This entry incorporates text from Easton's Bible Dictionary, 1897, with some modernisation.
Rephidim - supports, one of the stations of the Israelites, situated in the Wady Feiran, near its junction with the Wady esh-Sheikh. Here no water could be found for the people to drink, and in their impatience they were ready to stone Moses, as if he were the cause of their distress. At the command of God Moses smote "the rock in Horeb," and a copious stream flowed forth, enough for all the people. After this the Amalekites attacked the Israelites while they were here encamped, but they were utterly defeated (Ex. 17:1, 8-16). They were the "first of the nations" to make war against Israel (Num. 24:20).
Leaving Rephidim, the Israelites advanced into the wilderness of Sinai (Ex. 19:1, 2; Num. 33:14, 15), marching probably through the two passes of the Wady Solaf and the Wady esh-Sheikh, which converge at the entrance to the plain er-Rahah, the "desert of Sinai," which is two miles long and about half a mile broad. (See Sinai ; Meribah.)
At Rephidim, the people expected to die of thirst, but Moses said they were testing the Lord, which is defined as not believing that the Lord was present with them (Exodus 17:1-7).
At times it seems to us that the Lord has likewise led us to a sort of spiritual Rephidim - a place where all our internal hopes and dreams and desires, which earlier we were able to keep under control, make their way to the surface and break loose.
Rephidim was near Egypt, the place the Israelites came from.
The city of Rephidim is dominated by a theo-bureaucracy based in the Temple, its emblem being that of the Star and Anchor.
Rephidim is the most technologically advanced of any of the known Sinai cultures (even more so than Chronotopia), largely due to the fact that magic is suppressed by approximately 75% (by most measures) here, and that technology is more reliable than down on the surface of the world.
In essence, the area around Rephidim is a permanent weather front, and its arrival as it meanders across the continent of Ai is often heralded by storms on the surface.
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