The passage of the Red Sea
The narrative is composite, and shews the same, or similar, characteristics to that of the Plagues. It may suffice here to point to some of the features which connect the parts assigned to P with each other, or with P's narrative elsewhere: v.1 And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, as Exodus 6:10; Exodus 6:29; Exodus 13:1; Exodus 25:1, and frequently; vv.2, 15 Speak unto the children of Israel, as Exodus 25:2; Leviticus 1:2; Leviticus 4:2, &c.; vv.4, 8, 17 ḥizzëḳfor -harden" as Exodus 7:13, &c.; get me honour, vv.4, 17, 18, Leviticus 10:3; Leviticus 10:4; Leviticus 10:18 and … shall know, as Exodus 6:7; Exodus 7:5; Exodus 16:12; Exodus 16:9; Exodus 16:23 and the Egyptians pursued; vv.22, 29 -the dry ground" and -the wall"; vv.16, 21 divide; the repetitions, in the manner of P, in vv.17, 18 as compared with v.4, in v.28a as compared with v.23, and in v.29 as compared with v.22.
The two principal narrators, while agreeing with each other and with the Song in the main facts, viz. that the Israelites passed safely, while the Egyptians perished in the waters, give different representations of some of the details. In particular, in effecting the parting of the waters, Jehovah in J acts through natural causes: by a strong east wind (v.21b) He drives along the waters of the Red Sea, so that a part of the bottom is laid bare; in the morning the sea returns to its wonted flow, and the pursuing Egyptians are drowned in it (v.27b): in P Moses lifts up his hand, as in E (v.16a) his rod, and at the signal the waters divide automatically, forming a pathway, with a wall of water on each side; upon the signal being given a second time, the waters reunite, and close upon the Egyptians (vv.21a, c, 22, 27a, 28a). In P, and also in E probably (for but little of E has been preserved), the miracle is thus much greater than in J. The Song (ch. 15) agrees with J in emphasizing the operation of the wind (v.8, cf. v.10): whether the expressions in v.8 about the waters standing up as a heap are to be taken literally, and regarded as supporting the representation of P, may be doubted: the language may be hyperbolical; nor is it certain (see p. 130f.) that the poem is contemporary with the events. See further p. 123 ff.
On the passage of the Red Sea
The factof the passage of the Red Sea can be questioned only by an extreme and baseless scepticism. As was remarked above (p. 114), on the principal facts involved, the successful passage of the Israelites, and the destruction of the pursuing Egyptians in the returning waters, the principal narratives, and also the Song, all agree: they differ only in details (on the uncertainty as to the placeof crossing, see p. 124 ff.). Dillm. (p. 133, Exodus 2, p. 146) remarks that these details are described most simply, if only we do not understand as prose what is intended to be poetry, in the Song (which is regarded by him as older than any of the prose narratives): a strong wind drives back the waters in such a way as to permit the Israelites to pass through (Exodus 15:8); another wind, suddenly arising in an opposite direction (v.10), causes the water to return and close upon the pursuing foe. -That natural causes were in operation, is taken for granted: Jehovah is glorified for setting them in action, and achieving by such simple means the salvation of His own people, and the destruction of their foes. The marvel lay in the deliverance of the people, whom its leader had ever taught to trust in its God, in the extremity of danger, without its own cooperation (cf. Exodus 14:13 f., Exodus 14:31 J), this was also the reason why the event had such immense significance in the subsequent history of the people." But the story of the great deliverance, as it was handed down from generation to generation in the mouths of the people, was variously embellished by the unconscious play of the imagination. And so in the later writers the occurrence is attributed far more to the direct supernatural power of God. While J, no doubt following the Song, still mentions a strong east wind as the cause, E and P represent the water as dividing and forming two walls, and afterwards as reuniting, at a signal given by the hand or rod of Moses, in E and J the angel, or pillar of cloud and fire, cooperates to keep the two hosts apart, and throw the Egyptians into a panic, the passage of the whole body of Israelites, and the destruction of the Egyptians, take place in a single night, and not one of the enemy is left alive. -It would be unjustifiable," continues Dillmann, -on account of such differences between the narrators, and because of such purely legendary traits, to deny the reality of the occurrence itself; but it would be still more foolish to seek to maintain the strictly historical character of the details as described by these narrators. Especially the idea that a people numbering some 2,000,000 souls, with their tents and baggage, and large flocks and herds (Exodus 12:37 f.), could have crossed the sea, however broad the ford was, in the course of a single night, must be entirely given up; either the numbers were very much smaller, or the narrative must be supposed to speak of only the principal body of the Israelites."
