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Bible Dictionary

Red

Name

The sea known to us as the Red Sea was by theIsraelites called "the sea," (exodus 14:2,9,16,21,28;15:1,4,8,10,19; joshua 24:6,7) and many other passages, andspecially "the sea of Suph ." (exodus 10:19; 13:18; 15:4,22;23:31; numbers 14:25) etc. This word signifies a sea-weedresembling wool, and such sea-weed is thrown up abundantly onthe shores of the Red Sea; hence Brugsch calls it the sea ofreeds or weeds . The color of the water is not red. Eberssays that it is of a lovely blue-green color, and named Redeither from its red banks or from the Erythraeans, who werecalled the red people.

Physical description

In extreme length the Red Seastretches from the straits of Bab el-Mendeb (or rather rasbab el-mendeb), 18 miles wide. in lat. 12 degrees 40 N., tothe modern head of the Gulf of Suez, lat. 30 degrees N., adistance of 1450 miles. Its greatest width may be stated atabout 210 miles. At Ras Mohammed, on the north, the Red Seais split by the granitic peninsula of Sinai into two gulfs;the westernmost, or Gulf of Suez, is now about 150 miles inlength, with an average width of about 20, though itcontracts to less than 10 miles; the easternmost or Gulf ofel- Akabeh, is about 100 miles long, from the Straits ofTiran to the Akabeh, and 15 miles wide. The average depth ofthe Red Sea is from 2500 to 3500 feet, though in places it is6000 feet deep. Journeying southward from Suez, on our leftis the peninsula of Sinai; on the right is the desert coastof Egypt, of limestone formation like the greater part of theNile valley in Egypt, the cliff s on the sea marginstretching landward in a great rocky plateau while moreinland a chain of volcanic mountains, beginning about lat. 28degrees 4 and running south, rear their lofty peaks atintervals above the limestone, generally about 15 milesdistant.

Ancient limits

The most important change in the Red Sea hasbeen the drying up of its northern extremity, "the tongue ofthe Egyptian Sea." about the head of the gulf has risen andthat near the Mediterranean become depressed. The head of thegulf has consequently retired gradually since the Christianera. Thus the prophecy of Isaiah has been fulfilled, (isaiah11:15; 10:5) the tongue of the Red Sea has dried up for adistance of at least 50 miles from its ancient head. Anancient canal conveyed the waters of the Nile to the Red Sea,flowing through the Wadi-t Tumeylat and irrigating with itssystem of water-channels a large extent of country. It was 62Roman miles long, 54 feet wide and 7 feet deep. The drying upof the head of the gulf appears to have been one of the chiefcauses of the neglect and ruin of this canal. The country,for the distance above indicated, is now a desert of gravellysand, with wide patches about the old sea-bottom, of rankmarsh land, now called the "Bitter Lakes." At the northernextremity of this salt waste is a small lake, sometimescalled the Lake of Heropolis; the lake is nowBirket-et-Timsah "the lake of the crocodile," and is supposedto mark the ancient head of the gulf. The canal thatconnected this with the Nile was of Pharaonic origin. It wasanciently known as the "Fossa Regum" and the "canal of Hero."The time at which the canal was extended, after the drying upof the head of the gulf, to the present head is uncertain,but it must have been late, and probably since the Mohammedanconquest. Traces of the ancient channel throughout its entirelength to the vicinity of Bubastis exist at intervals in thepresent day. The land north of the ancient gulf is a plain ofheavy sand, merging into marsh-land near the Mediterraneancoast, and extending to Palestine. This region, includingWadi-t-Tumeylat, was probably the frontier land occupied inpact by the Israelites, and open to the incursions of thewild tribes of the Arabian desert.

Navigation

The sea, from its dangers and sterile shores, isentirely destitute of boats. The coral of the Red Sea isremarkably abundant, and beautifully colored and variegated;but it forms so many reefs and islands along the shores thatnavigation is very dangerous, and the shores are chieflybarren rock and sand, and therefore very sparsely inhabitedso that there are but three cities along the whole 1450 milesof its west coast--Suez, at the head, a city of 14,000inhabitants; Sanakin, belonging to Soudan, of 10,000; andMassau, in Albyssinia, of 5000. Only two ports, Elath andEzion-geber, are mentioned in the Bible. The earliestnavigation of the Red Sea (passing by the pre-historicalphoenicians) is mentioned by Herodotus:--"Seostris (ramesesii.) was the first who passing the Arabian Gulf in a fleet oflong vessels, reduced under his authority the inhabitants ofthe coast bordering the Erythrean Sea." Three centurieslater, Solomon s navy was built "in Ezion-geber, which isbeside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea (yam suph), in theland of Edom." (1 kings 9:20) The kingdom of Solomon extendedas far as the Red Sea, upon which he possessed the harbors ofElath and Ezion-geber. [[1022]Elath, Eloth; EZION-GEBER] Itis possible that the sea has retired here as at Suez, andthat Ezion-geber is now dry land. Jehoshaphat also "madeships of Tharshish to go to Ophir for gold; but they wentnot; for the ships were broken at Ezion-geber." (1 kings22:48) The scene of this wreck has been supposed to beEdh-Dhahab. The fleets appear to have sailed about theautumnal equinox, and returned in December or the middle ofJanuary. The Red Sea, as it possessed for many centuries themost important sea-trade of the East contained ports ofcelebrity. The Heroopolite Gulf (gulf of suez) is of thechief interest; it was near to Goshen, it was the scene ofthe passage of the Red Sea, and it was the "tongue of theEgyptian Sea." It was also the seat of the Egyptian trade inthis sea and to the Indian Ocean.

