Exodus 14:2

Speak unto the children of Israel, that they turn— Dr. Shaw is of opinion, that this expression to turn, &c. may serve to determine the geography of Etham, the second station of the Israelites; which, if it appertain to the wilderness of the same name, the edge of it may be well taken for the most advanced part of it towards Egypt; and, consequently, to lie contiguous with some portion or other of the mountains of the lower Thebais, or of Mocattee, near Kairo. Removing from the edge of this wilderness, the Israelites are immediately ordered to turn (to the southeast) from the course, as we may imagine, of their former marches, which was hitherto in an easterly direction, and to encamp before Pi-hahiroth. As Pi-hahiroth, therefore, must lie to the right hand of the wilderness of Etham, within or on the side of these mountains; so the second station, or the particular portion of this wilderness of Etham, may be fixed about fifty miles from Kairo, at or near the breach mentioned in the note on Exodus 14:18 of the last chapter.

Pi-hahiroth— Or, the chops of Hhiroth. A geographical description of the route of the Israelites at this interesting time must be so pleasing to the learned reader, that I shall be excused if I give Dr. Shaw's account at large: "That the Israelites," says the doctor, "before they turned towards Pi-hahiroth, had travelled in an open country, appears to be further illustrated from hence; that upon their being ordered to remove from the edge of the wilderness, and to encamp before Pi-hahiroth; it immediately follows, Exodus 14:3 they are entangled in the land: the wilderness (betwixt the mountains, we may suppose, of Gewoubee and Attackah, for the Hebrews call all uncultivated land, which is fit only for pasture, מדבר midbar, wilderness) hath shut them in: or, is it is in the original, סגר saggar, hath shut up the way against them; for, in these circumstances, the Egyptians might well imagine, that the Israelites could have no way to escape, inasmuch as the mountains of Gewoubee would stop their flight or progress to the southward, as those of Attackah would do the same towards the land of the Philistines: the Red-sea likewise lay before them to the east, while Pharaoh closed up the valley behind them with his chariots and horsemen.

