Exodus 13b-14: Crossing the Re(e)d Sea
Many times in a sermon, discussions are not entirely cut so much as they are trimmed. That is the case for the Red Sea this week. I spent a few minutes talking about the controversy of where the Red Sea might be located. But compared to the volume of research that is still alive and well today, it was a short page in a lengthy book. So let’s fill in a few more (but not nearly all) of the gaps and take the time to develop the issue at length.
The Hebrew in Exodus 13:18 uses the phrase yam-suph to refer to what we typically call the Red Sea. Yam is the word for “sea,” which can refer to any large body of water, even including some large rivers. Suph literally means “reeds,” usually a papyrus-type water plant that grows along the edges of the shore, typically in fresh water. It is only a coincidence that “reed” and “red” both look similar in English. They do not in Hebrew (“red” is usually adom or the word for “blood” used metaphorically – dam).
The LXX, or Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible), translated yam-suph as “Red Sea,” which is an interpretive translation. The translators likely believed that the Sea in question was what we would call the Red Sea today, which is below the Sinai Peninsula (check out a map in the back of your Bible – it will help with this discussion. I cannot reproduce one here for copyright reasons, and I’m terrible at drawing, so it wouldn’t help to make my own!). Jerome, translator of the Latin Vulgate, also followed suite with the LXX. So two of the most popular, helpful translations – the LXX and VG – both have “Red Sea” instead of “Reed Sea.”
For those who believe yam-suph refers to the Red Sea, they almost unanimously believe it is the Gulf of Suez, which is the western “arm” that stretches up from the Red Sea proper. This was considered part of the Red Sea in ancient times. So we have to keep in mind, whenever we hear people talk of the Israelites crossing “The Red Sea,” they usually mean more specifically the Gulf of Suez, which is part of the Red Sea.
As many commentators and historians point out, there are several obstacles in understanding yam-suph as the Red Sea. First, the Red Sea does not grow reeds. It would be awfully strange to name a body of water after a plant which does not grow there. This would be like naming Lake Michigan “The Salty Lake.” It shouldn’t be named that, because it’s fresh water. The type of “reeds” that suph is referring to usually grow in marshy freshwater, not saltwater.
Some also point to the difficulty of 2-3 million Israelites making it down to the Gulf in just a few days (Sarna, Exodus, 69), or even crossing the Gulf in just a night (even at its narrowest point it would still be quite an undertaking).
However, there are good counterpoints to these arguments. True, the Red Sea does not grow reeds, but there is some evidence that suph can refer to aquatic saltwater plants (Jonah 2:5 [2:6 in Hebrew] is the clearest example) and there is some evidence – even within the same context – that the Gulf of Suez was sometimes called yam-suph (Num 33:10-11; cf. 1 Kgs 9:26; Schnittjer, The Torah Story, 233).
There are some other interesting ways to take the phrase, without resorting to any specific body of water. In his commentary, Propp discusses the possibility that suph should be understood as a variant of the word sop, which means “end” – so it would mean something like “The Terminal Sea” or “The Sea at the End of their Journey” (Propp, Exodus Vol. I, 487. Propp ultimately dismisses this idea, based on the counterarguments of Kloos).
There is another way around the Red Sea (no pun intended). The Hebrew in Exodus 13:18 can mean “toward” the Red Sea – the Israelites journeyed “toward” the Red Sea – instead of “to” the Red Sea (see ESV translation, as well as NIV, NLT, etc.). Perhaps the text in Exodus 13 itself never intended for us to understand the journey to have reached all the way to the Sea. (But if this were the case, why does chapter 14 and other passages seem to assume this is where the crossing took place?)
All in all, it’s a complicated issue. Throw into the mix the other sites mentioned in Exodus 13-14, as well as those mentioned in Numbers and Deuteronomy in relation to this event (nearly all of which are contested), and you have yourself a very difficult problem to solve. I personally find arguments for the Bitter Lakes region (or more likely, north of it) to be most convincing, but my official position is: I just don’t care. They crossed somewhere, and wherever they crossed it does not diminish the greatness of God’s miracle in parting the sea and getting them across. Where it happened, I don’t know. But the how is the most important.