The actual point at which the passage of the Red Sea took place can be fixed only by conjecture; for the site suggested for Pi-haḥiroth (p. 122) is too conjectural, and that suggested for Migdol is too uncertain, to be used for the purpose of determining it, and the site of Baal-ẓĕphôn depends entirely upon those adopted for these two places. Formerly, indeed, it used to be supposed, on the strength of the expressions in Exodus 14:22; Exodus 15:8, that the passage took place in the deep water, some miles S. of Suez, that the sea there literally parted asunder, and that through the chasm thus formed the Israelites passed, with a sheer wall of water on each side of them. But, if only for the reason that it is impossible to understand how any -wind" could have produced a chasm of this kind, or, even if it could have done so, how any man or body of men could have stood against it, this view has now been for long entirely abandoned. The following are the two views that have been more recently advocated. (1) That the passage took place near the modern Suez, eitherin the narrow arm of the gulf, some ¾ mile broad, which extends now about 2 miles N. of Suez, but, to judge from the character of the soil, consisting of sand blown in from the desert on the East, in ancient times probably extended further (Rob. i. 49), ora little S. of Suez: above Suez the water is shallow, and there are parts which can be crossed at low tide (Ebers saw Arabs crossing them, Gosen, p. 530; cf. Rob. p. 50); immediately below Suez also there is a shoal, 1 mile broad, dry at low water 1 [144]. The Gulf of Suez is at this part enclosed by a range of hills on each side the Jebel -Atâḳa on the W. coming close down to the sea, and the ridge of er-Râḥah, 12 15 miles off on the E.; and partly on account of these hills the ebb and flow of the tide is here unusually dependent on the direction of the wind. -As is well known to observant men accustomed to navigate the Red Sea, a north-easterly gale, on reaching Suez, would then be drawn down between the high ranges which bound the gulf on either hand, in such a manner as to change its direction from NE. to N., or even a little W. of N. It would gather strength as it advanced, and by its action on an ebb tide would make it abnormally low, and prevent, while it lasted, at least for a time, the return of the usual flood tide. In this way a good passage across the channel might soon be laid bare, and remain so for several hours. In the morning, a shift of wind to the S., probably of a cyclonic nature; takes place: the pent-up flood-tide, now freed from restraint, and urged on by the S. gale "returns to its wonted flow," and sweeps suddenly up the gulf, probably in a "bore" or tidal wave, and so overwhelms the pursuing Egyptians." 2 [145]
[144] See Map, Gulf of Suez, at end. According to Rob. p. 50, however, the shoal could only be crossed by wading, the water being 5 ft. deep.
[145] Abridged from Major Palmer's Sinai(S.P.C.K.), p. 169f. Ewald [Hist.ii. 73), -if the Red Sea had then its present limits," and Ebers (Gosen, p. 102 f.) would also place the passage across the fords N. of Suez. Robinson (i. 58f.) supposes that the wind drove the water off the shallow shoals, either just above or just below the present Suez, and so made them passable, while leaving the deeper water N. and S. of these shoals unaffected.
(2) The other view takes the Israelites across a presumed ancient northern extension of the Gulf of Suez, which is considered highly probable by many modern authorities. The isthmus of Suez, at its narrowest part, is 70 miles across 3 [146]. Near the N. end of the Gulf of Suez there extends for some ten miles a -sort of marshy lagoon" (Murray's Guide); then comes the Shalûf, a plateau 20 25 ft. above the sea-level, and 6 miles long; after this, stretching in a NW. direction, the two -Bitter Lakes," altogether about 25 miles long by 2 6 broad, connected by a shallow marshy channel a mile long, which, until an immense volume of water was let into them at the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 from the Medit. Sea, were nothing more than two great salt marshes, though 20 40 ft. deep in many parts; at the N. end of these Lakes there is again for 8 miles a stretch of sand, rising in parts into dunes, with a stelè of Darius in the middle, which, from the ruins found there being supposed by the French engineers to have been a temple of Osiris, is now known as the Serapeum; then comes Lake Timsâḥ (the -Crocodile Lake"), at the E. end of W. Ṭumîlât, 5 miles long by ½ 2 miles broad, which, like the Bitter Lakes, till it was flooded for Suez Canal, was another salt marsh, filled with reeds: 3 miles N. of Lake Timsâḥ, the land rises to about 50 ft. above the sea, and the highest point between the Medit. Sea and the Gulf of Suez is reached, called el-Gisr(-the Embankment"), the cutting through of which for the Suez Canal was a work of immense labour: two or three miles N. of el-Gisr is Lake Ballâḥ; and N. of this, between L. Ballâḥ and L. Menzaleh, was the isthmus called el-Ḳanṭara, or the -Bridge," over which went the old caravan route between Egypt and Palestine.
[146] There are excellent maps of the Isthmus in both Bädeker's and Murray's Guide.
