Bethlehem to Egypt to Nazareth Google Earth only

After being warned in a dream, Joseph took Mary and Jesus to Egypt, probably leaving immediately. They would have followed the main roads, perhaps going first to Hebron, then Beersheba, and then to the coastal road that connected Egypt and Judea. In time, after the death of Herod the Great, the small family returned to Israel, almost in a symbolic “second Exodus” (Matthew 2:15). Upon hearing that Herod’s son Archelaus was ruling in Jerusalem, the couple decided to forgo living in Bethlehem and instead returned to Nazareth, where their story had begun (Matthew 2:22-23). The journey from Bethlehem to the Nile River (where 90 percent of Egypt’s population lives today) covers roughly 300 miles (500 km). The return journey to Nazareth would have been slightly longer, roughly 330 miles (530 km). Families typically traveled 20 miles a day, resting as needed in communities along the way. They always followed roads that were close to fresh water sources. That would not have been easy as they traveled through the Sinai Peninsula.