This valley ends at the sea in a small bay, made by the eastern extremities of the mountains which I have been describing, and is called Tiah Beni Israel, i.e. the road of the Israelites, from a tradition, which is still kept up by the Arabs, of their having passed through it; and is also called Baideah, from the new and unheard-of miracle (which the word signifies in the Arabic) which was wrought near it by dividing the Red-sea, and destroying therein Pharaoh, his chariots and horsemen. The third encampment, then, of the Israelites was at this bay. It was before Pi-hahiroth, betwixt Migdol and the sea, over against Baal-zephon; and according to Numbers 33:7 it was before Migdol, where the word לפני lipni, before, being applied to Pi-hahiroth and Migdol, may signify no more than that they pitched within sight of, or at a small distance from, the one and the other of those places. Baal-zephon may be interpreted the god, or idol of the north; for baal signifies god or lord, and zephon is rendered north in many places of Scripture; and he is so called, perhaps, in contradistinction to other idols of the Lower Thebais, whose places of worship were to the south or east. If zephon be related to צפה tzape, to spy out or observe, then Baal-zephon will, probably, signify the god of the watch-tower, or the guardian god; such as was the Hermes of the Romans, &c. Now, whether Baal-zephon may have relation to the northern situation of the place, or to some watch-tower, or idol-temple erected upon it; we may properly take it for the eastern extremity of the mountains of Suez or Attackah, the most conspicuous of these deserts, as it overlooks a great part of the Lower Thebais, as well as the wilderness which reaches towards, or which rather makes part of the land of the Philistines. Migdol then might lie to the south, as Baal-zephon did to the north of Pi-hahiroth; for the marches of the Israelites from the edge of the wilderness being to the sea-ward, i.e. towards the south-east, their encampments between Migdol and the sea, or before Migdol, could not well have another situation." Migdol signifies a tower. The LXX render it Magdolos; and it is supposed to be the same with the place so called by Herodotus. Pi-hahiroth, or chiroth rather, without regarding the prefixed part of it, may have a more general signification, and denote the valley, or that whole space of ground which extends from the edge of the wilderness of Etham to the Red-sea. For that particular part only, where the Israelites were ordered to encamp, appears to have been called Pi-hahiroth, i.e. the mouth of Hhiroth; for when Pharaoh almost overtook them, it was (with respect to his coming down upon them, Exodus 14:9.) החירת פי על al pi hachirot, i.e. besides, or at the mouth, or the most advanced part of chiroth, to the eastward. likewise, in Numbers 33:7 where the Israelites are related to have encamped before Migdol, it follows, Exodus 14:8 that they departed החירת מפני miphni hachirot, from before chiroth, and not from before Pi-hahiroth, as it is rendered in our translation. And in this sense it is taken by the LXX, by Eusebius, and St. Jerome. It has been already observed, that this valley is closely confined betwixt two rugged chains of mountains. By deducing chiroth, therefore, from חר chor or chour, i.e. a hole or gullet, (as the Samaritan and Syriac copies understand it,) it may, by a latitude very common in these cases, be rendered a narrow defile, road, or passage; such as the valley of Baideah has been described. Pi-hahiroth, therefore, upon this supposition, will be the same as the mouth, or the most advanced part of this valley, to the eastward toward the Red-sea. But as the Israelites were properly delivered at this place from their captivity and fear of the Egyptians, Exodus 14:13 we may rather suppose, that chiroth denotes the place where they were restored to their liberty; as חרר chorar and חירות chiruth are words of the like import in the Chaldee. In Rashi's Commentary, we have a further confirmation of this interpretation. Pi-hahiroth, says he, is so called because the children of Israel were made חרים בני Beni chorim, free-men at that place, in the Targum likewise, בןאּחרין ben chorin is used to explain חפשׁי chapsi, ch. Exodus 21:2; Exodus 21:5 a word which denotes liberty and freedom in these and other parts of Scripture. And it may be further urged in favour, as well of this explication as of the tradition still preserved, of the Israelites having passed through this valley, that the eastern extremity of the mountain, which I suppose to be Baal-tzephon, is called, even to this day, by the inhabitants of these deserts, Jibbel Attackah, or the Mountain of Deliverance; which appellation, together with those of Baideah and Tiah Beni Israel, could never have been given, or imposed upon these inhabitants at first, or preserved by them afterwards, without some faithful tradition that such place had once been the actual scene of these remarkable transactions. The sea, likewise, of Kolzun, i.e. Destruction, as the correspondent part of the Red-sea is called in the Arabian Geography, is a further confirmation of this tradition. Moreover, the Icthyophagi, who lived in this very neighbourhood, are reported by Diodorus Siculus, (lib. 3: p. 122.) to have preserved the like traditionary account from their forefathers of this miraculous division of the Red-sea.