There is no doubt that in remote pre-historic times (before the Pleistocene period) the Gulf of Suez and the Medit. Sea were connected with each other (see the map in EB.ii. 1205 6); and it has been supposed that in ancient historic times the Gulf of Suez extended as far N. as L. Timsâḥ, on the S. of the ridge el-Gisr, just referred to: Sir J. W. Dawson, for instance, writing as a geologist, points out that the ground S. of L. Timsâḥ is for the most part lower than the Red Sea, and is composed of recent deposits holding many Red Sea shells (Egypt and Syria, pp. 67 69). And so it has been held that the passage of the Israelites was made at some part of this northern extension of the Red Sea. Thus the French engineer Linant, R. S. Poole the Egyptologist (in Smith's DB., 1863, i. 599 b, iii. 1016 a, 1017 a), and M. Naville in his Store-City of Pithom and the Route of the Exodus4, 1903, p. 31 (see also his art. Exodusin Smith's DB., vol. i., Exodus 2, with maps) suppose them to have crossed by what is now the neck of land between L. Timsâḥ and the Bitter Lakes, a little N. of the -Serapeum," where (Naville) -the sea was not wide, and the water probably very shallow," and -liable to be driven back under an east wind"; while Sir J. W. Dawson (l.c.p. 65) thinks that the best place for the passage would have been at the S. end of the Great Bitter Lake 1 [147], where -it is narrow, and its shallow part begins, and a NE. wind, combined with a low tide, would produce the greatest possible effect in lowering the water." Dillm., after a full discussion of the question, reached in 1880 substantially the same conclusion, thinking it probable that there was some extension of what is now the Gulf of Suez as far as L. Timsâḥ, both upon independent grounds (see below), and also because, if at the time of the Exodus the distribution of land and water upon the isthmus was as it is now, it is not apparent why Moses should have led the Israelites S. of the N. end of the Gulf of Suez, instead of crossing the isthmus between the N. end of the Gulf and the Bitter Lakes, by the present pilgrim track to the desert of Arabia: he did not, however, define more closely where the crossing took place, but thought it might be at any point N. of the present gulf, where the water was fairly shallow (p. 144 f., Exodus 2, p. 159).
[147] Between the present railway stations Fâyid and Geneffa (see the Map).
Did this N. extension of the Gulf of Suez exist, however, as late as the time of the Exodus, in the 13th cent. b.c.? (1) The -Bitter Lakes" seem to have existed already in the time of the 12th dynasty. Sinuhit, a political exile from Egypt under Usertesen I (b.c. 1980 1935 Breasted), in describing his flight, says (Petrie, Egypt. Tales, i. 100 f. 1 [148]) that he -reached the walls (anbu) of the Ruler, built to repel the Sati," then after -crouching in a bush for fear of being seen by the guards doing duty there, who watch on the top," he -set forth at night-fall, and at day-break reached Peten, and came to the island of Kem-uçr," i.e. the -Great Black (water)." 2 [149] Now Ptolemy II is said, in l. 20 of the inscription found at Pithom by M. Naville (Pithom, Exodus 4, p. 20 b), to have gone to Kem-uçr, and founded there a large city in honour of his sister, which can be only Arsinoe; and this is stated by Strabo (p. 804; xvii. 1. 26) to have been near Heroopolis, i.e. (see below) Pithom, 10 miles W. of L. Timsâḥ. These dataseem to shew that Kem-uçrmust have included L. Timsâḥ. The sequel (ll. 22 24), now, speaks of vessels going from Kem-uçrto the Red Sea, and returning again, with elephants and other imports, to Kem-uçr. Though Kem-uçris distinguished from the Red Sea, there seems thus to have been some water-connexion between them: L. Timsâḥ was apparently united with the Bitter Lakes, forming the -Great Black (water)"; and there was some navigable connexion between this and what is now the Gulf of Suez (cf. W. M. Müller, Asien u. Eur. nach den Aeg. Denkm. p. 42; Di. pp. 140, 145, Exodus 2, pp. 153, 159; Naville, p. 25 f.). Geology offers no demur to this conclusion. Geologists generally are agreed that the whole of the isthmus from el-Gisr to Suez is a recent (Quaternary) formation; and Th. Fuchs, who examined it carefully in 1876, and whose conclusions are summarized by Guthe (ZDPV.Exo 1885, 222 9, esp. 225; cf. Proverbs 3; Proverbs 3 [150] xii. 499), writing purely as a geologist, regards it as quite possible that -the Bitter Lakes, even in historical times, were connected with the Red Sea." In particular, Fuchs (against Fraas and others) 3 [151] denies that the Shalûf plateau (p. 125) is as a whole a formation of the Miocene period; and says that such isolated Miocene rocks as may have been found in it could never have formed a real barrier between the Medit. and the Red Seas (p. 225). Comp. Guthe's statement (p. 227 f.), with which the well-known geologist, Credner, is stated fully to agree. The land, from L. Timsâḥ southwards has gradually risen, causing the waters of the Red Sea gradually to recede.
