards the Mediterranean (Joshua 13:3). Dr. Hales ('Sac. Chron.,' vol. 1:, pp. 413, 414) and others suppose that the reference rather is to the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, (cf. 'Herodotus,' b.

iii., ch. 5:) The southern boundary line, as traced in this passage, ran in an irregular curve between the southern extremity of the Dead Sea on the east, through the places here mentioned, to the river of Egypt on the west. But this curvature cannot be exactly described, although the important discoveries of Rowlands in the Negeb have contributed much to illustrate its course (see also Osborn's 'Palestine,' p. 392; Allen's 'Dead Sea,' vol. 1:, p. 324, note; Williams' 'Holy City;' Kurtz, 3:, pp. 228, 229; Bochart's 'Hieroz,' lib. 5:, cap. 15:, p.

763).