Rithmah
Rithmah is a location mentioned in the Old Testament, located in the region of Sinai in modern-day Egypt. Known today as Wadi Ratamah. It appears across 2 verses in Scripture.
Biblical History
Rithmah appears in Numbers 33:18-19 as one of the Israelites' camping stations during their wilderness wanderings, situated between Hazeroth and Rimmon-perez. The name Rithmah derives from the Hebrew word "rothem," meaning "broom plant" or "juniper," suggesting a location where these desert shrubs grew abundantly. Some scholars have connected Rithmah with Kadesh-barnea or its vicinity, noting that the sequence of camps in Numbers 33 places it roughly where the spies were sent out to survey Canaan (Numbers 13). If this association is correct, Rithmah may have been the staging ground for one of the most consequential episodes in Israel's history: the dispatch and return of the twelve spies, whose negative report led to Israel's faithless refusal to enter the Promised Land and the resulting sentence of forty years of wilderness wandering (Numbers 14:26-35). The broom plant under which Elijah later rested (1 Kings 19:4-5) was the same species that gave this place its name, creating a subtle literary echo of despair transformed by divine provision.
Archaeological & Historical Notes
Rithmah has been tentatively identified with Wadi Ratamah in the northeastern Sinai Peninsula, a location whose Arabic name preserves the same Semitic root for the broom plant. The wadi runs through a region where the ratam (broom plant) still grows today, lending credibility to the identification. The area lies along plausible routes between the Sinai wilderness and Kadesh-barnea. Archaeological evidence for temporary encampments in the Sinai is inherently difficult to detect, as nomadic camps leave minimal material traces. No definitive excavation has confirmed the site. The general region shows scattered evidence of ancient pastoral activity, consistent with the passage of a large nomadic population.
Verse Appearances (2)
References
- Orr, J. (ed.) (1915) The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Chicago: Howard-Severance Company. [Public Domain]
- OpenBible.info (n.d.) Bible Geocoding. Available at: https://www.openbible.info/geo/. [CC BY 4.0]
- Bagnall, R. et al. (eds.) (n.d.) Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places. Available at: https://pleiades.stoa.org. [CC BY 3.0]
- Wikidata contributors (n.d.) Wikidata. Available at: https://www.wikidata.org. [CC0]
- Lawrence, D. et al. (2025) Villages to Empires: a settlement dataset for the Southern Levant. doi:10.5281/zenodo.15111732. [CC BY 4.0]
- Church of England (1769) The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version. [Public Domain]