Exodus 14:1-4

2. Israel’s passage through the Red Sea ch. 14

Scholars have not been able to locate definitely the sites referred to in Exodus 14:2.

"An Egyptian papyrus associates Baal Zephon with Tahpahnes . . . a known site near Lake Menzaleh in the northeastern delta region." [Note: Youngblood, p. 75.]

However, it seems that the crossing took place farther south in view of the implication that it took the Israelites no less and no more than three days to reach Marah (Exodus 15:22-23). The evidence for the location of Marah seems a bit stronger.

"Yahweh’s first intention was to give the appearance that Israel, fearful of the main road, then fearful of the wilderness, was starting first one way and then another, not knowing where to turn and so a ready prey for recapture or destruction. Yahweh’s second intention was to lure the Egyptians into a trap, first by making Pharaoh’s mind obstinate once again, and then by defeating Pharaoh and his forces, who were certain to come down in vengeance upon an apparently helpless and muddled Israel." [Note: Durham, p. 187.]

The Hebrew phrase yam sup that Moses used to describe the body of water through which the Israelites passed miraculously means "Red Sea," not "Reed Sea."

"If there is anything that sophisticated students of the Bible know, it is that yam sup, although traditionally translated Red Sea, really means Reed Sea, and that it was in fact the Reed Sea that the Israelites crossed on their way out of Egypt.

"Well it doesn’t and it wasn’t and they’re wrong!" [Note: Batto, p. 57.]

In the article quoted above, the writer explained that the word sup did not originate in the Egyptian language but in Hebrew. Many scholars have claimed it came from an Egyptian root word meaning "reed." He showed that it came from a Hebrew root word meaning "end." Yam is also a Hebrew word that means "sea." The yam sup is then the sea at the end. The ancients used the name yam sup to describe the body of water that lay beyond the farthest lands known to them. It meant the sea at the end of the world. It clearly refers to the Red Sea often in the Old Testament (Exodus 15:4; Numbers 21:4; Numbers 33:8; Joshua 2:10; Joshua 4:23; 1 Kings 9:26; Jeremiah 49:21; et al.). The Greeks later used the same term, translated into Greek, to refer to the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. The translation of yam sup as Reed Sea is evidently both inaccurate and misleading. It implies that the Israelites simply crossed some shallow marsh when they left Egypt. Such an interpretation lacks support in the inspired record of Israel’s Exodus. [Note: For a summary of views on the site of crossing, see Davis, pp. 168-71, or Hyatt, pp. 156-61.]

"The Hebrew word sup, which corresponds closely to the Egyptian tjuf (’papyrus’), refers to the reeds along the bank of the Nile in Exodus 2:3 and to the seaweed in the Mediterranean in Jonah 2:5 [Habakkuk 2:6]. Since there are a series of lakes with abundant supplies of reeds and papyrus north of the Red Sea (the Gulf of Suez)-such as Lake Manzaleh and Lake Timsah-it is felt that one of these may have been the ’Reed Sea’ crossed by the Israelites." [Note: Wolf, p. 140. See also The New Bible Dictionary, 1962, s.v. "Red Sea," by Kenneth A. Kitchen.]

Moses recorded that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart three times in this chapter (Exodus 14:4; Exodus 14:8; Exodus 14:17).