Source:Chadwick:The Wrong Place for Lehi's Trail and the Valley of Lemuel:FARMS Review 17:2

Bir Marsha as a candidate for the Valley of Lemuel

Bir Marsha as a candidate for the Valley of Lemuel

Let us assume, though, that Wadi Tayyib al-Ism was two to four hundred feet lower in 600 BC than it is today and that its stream did in fact meet the Red Sea's waters inside the "granite canyon." Even if this had been the case, the valley itself would still have failed to meet Nephi's description. Nephi noted that the valley of Lemuel "was in the borders near the mouth thereof"—that is, near the mouth of the river Laman (1 Nephi 2:8). This means that the entrance to the valley of Lemuel was not right at the mouth of the river, nor was the mouth of the river in the valley itself. The mouth of the river, where it met the Red Sea, has to have been outside the valley, not exactly at the valley entrance or in the valley. The valley has to have been near the river's mouth, not right there at the mouth. There has to have been a short distance (perhaps a hundred meters or so) between the mouth of the river (where it met the sea) and the rising mountains in which the valley entrance was located. No realistic assessment of the features of Tayyib al-Ism and its stream can match Nephi's description. The site cannot have been the valley of Lemuel. Potter and Wellington's sincere and impressive efforts notwithstanding, "they're digging in the wrong place."

But there are a number of sites along the Gulf of Eilat's eastern shoreline that do meet the general description given by Nephi. My own guess is that one of the wadis near the shore at Bir Marsha would be the strongest candidate for the actual valley of Lemuel. Why Bir Marsha? Because it is the furthest point south that one can travel along the east shore of the Gulf of Eilat. About fifty miles south of Ezion Geber, along that shoreline, high mountain cliffs jut out into the sea, cutting off the coastal path just south of Bir Marsha.

It would take at least two days for Lehi's party to cover those fifty miles on camels. If they proceeded more slowly (looking for a campsite) or if any were traveling on foot, it would take the group three days to go from the Ezion Geber area to Bir Marsha. They would then have pitched their tents in a secluded canyon in the mountain face just a few hundred meters from the Bir Marsha shoreline. With a seasonal winter stream running in the wadi to provide them with water, Lehi then gave the small river and the high walled valley the names of his two eldest sons.