ETHAM (Hebr. ’Ethām). — The second stage or station of the Israelites on their journey toward the Promised Land (Ex. 13:20; Num. 33:6). The name is probably the Hebraized form of the Egyptian htm, “fortress,” and would indicate the place called Serapeum north of the Great Bitter Lake, the junction of all the roads toward the centre and south of the Sinai Peninsula, where Ramses II had built a fortress to defend the Teku Canal. The locality lay “on the edge of the desert” of Shur (Ex. 15:21; Num. 38:8), which extended eastward from the great wall (Hebr. ṣār) protecting the Isthmus of Suez.
BIBL.: C. Bourdon, in Rev. bibl., 41 (1932), pp. 372, 543. Donato Baldi