IN Sh’mot
(Exodus) chapter 14, we see Moshe leading the people of Israel after their
escape from slavery in Egypt. This story has encouraged enslaved peoples
throughout the world, including here in the United States, with its painful
history regarding slavery.
In
Exodus 14:2, we see the place in which the Israelites had their first
encampment: “Speak to the children of Israel, that they turn
and encamp before Pi-haChiroth, (spelled Pi-hahirot in the KJV) between Migdol
and the sea, over against sea. You shall camp in from of Baal-Zephon, opposite
it, by the sea.”
Most Bible maps do not show the locations of Pi-haChiroth or Baal-Zephon. For those that do, most correctly show these places in NW Sinai. I also have a Bible map that incorrectly shows both Pi-haChiroth and Baal-Zephon at the SE edge of the Sinai Peninsula. That is about 270 miles from the land of Goshen in the NE Nile delta region of Egypt from which the Hebrew slaves escaped under the leadership of Moses. They were traveling with women, children, babies, and livestock. Some would have been old or infirm. Under such severe circumstances, they might only have been able to travel about ten miles a day. The only reason to show Pi-haChirot and Baal-Zephon in SE Sinai is because it is near the Red Sea on the southern Gulf of Aqaba, which is incorrectly believed to be where the Israelites walked through the sea on dry ground.
The names of these places are significant. In Hebrew, Pi-haChiroth (פִּי הַחִרֹת) is translated as “mouth of the gorges” in Strong’s Concordance #H6367. However, with the exact same spelling, it can be written, “Pi-haChiruth” (pronounced Pi-haChirut), פִּי הַחִרֹת which means “mouth of freedom.” The vowel pointings and pronunciations in the Hebrew texts are often left to the translators, and can result in significant differences in translations and meanings. The vowel pointings are not given in the original Hebrew. I much prefer the meaning “Mouth of Freedom,” because this is soon after the Exodus from Egypt. This location would have been close to Goshen.
בַּעַל צְפוֹן (Baal-Zephon, pronounced Ba’al Ts’phon) is the name of the other location nearby. According to Strong’s Concordance #H1189, it means “Baal (Lord) of Winter.” It also means, “Baal (Lord) of the North.” This is additional proof that these locations were in NW Sinai, not sub-tropical SE Sinai. The KJV is not perfect. No translation is perfect. Unfortunately, some errors and conjectures in the KJV are often carried into other translations as well.
The Sea of Reeds
Moses brought the Israelites to this place where they were apparently trapped by the sea on one side and Pharaoh’s army on the other side. Pharaoh had allowed the Israelites to leave Egypt after enduring the Ten Plagues which had devastated Egypt. However, after virtually chasing the Israelites out of Egypt, Pharaoh and his servants had second thoughts. They said, “What is this that we have done, that we have let Israel go from serving us?” (Exodus 14:5)
Pharaoh sent his army after the Israelites with his chariots and horsemen. As the army approached, the Israelites cried out to Moses saying, “Is it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have take us away to die in the wilderness?” (Exodus 14:11, NAS)
I can fully appreciate the complaint of the Israelites. There is the Egyptian army approaching from behind them, and the sea in front of them. They had second thoughts about leaving Egypt, and were now trapped in this horrible position by Moses. Moses tells them, “The LORD will fight for you while you keep silent (14:14).”
Most of you have seen the Cecil B. DeMille movie, “The Ten Commandments” in which Charleton Heston (that is, Moses) takes the Israelites through the sea on dry ground, after which the entire Egyptian army is drowned in the sea. (This is a great movie, by the way.)
This is such a marvelous event that Moses wrote a long song about it in chapter 15 of Exodus. One of the lines in this song is, “Pharaoh’s chariots and his army He has cast into the sea. And the choices of his officers are drowned in the Red Sea (Exodus 15:4, NAS).”
The New American Standard includes a footnote next to Red Sea, saying, “Sea of Reeds.” In transliterated Hebrew, we read it is “Yam Suf.” Yam means sea, and Suf (סוּף) means “reeds.” Strong’s Concordance #H5488 says, “Probably of Egyptian origin; a reed, especially the papyrus.” This means that this event must have occurred in a sea is memorable for the reeds that were in it. I checked on the Internet to find out if the Red Sea had reeds, because reeds do not grow in salty ocean water, and the Red Sea is every bit as salty as the ocean. However, there are a few small streams that empty out into the Red Sea, and there are some very hardy reeds growing where the fresh water mixes with the Red Sea. However, I believe it is a stretch for the Red Sea to be called the “Sea of Reeds,” when 99% of the Red Sea has no reeds.
The word for red in Hebrew is אדום (adom), never suf (סוּף). The term adom can refer to various shades of red, from light pink to deep scarlet. Additionally, it is derived from a root word that means blood דם – dam, which is famously red. If Moses really meant “Red Sea” he would have called it Yam Adom, not Yam Suf.
On my search of the internet, I discovered two lakes that could be called the “Sea of Reeds.” One of them is Lake Manzala, located in NE Egypt, near the Mediterranean Sea. There is a narrow strip of land separating it from the Mediterranean Sea. Lake Manzala is a brackish lake, somewhat salty, but not nearly as salty as the ocean. It is a lake with lots of reeds. There is another much smaller fresh water lake called Lake Timsah which also has reeds. Another large lake is the Bitter Lake. However, this lake is very salty with no reeds.
The Israelites did not cross through the Red Sea, as many assume. I believe that the Israelites were on the shores of either Lake Marzala or Lake Timsah, which are both lakes having many reeds. In Hebrew, even lakes are considered to be seas, such as the Sea of Galilee, also called Yam Kinneret, using the Hebrew word for sea.
I also don’t want to criticize the KJV too much for believing that the Red Sea is where the Israelites crossed into freedom. In about 200 BCE, there was a Jewish translation of the Tanakh called the Septuagint. These translators translated the Tanakh (“Old Testament”) from Hebrew and Aramaic into Greek. The Septuagint uses terms meaning “Red Sea” for the area where the Israelites crossed to freedom. I also discovered one place in the Tanakh in which Yam Suf is translated as Red Sea. In 1 Kings 9:26, we read, “And King Solomon made a navy of ships in Eziongeber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom.” Eloth is the more ancient term for the city of Eilat, at the north end of the Red Sea Gulf of Aqaba. This is one clear reference to the Yam Suf being the Red Sea. However, I believe the overwhelming body of proof is that the Yam Suf mentioned in Exodus is a fresh (or brackish) lake in NW Sinai.
The Crossing of the Sea
In Exodus 15:8, we read, “ And with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered together, the floods stood upright as an heap, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea.” The term “congealed” sounds to me like gelatin. That doesn’t sound like something that can hold back a body of water on two sides. I looked up the verse in Exodus 15:8 in Hebrew, and discovered that the root word that the KJV uses for congealed is קָפָא (pronounced kafa). In both modern and ancient Hebrew, kafa normally means frozen. This means that “the floods stood upright as a heap, and the depths were frozen in the heart of the sea.” The Israelites had nice frozen walls of ice on either side holding back the waters of the Yam Suf (Sea of Reeds). They were then able to walk through the sea on dry land. Then the Egyptian army decided to rush through the same passage. However, they were in for a nasty surprise as the ice melted and drowned the Egyptian army.
This was a huge win for the Israelites. Egypt was the preeminent nation of the time, more powerful than any other nation for several centuries.[1] As a result of the Ten Plagues, the exodus of the Israelites, and the destruction of the Egyptian military, Egypt never again rose to the power and influence that they had enjoyed for several centuries.