There are likewise other circumstances to prove, that the Israelites took their departure from this valley in their passage through the Red-sea. For it could not have been to the northward of the mountains of Attackah, or in the higher road which has been before taken notice of; because, as this lies for the most part upon a level, the Israelites could not have been here, as we find they were, shut up and entangled. Neither could it have been on the other side, viz. to the south of the mountains of Gewoubee; for then (besides the insuperable difficulties which the Israelites would have met with in climbing over them; the same likewise which the Egyptians would have had in pursuing them,) the opposite shore could not have been the desert of Shur, where the Israelites landed, ch. Exodus 15:22 but it would have been the desert of Marah, which lay a great way beyond it. What is now called Corondel, might, probably, be the southern portion of the desert of Marah, the shore of the Red-sea from Suez hitherto having continued to be low and sandy; but from Corondel to the port of Tor, the shore is, for the most part, rocky and mountainous, in the same manner with the Egyptian coast which lies opposite to it; neither the one nor the other of them affording any convenient place either for the departure of a multitude from the one shore, or the reception of it upon the other. And besides, from Corondel to Tor, the channel of the Red-sea, which from Suez to Shur is not above nine or ten miles broad, begins here to be so many leagues; too great a space certainly for the Israelites, in the manner they were encumbered, to pass over in one night. As the Israelites then, for these reasons, could not have landed, according to the opinion of some authors, either at Corondel or Tor, so neither could they have landed at Ain el Mousah, according to the conjectures of others; for, if the passage of the Israelites had been so near the extremity of the Red-sea, it may be presumed, that the very encampments of six hundred thousand men, besides children, and a mixed multitude, would have spread themselves even to the farther, or the Arabian side of this narrow isthmus, whereby the interposition of Providence would not have been at all necessary; because in this case, and in this situation, there could not have been room enough for the waters, after they were divided, to have stood on an heap, or to have been a wall unto them, particularly on the left hand. This, moreover, would not have been a division, but a recess only of the waters to the southward. Pharaoh likewise, by overtaking them, as they were encamped in this open situation by the sea, would have easily surrounded them on all sides; whereas the contrary seems to be implied by the pillar of the cloud, (Exodus 14:19.) which divided or came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel, and thereby left the Israelites (provided this cloud should have been removed) in a situation only of being molested in the rear: for the narrow valley which has been described, and which, we may presume, was already occupied and filled up behind by the host of Egypt, and before by the encampments of the Israelites, would not permit or leave room for the Egyptians to approach them, either on the right hand or on the left. Besides, if this passage was at Ain Mousah, how can we account for that remarkable circumstance, ch. Exodus 15:22 where it is said, that when Moses brought Israel from the Red-sea, they went out into, or landed in, the wilderness of Shur? For Shur, a particular district of the wilderness of Etham, lies directly fronting the valley from which, I suppose, they departed, but a great many miles to the southward of Ain Mousah. If likewise they landed at Ain Mousah, where there are several fountains, there would have been no occasion for the sacred historian to have observed, at the same time, that the Israelites, after they went out from the sea into the wilderness of Shur, went three days in the wilderness (always directing their marches towards Mount Sinai) and found no water. For which reason Marah is recorded, in the following verse, to be the first place where they found water; as their wandering thus far before they found it seems to make Marah also the first station after their passage through the Red-sea. Beside, the channel over against Ain Mousah is not above three miles over, whereas that betwixt Shur or Sedur, and Jibbel Gewoubee and Attackah, is nine or ten, and therefore capacious enough; as the other would have been too small for drowning or covering therein (ch. Exodus 14:28.) the chariots and horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh. And therefore, by impartially weighing all these arguments together, this important point in the sacred geography may, with more authority, be fixed at Sedur, over against the valley of Baideah, than at Tor, Corondel, Ain Mousah, or any other place. Over-against Jibael Attackah, and the valley of Baideah, is the desert, as it is called, of Sdur, the same with Shur, ch. Exodus 15:22 where the Israelites landed, after they had passed through the interjacent gulph of the Red-sea. The situation of this gulph, which is the Jam Suph, ףּסו ים, the weedy sea, or the tongue of the Egyptian sea, in the Scripture language; the gulph of Heroopolis in the Greek and Latin Geography; and the western arm, as the Arabian geographers call it, of the sea of Kolzun; stretches itself nearly north and south, and therefore lies very properly situated to be traversed by that strong east wind which was sent to divide it, ch. Exodus 14:21. The division which was thus made in the channel, the making the waters of it to stand as on an heap, (Psalms 78:13.) they being a wall to the Israelites on their right hand, and on their left, ch. Exodus 14:22 besides the twenty miles distance, at least, of this passage from the extremity of the gulph, are circumstances which sufficiently vouch for the miraculousness of it; and no less contradict all such idle suppositions as pretend to account for it from the nature and quality of tides, or from any extraordinary recess of the sea. See Dr. Shaw's Travels, p. 310, &c.

REFLECTIONS.— They were now got well out of Pharaoh's reach; but God hath farther designs for his own glory in the overthrow of that haughty monarch. He therefore commands Moses to wheel to the right, to that part hemmed in by the sea and the wilderness, knowing the heart of Pharaoh, and that the difficulties of their situation would induce him to follow them, where he should meet with merited destruction. God has wise designs, even in the straits to which he reduces his people, that, in their deliverance, he may make his power, grace, and love more evidently appear.