Where did the Israelites cross the Red Sea? Or did they? Perhaps it would be better to ask: What did they cross? Questions like these have been a puzzle for biblical scholars. For many today, however, all of this belongs to the realm of legend and myth; none of it happened, and there is therefore nothing to look for. Which is even more reason to search for a well-founded answer. If there is one.
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James Hoffmeier thinks there is. In one of his books, Ancient Israel in Sinai: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Tradition (2005; see also Byers 2008b), he presents historical evidence to support Israel’s ancient belief that it had come out of Egypt and had spent time in the Sinai Desert before arriving in the land of promise.
To answer the questions just asked is far from easy because we have little to go by. One can hardly expect a band of wanderers in the desert, even a very large band, to have left much evidence behind for archaeologists, telling them that they were there and who they were.
What evidence is there? Hoffmeier turns to historical geography, to Egyptian texts, and to the biblical account of Israel’s exodus and desert wanderings. He digs out some amazing pieces of information. It turns out that these ancient stories hold water, if you pardon my pun.
The Location of the Sea
My most fascinating take-away from Hoffmeier’s book is the realisation how much the geography of the area in question has changed. The coastline of the Mediterranean today is significantly north of where it was in the days of Moses. There was considerably more water where Egypt bordered the Sinai Peninsula. Several lakes have completely or largely dried out since then.
It is therefore pointless to look at a contemporary map of the area to try and figure out where the Israelites may have passed through the sea. Too much has changed. It is possible, however, to reconstruct what the area looked like at various points in the past. Hoffmeier offers such a reconstruction for the time of the exodus and uses it to retract Israel’s movements as it came out of Egypt. This enables him to offer quite a persuasive case for one particular point of crossing the sea.
First, however, it is important to point out that the Hebrew text never speaks of the Red Sea. It consistently refers to yam suph, that is, the Sea of Reeds. The Septuagint (the Greek translation of the OT) translates this Hebrew phrase as Red Sea, which the NT also uses, but it is not what the Hebrew text states. The presence of reed (or papyrus) suggests shallow water, whereas what today is called the Red Sea is very deep. This makes it unlikely mere wind, however strong, could have opened a passage through the water, as the text indicates (Ex. 14:21). The Red Sea, or more precisely, the Gulf of Suez is therefore unlikely to be the sea of the exodus (as argued in Byers 2008a).
There are several other bodies of water closer to the land of Goshen where the Israelites started their journey; I have drawn a rough and simplified sketch to show their location in ancient times. They are (from south to north): the Bitter Lakes, Lake Timsah, the Ballah Lakes, and a lagoon.
The Ballah Lakes and the lagoon were separated by a relatively narrow land bridge. It would have been the shortest way to Canaan, but it was well defended by an Egyptian fortress (Hoffmeier 2005: 90-94). Hoffmeier argues that biblical Migdol was another fort defending this passage and was nearby. Baal-Zephon (meaning Baal of the North, possibly giving the lakes their name, “Ballah”) and Pi-Hahiroth (meaning mouth of the canal) were in the vicinity of the Ballah Lakes as well (ibid.: 95-109). In addition, he provides evidence that the Egyptian equivalent of yam suph, although sometimes used as a general term for a biotope (papyrus wetland), more often seems to function as a geographical name, and may well refer to the Ballah Lakes and its papyrus swamps (75-89). He therefore proposes that the Sea of Reeds in Exodus 14 refers to the Ballah Lakes.
This finds confirmation in the itinerary given in Numbers 33:6-8 (ESV):
And they set out from Succoth and camped at Etham, which is on the edge of the wilderness. And they set out from Etham and turned back to Pi-hahiroth, which is east of Baal-zephon, and they camped before Migdol. And they set out from before Hahiroth and passed through the midst of the sea into the wilderness, and they went a three days’ journey in the wilderness of Etham and camped at Marah.
Notice that they came to Etham, presumably travelling south-east into the wilderness, to then turn around, presumably northward. This explains why a few days after passing through the sea and having turned south again, they came to Etham a second time.
The Gulf of Aqaba: An Impossible Alternative
Sometimes one comes across a very different proposal for the route of the exodus. It puts the point of crossing as far away as the Gulf of Aqaba. This is linked with the idea that Mount Sinai is in the land of Midian and therefore in what today is Saudi Arabia. Galatians 4:25, “Mount Sinai in Arabia,” is taken as confirming evidence, falsely assuming Arabia there means what it means today (which it does not; Roman-era Arabia included the Sinai Desert; Franz 2008).
Fact is, the Midianites were pretty spread out (in Numbers 25, we find them as far north as the plains of Moab), and Exodus 3 does not locate the mountain where God appeared to Moses in Midian. It is not close to where Jethro, his father-in-law, lived.
