The Israelites had their camp in the eleventh station from Egypt, which by its old name was called Raphidim, but by a new [one] — which it had received from the outcome of the people murmuring on account of the scarcity of water — Massah and Meribah, that is, temptation and contention. Which Origen did not sufficiently note (on Exodus, homily 11), when he interprets Sin [as] “temptation,” [and] Raphidim [as] “soundness of judgment.” For this would be truer if in the Hebrew it were Raphidin; but now it is Raphidim, as they once pronounced [it] — now Rephi-…
(col. 64)
…dim; and therefore in the Greek ραφιδὴν for ραφιδίμ, as though “strewing, spreading out”; or — as in the Epistle to Fabiola St. Jerome [renders it] — “dissolution,” or “the soundness of the strong”; or, according to the Syrians, “dissolution of the hands.” The former [name] on account of Amalek scattered, or Israel healed; the latter on account of the offense of the people murmuring against God. It must be understood, however, [that] this name was not imposed then for the first time (for otherwise it would be handed down about it, as [it is] about the other two [names]), but was only accommodated to the deeds themselves. But when the Israelites were proceeding from the South and West toward the North and East, and (Deuteronomy 25, v. 18) the Amalekites are said to have attacked the stragglers of the Israelite column, Abulensis gathers [that] these [Amalekites] had poured themselves into the Southern and Western part, and [into] the places whence the Israelites had set out. Yet they seem rather to have taken their stand on the Northern flank, and to have rushed upon the last of the advancing Israelites — or, as the Hebrew word there has [it], to have “docked the tail of” [cut off the rearguard of] those who were then weakened by the hardship of the journey. For since they are there said to have met [attacked] Israel, it is not likely that they occupied [places] so far to the rear — from which the Israelites had already advanced — that they should threaten nothing to the front of the column, or to the rest of the body [rearguard].