The crucial question of the identity of the people of ancient Deir el-Balah, so steeped in Egyptian culture and religion, remains unanswered. The period in which they lived was one of intensive international trade and of great ethnic changes and political upheaval." (7) There appears to be something I missed and a lot of other possibilities these authors are avoiding. The Bible was not written in just one period and (alas) it may not be Divinely Inspired. Scholarship shows at least five different author’s hands in the Tanakh or Pentateuch with a thorough revision by a Redactor 'R' around 200 BC. Thus the reference to Philistines in this area or the Israelites in Jericho after it had been taken by other forces (in 1200 BC. per the archaeological knowledge) is largely reconstructive writing to make people see themselves as conquerors or as persecuted according to the particular story being told. It justifies a militaristic response or ‘pre-emptive’ acts if you can sell the idea that you are persecuted - as we see today in this same region.

The Exodus and even the Pharaonic lineages are very MUCH up in the air. The propaganda of certain Egyptian Pharaohs who liked to present themself as victor in battles (e.g. with the Hittites of this time) has been shown as fiction. If Moses was an important person with political influence in Egypt might the forty years in the desert have to do with an on-going attempt to re-institute himself in the land from which he'd been asked to leave? Is it possible that many outposts remained loyal to him? The phrase from the Bible that they quote includes 'Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war'. To me, this means 'In the event that the people in Egypt see the error of their ways, and our former associates there allow us to resume our rightful place’.

Then by means of war or by cutting off the access to key needs (like the 'white powder' being made at Mt. Serábît which was discovered in the early 1900s by Flinders Petrie but only recently being understood as related to the 'burning bush' alchemical factory) and trade, you might find there is an opportunity to wage an all-out offensive and return.

Perhaps my analysis is lacking as well; but the forty years in the desert is more deserving of explanation than the route as I see it. There is no route that would take forty years to traverse. There is much more debate on the issue of Moses than most people (including one person I know who wrote a whole book on him) know. Gardner makes a good case for Moses being Akhenaten and the National Geographic shows him with Nefertiti (his senior wife) at this site. Thus we should quote a little of what Gardner has to say about them. First let me point out that the number 40 is a generation or lineage standard of a king during Biblical re-creations and attempts to fit things together with other documents. The actual date of Exodus and Moses is a matter of debate and the winners of the tribal infighting re-wrote the Bible story starting in the sixth century BC.