Besides, the Gulf of Aqaba is simply too far to be the sea of Exodus 14. Hoffmeier estimates the distance anyone could travel on foot through the desert to be 26 to 37 km per day (2005: 120). It would have taken many days to get there, and there are not many stations before the crossing listed in Exodus 13:20-14:2 and in Numbers 33. It also fails to explain the turnaround in Exodus 14:1 and the double passage through Etham.
Locating the crossing in the north, as Hoffmeier does, makes far better sense of all the data.
The Location of Mount Sinai
Having left Egypt behind, the Israelites moved south into the desert for their appointment with God. This leads to the next question: Where was Mount Sinai?
I have been on top of Mount Sinai, or at least on top of the mountain frequently and traditionally identified as Mount Sinai. Gebel Musa, the locals call it, Arabic for the Mountain of Moses. Franziska and I were there in 2001, when we travelled through Israel for a couple of weeks and made a detour into the Sinai region. We hiked up during the night to be at the summit for sunrise, which is supposed to be spectacular. The hike up certainly was; I would still count it one of the best we ever did.
Arriving at the top was less spectacular. There were already hundreds of people there, also awaiting the sunrise. Once we stopped moving it was freezing cold (this was April, and the mountain is 2285 m high). And alas… the sunrise didn’t happen. Well, the sun did rise, of course, but we were there on the one day in the year that it is overcast on Mount Sinai, so there was nothing to see. The hike was still worth it, though.
So did we stand where Moses stood? Possibly, but no one knows. The wilderness itineraries in Exodus and in Numbers 33 give some indication of the distance the Israelites travelled to get to Mount Sinai. As mentioned, Hoffmeier puts a day’s journey at 26 to 37 km (2005: 120). This evidence strongly supports a location in the southern Sinai (ibid.: 115-148), making Gebel Musa a distinct possibility. However, there are several other mountains in the general vicinity that make for possible candidates as well.
Israel in Egypt and in the Desert
Hoffmeier provides further indications that the Torah preserves authentic recollections of Israel’s desert wandering, things that cannot be explained as the fruit of a creative imagination of a later era. This includes Israelite names that appear to be of Egyptian origin (such as Hophni and Phinehas; Hoffmeier 2005: 223-228) and terminology and elements connected with the tabernacle that suggest Egyptian origin or influence (ibid.: 209-221).
As Hoffmeier (ibid.: 248f) concludes towards the end of his book:
What this study attempts to do is to draw attention to the wilderness episodes in the light of archaeological evidence, textual materials, geography, toponymy, and personal names. What we have shown is that the geography of the exodus itself has been clarified, thanks to new data from North Sinai. The details of travel and life in Sinai as the Torah presents them square well with what is known about Sinai. The tabernacle makes sense as a mobile sanctuary for the people on the move, and prototypes from Egypt closely parallel to the tent-shrine of Exodus … It was also demonstrated a surprising number of words used to describe objects in the tabernacle and garments worn by the priests were of Egyptian etymology. Similarly, a surprising number of individuals of the exodus and following generations had Egyptian names. If the Israelites had not been in Egypt, how do we account for these elements? Surely a writer from the mid-first millennium B.C. in Judah or Babylon would not have known these Egyptian terms, let alone refer to Egyptian cities (i.e., Rameses) that had been abandoned centuries earlier. It seems doubtful that a late-period writer would have been interested in researching historical and cultural details simply to make the account look authentic to an audience who would not know the difference!
Attribution
Sinai: https://pixabay.com/en/sinai-desert-egypt-travel-1947342/, CC0
SuezCanal-EO.JPG, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SuezCanal-EO.JPG, Public Domain
Odie5533 (10 Feb. 2009), “Gulf of Suez map”, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gulf_of_Suez_map.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0
Sunrise: https://pixabay.com/en/sinai-dessert-sunset-2796451/, CC0
Aerial: https://pixabay.com/en/red-sea-egypt-sandstorm-67618/, CC0
References
Byers, Gary (19 Aug. 2008a), “New Evidence from Egypt on the Location of the Exodus Sea Crossing: Part I,” http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2008/08/19/New-Evidence-from-Egypt-on-the-Location-of-the-Exodus-Sea-Crossing-Part-I.aspx#Article
Id. (23 Aug. 2008b), “New Evidence from Egypt on the Location of the Exodus Sea Crossing: Part II,” http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2008/08/23/New-Evidence-from-Egypt-on-the-Location-of-the-Exodus-Sea-Crossing-Part-II.aspx#Article
Franz, Gordon (10 June 2008), “Is Mount Sinai in Saudi Arabia?” http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2008/06/10/Is-Mount-Sinai-in-Saudi-Arabia.aspx
Hoffmeier, James K. (2005), Ancient Israel in Sinai: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press)
Standard Bible Society (2001), The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Standard Bible Society)
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