What is the terrain of the Sinai Peninsula like where Israel wandered?
The Sinai Peninsula is not flat desert. Scripture describes it as a great and terrible wilderness, and the region is marked by tremendous mountains and canyons. It is called the most awesome geographical area imaginable, rugged terrain that made God's care for millions of people and livestock miraculous.
Les explains that after the tabernacle had been constructed and taken down, the cloud moved them, and they went through all that great and terrible wilderness. The Sinai Peninsula is exactly that. It is not flat desert but tremendous mountains and canyons, described as the most awesome geographical area you can imagine. Les notes that God kept track of three to seven million people and all their livestock, which in itself was a miracle. Moses wrote that they came to Kadesh Barnea, on the border, with the promised land just ahead.
And when we departed from Horeb, we went through all that great and terrible wilderness, which ye saw by the way of the mountain of the Amorites, as the LORD our God commanded us; and we came to Kadeshbarnea.