[148] Latest and best edition by A. H. Gardiner, Die Erzählung des Sinuhe, Berlin, 1909, whose translation (p. 9 f.) has in two places been followed.
[149] So-called in contradistinction to the -Great Green (water)," i.e. the Mediterranean and other seas.
[150] Realencyklopädie für Protestantische Theologie und Kirche, Exodus 3, edited by A. Hauck, 1896 1909.
[151] Comp. Dawson, Modern Science in Bible Lands(1888), 396 8, Eg. and Syr.68.
(2) In a wall in Pithom M. Naville found a stone with the inscription (in four lines) loero polis ero castra (where lo doubtless stands for locus); and very near it a milestone of a.d. 306 with the note -Ab Ero in Klysma M. VIIII. Θ " (Pithom, pp. 9 a, 21 b, 22 a, 23 b, and Plate XI). Plainly Heroopolisis meant, a place often mentioned by the classical geographers as the starting point of the Ἀράβιος κόλπος or the Red Sea (e.g. Strabo, p. 767 ἀπὸ Ἡρώων πόλεως ἥτις ἐστὶ πρὸς τῷ Νείλῳ μυχὸς τοῦ Ἀραβίου κόλπου; cf. 803), as giving its name to this gulf, and as the place at which voyagers embarked on the -Arabian Gulf" (Theophr. Plant.iv. 7. 2 ἐν τῷ κόλπῳ τῷ καλουμένῳ Ἡρώων, ἐφ ʼ ὃν καταβαίνουσιν οἱ ἐξ Αἰγύπτου). Pithom Isaiah 10 miles W. of L. Timsâḥ; so these statements would seem to shew that the -Arabian Gulf" in classical times extended as far N. as that lake 1 [152]. M. Naville (p. 25 b) even judges, from the appearance of the soil, that the head of the gulf extended westwards from L. Timsâḥ to within three miles of Heroopolis itself. 2 [153] This conclusion would be clear, and, as Di. remarks, a welcome confirmation of the conclusion reached by him, upon independent grounds, in his Commentary (pp. 139 f., 144 f., Exodus 2, pp. 152 f., 159), were it not for a passage of Pliny (HN.vi. § 165), which seems to imply that there were 34 (al.37) miles from the Red Sea to the Bitter Lakes: if this is correct, the Gulf of Suez must have ended where it does now (see further Dillm."s full discussion in his review of Naville's Pithom, Exodus 1, in SBAk.1885, p. 889 ff.). Perhaps, however, too much weight ought not to be attached to an isolated statement, not made in a detailed description of the country 3 [154].
[152] Ptolemy (Exodus 4:5; Exodus 4:7-8) also places the -bay (μυχὸς) of the Arabian Gulf by Heroopolis" a degree (about 60 miles) N. of Klysma (Kolzum, just N. of Suez).
[153] See the Map of Ancient Egypt, shewing this, in Maspero, i. 75.
[154] Naville (p. 26 a) understands the passage, not of a canal from the Bitter Lakes to the Red Sea, but of the canal from the Nile (near Bubastis) to the Bitter Lakes, in which case the distance would be approximately correct, and the difficulty would vanish: but he hardly does justice to Pliny's et(-also"); see Dillm. p. 894.
As there is no reason (Pithom, Exodus 4, p. 23 f.) for supposing either of the stones found by M. Naville to have been moved appreciably from its original site, they establish the identity of Heroopolis with the place at which they were found, i.e. with Pithom. The ancient Klysma, according to the Arabian geographers (see Di. l.c.), was at the extreme head of the Gulf of Suez (N. of the modern townof Suez; see the Map): if this, therefore, be the Klysma meant, Heroopolis must have been some 50 miles distant from it, instead of 9, as stated on the milestone. The supposition made by Mommsen (SBAk.1885, p. 898, 1887, p. 364) for overcoming this difficulty, viz. that the inscription means not -9 miles from Ero to Klysma" but -the 9th mile on the way from Ero to Klysma," being negatived by the improbability (Naville, l.c.) that the stone had been removed from its original place, Naville (p. 24 a) argues that Klysma (properly -a place washedby the sea") means here not the -Klysma" near Suez, but the sea-beach of L. Timsâḥ, which would be about 10 miles from Pithom.
On the whole, the language of the ancients, with the exception of the one passage of Pliny, is best satisfied by the supposition that, as late as classical times, the Gulf of Suez extended as far N. as L. Timsâḥ.
1 4 (P). The sequel in P to Exodus 13:20 (P). In Etham the Israelites are bidden turn back, and encamp on the W. side of the sea (i.e. either of the Gulf of Suez, or of an ancient northern extension of it: see p. 126 f.) in order that the Pharaoh, seeing them shut in, with the sea in front of them, may be tempted to pursue after them, and that God may get Him glory by his overthrow.