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The Yam Suph
"Red Sea" or "Sea of Reeds"?
Dennis Bratcher
There has long been debate about the account of the crossing of the sea in
Exodus 13-15, including the number of people, the route taken, the date,
etc. For some, these details, none of which are clear from Scripture,
have become the battleground for arguing about the inerrancy of
Scripture and, indeed, about the very nature of Scripture itself. Of
course some simply discount the entire account as tribal legend told to
justify the worship of a certain deity. However, for those who want to
take the Bible seriously as Scripture, such a central biblical account
cannot be so easily dismissed as little more than fanciful fiction.
That commitment to the Bible as Scripture for the Church demands a
more careful and reasoned approach to understanding the nature of the
account and what it says to us as Scripture. Yet, a careful examination
of the exodus account raises questions even among those committed to the
Bible as Scripture. While there are various issues, one of the points of
debate is the geographical location of the exit from the land and the
route taken by the liberated slaves (see also
Date of the Exodus).
Some want to preserve a very narrowly literal reading of the exodus
narrative. So, for example, many adamantly argue that the point of exit
from the land was across the Red Sea "as the Bible clearly says" (at
least in some translations). This would mean that the Hebrews journeyed
far to the south and before turning across the Red Sea into the Sinai
peninsula. Some like to point out the great width of the sea as a
further proof of the miraculous nature of the escape, since the Red Sea
averages about 150 miles wide.
However, even among those who believe in a more literal perspective of
the account of the crossing recognize that this is much too far for a
large company to traverse in a single night. The miracle emphasized in
the biblical account is the parting of the waters, not the speed at
which they crossed or the amount of land covered. It is also a problem
that the main body of the Red Sea lies much too far to the south to be
reached by a large company of people in such a short span of time. So
most would want to contend for the northwestern arm of the Red Sea, the
Gulf of Suez, which is only about 17 miles wide at its narrowest point.
This would mean a more northerly route for the exodus with a later turn
to the south into the Sinai. But this still raises questions of
logistics for the large company of people portrayed in the biblical
account.
However, apart from the matter of the number of people is an even more
significant issue. The problem is that the biblical account never refers
to the Red Sea by name. In fact, nowhere in the entire Old Testament
Hebrew text is the body of water associated with the exodus ever called
the "Red Sea." Instead in the Hebrew text the reference is to the yam
suph. The word yam in Hebrew is the ordinary word for "sea,"
although in Hebrew it is used for any large body of water whether fresh
or salt. The word suph is the word for "reeds" or "rushes," the
word used in Ex. 2:3, 5 to describe where Moses' basket was placed in
the Nile. So, the biblical reference throughout the Old Testament is to
the "sea of reeds" (for example, Num 14:25, Deut 1:40, Josh 4:23, Psa
106:7. etc.).
Now the simple fact is, we do not know exactly what body of water is
referenced by yam suph in Scripture, which is the origin of much
of the debate. The translation "Red Sea" is simply a traditional
translation introduced into English by the King James Version through
the second century BC Greek Septuagint and the later Latin Vulgate. It
then became a traditional translation of the Hebrew terms. However, many
modern translations either translate yam suph as "Sea of Reeds"
or use the traditional translation and add a footnote for the Hebrew
meaning.
This gives rise to various opinions for the route of the exodus based
on landmarks mentioned in the accounts. Historians have not positively
identified the cities of Ramses and Pithom mentioned in the Exodus
account (1:11), but many locate them in the Nile Delta near an
archaeological site identified as the store city of Ramses. The route of
the escape is then generally identified, at least in the early stages of
the flight from Egypt, to be south from the store city of Ramses in the
eastern Nile delta to the Bitter Lakes region. (see
-note-)
These are shallow lakes and marshy areas just to the north of the Gulf
of Suez. The crossing of the sea would then be across these lakes and
marshes, the yam suph where the miracle of deliverance occurred.
After the crossing of the sea, historians then divide between a
northern route and a southern route for the rest of the exodus journey.
The posited northern route lies across the northern Sinai Peninsula with
Mount Sinai identified as Jebel Helal, about 30 miles west of the oasis
of Kadesh-Barnea. The southern route assumes a turn directly south after
crossing the sea traveling along the eastern shores of the Gulf of Suez
into the depths of the southern Sinai Peninsula. In this route Mount
Sinai is identified with the traditional Jebel Musa ("Moses'
Mountain").
The problem of the routes is compounded by the fact that we do not
know certainly of the landmarks mentioned, including the location of
Mount Sinai that plays such a pivotal role in the story. We must admit
that we simply do not know from the biblical account the route of the
exodus. But the fact remains that the biblical text reads "Sea of
Reeds." Whatever else is debated, this fact remains and must be taken
seriously. That is not speculation or conjecture or trying to do away
with the Bible. It is simply a fact of the Hebrew language. And it is a
fact of the biblical text in dozens of references. However the debate is
discussed, the biblical text cannot be rationalized away from either
direction. It cannot be dismissed as fiction, but then neither can it be
used to support tradition or doctrine or even ideas about Scripture
apart from what the text actually says. We must simply conclude that we
do not know the point of exit of the Israelites from the land, nor do we
know the route they took.