For further study, here are a few commentaries and works that discuss the issue at length:
– Garrett, Exodus, 104-135. Garrett includes a discussion on the location of Mt. Sinai in this extensive excursus, and his (tentative) opinion is that Yam Suph is the Gulf of Aqaba with the precise location of the crossing remaining a mystery. I should note, though, that one of his conclusions is that Mt. Sinai was a volcanic site, which certainly weighs heavy in his interpretation.
– Hoffmeier, Ancient Israel in Sinai, ch 5. Hoffmeier’s discussion is archaeologically heavy and technical. Garrett has an extensive evaluation of it, but Hoffmeier ultimately leans towards the Ballah Lakes as the site of the crossing, north of the Gulf of Suez and Bitter Lakes. See also his previous book, Israel in Egypt, ch 9.
– Cole, Exodus, 44-46. Cole’s discussion is brief, non-technical, yet a good summary of many of the major issues and opinions on the matter.
– Hamilton, Handbook on the Pentateuch, 180. Hamilton’s discussion is not extensive, but has some helpful information on the Red Sea, which is why I include it here.
Bonus Topic: The Gospel in the Pillar?
This was one of the more painful cuts I’ve made in a while, but in the long run I’m glad I did it. Exodus 14:19-20 describes the pillar of cloud that moves from leading the Israelites to a position behind them, effectively separating and protecting them from the oncoming Egyptians. The text here tells us that the cloud was a light to the Israelites at night, but at the same time a darkness to the Egyptians.
Putting aside the textual/translational difficulties, as well as the paradox of how the same pillar can be both a light and a darkness at the same time, in my first draft of the sermon I drew an analogy between the pillar and the Gospel. The gist of it was, just as the pillar was light and salvation to the Israelites and darkness and judgment to the Egyptians, so the Gospel is light and salvation to those who accept it, yet darkness and judgment to those who do not.
Good analogy, right?
Here’s why I cut it: it’s simply not the point of the text.
I debated this one for a while. It hurt to cut it. But in the end, it’s not the point. It’s an analogy, maybe even an allegory. And after looking at some of the texts in the Old Testament and New that refer to the pillar, as well as the many texts that refer to the crossing event as a whole, I found that the Old and New Testaments have no problem explaining the significance of the event in salvific terms (even the end of the event itself – 14:30-31 – does so). But the pillar itself is never explicitly given as an illustration or allusion to the Gospel. I am aware that some try to associate Yahweh Himself with the pillar, but I’m not convinced that we should so explicitly draw such conclusions.
Why not just make the analogy anyway? What’s the harm in that? Many people look at stories and objects in everyday life and make Gospel analogies in a sermon.
For me, that’s exactly why I cut it.
I could do the “pillar trick” with any other story, secular or religious. I could find in Harry Potter an analogy with the Gospel or Jesus, but I doubt it was J. K. Rowling’s purpose in writing the series. If we reduce the text of Scripture to just a bunch of analogies (with no limit on what those analogies compare or say), then we are cheapening the message of the text itself. And who’s to say that the pillar doesn’t represent something else? Do we then say that the Red Sea is a symbol of a birth canal, with the Hebrews being “reborn” as they pass through it? (You may think I’m being needlessly gross, but I’m not the first to make that up – I’ve seen it printed in commentaries and articles!).
Is the point of Exodus 14 to say the pillar is the Gospel? Is it even a point the text is trying to make? I doubt it. And even though it would’ve made some “fine” preaching, since it wasn’t the point or a point in the intent of the text itself, I felt that I couldn’t make it one of mine.
And that’s the story of how the Gospel Pillar ended up on the Cutting Room Floor.
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