page_title: Masei
section_title: Numbers chapter 33
hierarchical_section_title: Masei / In modern interpretation / Numbers chapter 33
caption_attribution_description: archeologist Israël Finkelstein in 2007
context_page_description: Masei, Mas'ei, or Masse is the 43rd weekly Torah portion in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading and the 10th and last in the Book of Numbers. The parashah constitutes Numbers 33:1–36:13. The parashah discusses the stations of the Israelites' journeys, instructions for taking the land of Israel, cities for the Levites and refuge, and the daughters of Zelophehad.
  It is made up of 5,773 Hebrew letters, 1,461 Hebrew words, 132 verses, and 189 lines in a Torah Scroll. Jews generally read it in July or August. The lunisolar Hebrew calendar contains up to 55 Saturdays, the exact number varying between 50 in common years and 54 or 55 in leap years. In some leap years, parashat Masei is read separately. In most years, parashat Masei is combined with the previous parashah, Matot, to help achieve the number of weekly readings needed.
context_section_description: Archeologists Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University and Neil Asher Silberman argued that the place Sukkot mentioned in Exodus 12:37 and Numbers 33:5 is probably the Hebrew form of the Egyptian Tjkw, a name referring to a place or an area in the eastern Nile Delta that appears in Egyptian texts from the time of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt, the dynasty of Ramesses II. Finkelstein and Silberman reported that a late thirteenth century BCE Egyptian papyrus recorded that the commanders of the forts along the delta's eastern border closely monitored the movements of foreigners there, saying: "We have completed the entry of the tribes of the Edomite Shasu (that is, Bedouin) through the fortress of Merneptah-Content-with-Truth, which is in Tjkw, to the pools of Pr-Itm which (are) in Tjkw for the sustenance of their flocks." And Finkelstein and Silberman reported that the abundant Egyptian sources describing the time of the New Kingdom of Egypt in general and the thirteenth century in particular make no reference to the Israelites. Finkelstein and Silberman also noted that according to the Biblical narrative, the Israelites camped at Kadesh-barnea for 38 of the 40 years of their wanderings. Numbers 34 makes clear Kadesh's general location from its description of the southern border of the land of Israel, and archaeologists have identified it with the large and well-watered oasis of Ein el-Qudeirat in eastern Sinai, on the border between modern Israel and Egypt. The name Kadesh was probably preserved over the centuries in the name of a nearby smaller spring called Ein Qadis. A small mound with the remains of a Late Iron Age fort stands at the center of this oasis. Yet repeated excavations and surveys throughout the area have not provided even the slightest evidence for activity in the Late Bronze Age, not even a single sherd left by a tiny fleeing band of frightened refugees. Finkelstein and Silberman concluded that based on the evidence at the specific sites where Numbers 33 says that the Israelites camped for extended periods during their wandering in the desert (and where some archaeological indication — if present — would almost certainly be found), a mass Exodus did not happen at the time and in the manner described in the Bible.
caption: Finkelstein
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