Apart from those debates about location and geography, a further point for
discussion in understanding the meaning of the entire exodus account in
terms of what the Israelites wanted to say theologically in how they
told the story, is how few times the sea is actually named in the exodus
account itself. The full term yam suph occurs only four times in
the entire story between Exodus 6 and 15 (10:19, 13:18, 15:4, 22), while
the simple term yam occurs dozens of time. As we look more
carefully at the whole exodus account as the testimony of the Israelites
to their encounter with God at the sea, it suggests two things.
First, the Israelites were not concerned about precise geographical
location. While we in the Western world are concerned with the details
of geography and numbers and routes, it is apparent that these details
are not a primary concern of the account. While we want to take the term
yam suph as a proper name, it is more likely a description of the
area. There is no question that the yam, the sea, is an important
element in the event and the testimony to it. That can be seen clearly
in the Song of the Sea that follows the crossing (Exodus 15:1-18), as
well as the recurrence of the reference to the yam throughout
Scripture as something to be conquered and subdued by God (see
Ba'al
worship in the Old Testament). But the yam suph is far
more likely simply the description of the general place that the event
occurred, a body of water with a lot of reeds.
Second, it is no accident that the Hebrew term yam
is also one of the deities in the Ba'al myth, the god Yamm who represents
chaos and threat (often portrayed as a great dragon). In the Ba'al myth,
Ba'al, the god of rain and springtime, conquers Yamm, the threat of
disorder represented by destructive water (salt) and flood. This does
not at all suggest, as some have, that the entire story was constructed
from this myth. But it does suggest that the Israelites interpreted the
significance of God's actions at the sea in terms of this story that was
well known throughout the ancient Near east. They used the cultural
categories of the Ba'al myth, and yet transformed them to bear witness
to their encounter with the living God (see
Speaking the Language of Canaan).
Against that cultural background, and against the literary context of the
preceding narratives in Geneses where water was a symbol of disorder and
destruction (1:2, 6:4ff, etc.), the confession in the exodus narrative
declares that Yahweh is the God who conquers the chaos and disorder of
the world, it is He and He alone who has power over the forces of chaos
in the world. Yahweh, not Ba'al, is the one controls water so that he
can be given a title used for Ba'al in the Ba'al myths, "Rider of the
Clouds (Psa. 68).
So the Israelites can describe God's victory at the Sea of Reeds not
just as a victory over Pharaoh, but over the very forces of chaos in the
world in the symbol of water: "At the blast of your nostrils the waters
piled up, the floods stood up in a heap; the deeps congealed in the
heart of the sea. (15:8; the "Deep" is another symbol of chaos, the god
Tiamat in the Babylonian version of the Ba'al myth, also represented by
a great dragon or serpent that lives in the sea). In light of all this,
we might understand the significant use of these same symbols in the
book of Revelation, where, we can recall, one of the features of the
future reign of God is that there will be no more sea (Rev 21:1).
Now, all of this simply suggests that we have come up far short of
understanding the Old Testament as Scripture for the church when we
become preoccupied with issues such as the specific location of the
crossing of the sea, especially if we are tempted to make it test of
whether people believe the Bible or not on such scant and imperfectly
understood biblical evidence. It is an interesting historical question
and certainly deserves historical investigation. And we can examine the
evidence with all the methods of critical biblical and historical
investigation to answer that question. But it cannot be allowed to
become the central issue of the biblical account, or to shape our
theology of Scripture. This also suggests that most of the depth of the meaning of Scripture
unfolds as we take the time to hear what it is really saying on its own
terms beyond what we think it ought to say to address our own agendas,
or to try to address questions that the biblical text itself cannot
answer.
Note
-Note- Some
scholars also posit a totally northern route along the coast of the
Mediterranean, identifying the yam suph
with the coastal shallows known as Lake Sirbonis. However, the notation
in Exodus 13:17-18 about God's leadership of the people seems
specifically to rule out a totally northern route along the coast, since
that would lead directly through the Philistine territory: "13:17 When
Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of
the Philistines, although that was nearer; for God thought, "If the
people face war, they may change their minds and return to Egypt." 13:18
So God led the people by the roundabout way of the wilderness toward the
Red Sea." This far northern route was an established trade route known
as the Via Maris, the Way of the Sea, and was well fortified by
the Philistines.
[Return] -Dennis Bratcher, Copyright ©
2018, Dennis
Bratcher, All Rights Reserved
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Related pages
Old Testament
Date of the Exodus
OT History
The Bible's Storyline |
