Dophkah

Dophkah was a station on Israel's wilderness itinerary, camped between the Wilderness of Sin (where the manna first began) and Alush, on the route from the Red Sea crossing toward Mount Sinai (Numbers 33:12-13). The name does not appear in Exodus, only in the Numbers 33 catalog of all forty-two stations. The location is uncertain but is generally placed in the western or central Sinai peninsula, with some scholars connecting it to the Egyptian copper and turquoise mining region at Serabit el-Khadim — the name Dophkah possibly relating to the Hebrew root meaning "to knock" or "to smelt." Israel's passage through these mining areas would have brought them within sight of Egyptian frontier activity even as they journeyed deeper into the desert toward the mountain of God.