Passage of the Red Sea

The passage of the Red Sea was thecrisis of the exodus. It is usual to suppose that the mostnorthern place at which the Red Sea could have been crossedis the present head of the Gulf of Suez. This suppositiondepends upon the erroneous idea that in the time of Moses thegulf did not extend farther to the northward then at present.An examination of the country north of Suez has shown,however, that the sea has receded many miles. The old bed isindicated by the Birket-et Timsah, or "lake of thecrocodile," and the more southern Bitter Lakes, thenorthernmost part of the former probably corresponding to thehead of it the at the time of the exodus. It is necessary toendeavor to ascertain the route of the Israelites before wecan attempt to discover where they crossed the sea. The pointfrom which they started was Rameses, a place certain in theland of Goshen, which we identified with the Wadi-t-Tumeylat. They encamped at Succoth. At the end of the second day sjourney the camping place was at Etham, "in the edge of thewilderness." (exodus 13:20; numbers 33:6) Here theWadi-t-Tumeylat was probably left, as it is cultivable andterminates in the desert. At the end of the third day s marchfor each camping place seems to mark the close of a day sjourney the Israelites encamped by the sea, place of thislast encampment and that of the passage would be not very farfrom the Persepolitan monument at Pihahiroth. It appears thatMigdol was behind Pi-hahiroth and on the other handBaalzephon and the sea. From Pi-hahiroth the Israelitescrossed the sea. This was not far from halfway between theBitter Lakes and the Gulf of Suez, where now it is dry land.The Muslims suppose Memphis to have been the city at whichthe Pharaoh of the exodus resided before that event occurred.From opposite Memphis a broad valley leads to the Red Sea. Itis in part called the Wadi-t-Teeh, or "Valley of theWandering." From it the traveller reaches the sea beneath thelofty Gebel-et-Takah, which rises in the north and shuts offall escape in that direction excepting by a narrow way alongthe seashore, which Pharaoh might have occupied. The sea hereis broad and deep, as the narrative is generally held toimply. All the local features seem suited for a great event.The only points bearing on geography in the account of thisevent are that the sea was divided by an east wind. Whence wemay reasonably infer that it was crossed from west to east,and that the whole Egyptian army perished, which shows thatit must have been some miles broad. On the whole we mayreasonably suppose about twelve miles as the smallest breadthof the sea. The narrative distinctly states that a path wasmade through the sea, and that the waters were a wall oneither hand. The term "wall" does not appear to oblige us tosuppose, as many have done, that the sea stood up like acliff on either side, but should rather be considered to meana barrier, as the former idea implies a seemingly needlessaddition to the miracle, while the latter seems to be notdiscordant with the language of the narrative. It was duringthe night that the Israelites crossed, and the Egyptiansfollowed. In the morning watch, the last third or fourth ofthe night, or the period before sunrise Pharaoh s army was infull pursuit in the divided sea, and was there miraculouslytroubled, so that the Egyptians sought to flee. (exodus14:23-25) Then was Moses commanded again to stretch out hishand and the sea returned to its strength, and overwhelmedthe Egyptians, of whom not one remained alive, Ibid. 26-28.(but on the whole it is becoming more probable that the placewhere the israelites crossed "was near the town of suez, onextensive shoals which run toward the southeast, in thedirection of ayim musa (the wells of moses). The distance isabout three miles at high tide. This is the most probablethee Near here Napoleon, deceived by the tidal wave,attempted to cross in 1799, and nearly met the fate ofPharaoh. But an army of 600,000 could of course never havecrossed it without a miracle."--Schaff s Through Bible Lands. Several routes and places of crossing advocated by learnedEgyptologists can be clearly seen by the accompanying maps.The latest theory is that which Brugsch-bey has latelyrevived that the word translated Red Sea is "Sea of Reeds orWeeds," and refers to the Serbonian bog in the northeasternpart of Egypt, and that the Israelites crossed here insteadof the Red Sea. "A gulf profound, as that Serbonian bog . . .where armies whole have sunk."--Milton. And among thesearmies that of Artarerxes, king of Persia, B.C. 350. But itis very difficult to make this agree with the Biblenarrative, and if is the least satisfactory of all thetheories