again and again by the communication of more or less comprehensive regulations and lists which are only loosely linked to the narrative thread by the short, stereotyped introductory formula, ‘Yahweh said to Moses’ (‘in the wilderness of Sinai’ or ‘in the plains of Moab’). The course of the narrative is as follows. At the beginning of the book Israel is ‘in the wilderness of Sinai’ (1:1), that is in the vicinity of the mountain of the theophany and the law-giving. 10:11–36 reports the departure from