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The Book of Exodus opens with the Israelites being held captive as slaves in Egypt. Over the next forty chapters, God calls Moses to deliver His people and then works all kinds of miracles to set them free and send them toward the Promised Land.

But where exactly did these amazing events in Exodus happen? After all, Egypt is a big place. It’s about one-and-a-half times the size of Texas, covering almost 400,000 square miles. The Nile River—Egypt’s life blood—runs from south to north over 750 miles before emptying into the Mediterranean Sea. Here in northeast Egypt, near the Nile River Delta, is where the events described in the Exodus took place. This was some of the most fertile, prosperous land in Egypt. It’s where trade happened, and it’s where many of the pharaohs wanted to live.

The Bible mentions several cities in Egypt by name, and archaeologists have found lots of evidence that backs up what the Bible says. Exodus 1:11says the Egyptians forced the Israelites to build the cities of Pithom and Rameses as supply centers for Pharaoh. Exodus 12:37 makes it clear that the city known in certain periods as Rameses was the starting point for the people’s exit from Egypt. That city also included a palace of Pharaoh, which would have made it easy for the king to quickly ask the people to leave after the tenth plague. On that first Passover, a sea of Israelites left Rameses on their way to cross the Sinai peninsula and journey toward the Promised Land.

For many years, archaeologists believed the royal city of Rameses was also known by the name Tanis. Many historians now think Rameses and Tanis are two different sites, about 12 miles apart. But Tanis is still a very important location in the story of the Old Testament. Tanis is the Greek name of a city likely built around 1700 BC by the Hyksos kings of Egypt. The city is known as Zoan in Hebrew, and it appears several times in the Old Testament. Numbers 13 refers to Zoan’s history, Isaiah and Ezekiel mention Zoan in their oracles, and Psalm 78 says God did miraculous signs on the plain of Zoan to deliver His people. This is where God led His people with a pillar of cloud and fire, and where He gave them water from a rock.

Several generations after the Israelites left Egypt, the royal city of Rameses was in serious decline. The mud-brick structures built by the Israelite slaves had disappeared. Trade had shifted to Tanis. And the huge stone temples in Rameses were taken apart and moved to other locations, including Tanis, where the columns still rest to this day. They are testaments to the fact that even the greatest human power is fleeting. Nothing can stand against the power of our almighty, eternal God.