RED SEA (from LXX ἐρυθά θάλασσα, for the Heb. יַמ־ס֔וּף sea of reeds). 1. Waters that parted before the Israelites at their Exodus from Egypt. 2. The Gulf of Suez. 3. The Gulf of Aqaba.
1. The waters of the Exodus. From comparison of Exodus 14 with 15:22, and by noting the poetic parallelism within 15:4, it is clear that the “sea” crossed by the Hebrews in ch. 14 was the yam-sup, “Sea of Reeds.” At first sight, Heb. sup resembles Arab. ṩuf, “weeds” (including seaweed), but the difference in sibilants (s and the emphatic ṩ) makes any connection unlikely. Rather, the word sup corresponds precisely to Egyp. t(w)f, “papyrus,” “papyrus-marshes,” and the yam-sup to the Egyp. Pa-tjuf, “papyrus-marshes,” in the NE Delta in particular. In Papyrus Anastasi III, 2:11, 12, the products of Patjuf come to Pi-Ramessē (Raamses, q.v.), and it is set in parallel with Shihor (ANET, 471; Caminos, Late-Egyptian Miscellanies [1954], 74; cf. Gardiner, Ancient Egyptian Onomastica, II [1947], 201*, 202*:418, and JEA, V [1918], 251f.). Shihor is indubitably the northeasternmost stretch of the Pelusiac (easternmost) arm of the Nile, running from just W of the present Suez Canal (roughly the latitude of Tineh) to the Mediterranean coast in antiquity, but not extant today. Thus, Pa-tjuf would be associated with the ancient lakes and marshes corresponding approximately to the SE corner of present Lake Menzaleh and to the region S of it (Lake Ballaḥ and environs). This general location on a N-S line due E of the probable site of Raamses near Qantir (and even E of Tanis, its main rival for that distinction) agrees well with Exodus 10:13, 19. A strong E wind was the means of bringing locusts into Egypt and troubling the pharaoh at his residence; conversely, after Pharaoh’s appeal to Moses, a strong W wind bore them back eastwa rd into the Sea of Reeds, implying that the latter was E from Raamses. This geographical factor thus supports an identification of the Sea of Reeds of the Exodus with the area of lakes and marsh already mentioned, and not with the present-day Gulf of Suez. The very name “Sea of Reeds” would suggest waters that bordered on fresh-water marshes, etc., where papyrus and reeds might grow, again not true of the Gulf of Suez and modern Red Sea. The foregoing philological evidence on sup and the geographical factors here noted were not seriously considered by Snaith, VT, XV (1965), 395ff. A former theory that the present Gulf of Suez may have extended much further N in antiquity to include, e.g., the Bitter Lakes, seems to be firmly excluded by the siting of the ancient Egyp. port at Merkhah on the W coast of Sinai in the 15th cent. b.c. at levels unchanged into modern times (see W. F. Albright, BASOR, No. 109 [1948], 14, 15).
Near the Sea of Reeds the wilderness by which way the Hebrews were to go (Exod 13:18) was that of Shur (15:22), this being roughly the N Sinai desert E of the Suez Canal and between the Mediterranean coast and about the latitude of Lake Timsah. This agrees with a Sea of Reeds in the Lake Ballaḥ area, and both locations are, in turn, readily compatible with a possible route of the Exodus (q.v.) from Raamses (at Qantir) to Succoth (at Tell el Maskhuta) and then to the wilderness edge, turning back up to Lake Ballaḥ and so across a Sea of Reeds somewhere there. Thence, the Hebrews went S through Shur/Etham toward the W coast of the Sinai peninsula.
The phenomenon of E and W winds respectively flooding and uncovering routes in these lakes and fens of the Delta persists even in modern times (cf. Ali Shafei, Bulletin de la Société royale de Géographie d’Égypte, XXI [1946], 278 and figs. 10, 11). The deliverance of the Hebrews through their crossing of the sea was remembered forever after, under Moses (Deut 11:4), Joshua (2:10 and 4:23, even among aliens; 24:6), among the psalmists (e.g., Pss. 78:13; 106:7, 9, 22; 136:13), and after the Exile (Neh 9:9) into the NT (Acts 7:36; 1 Cor 10:1, 2, and Heb 11:29).
In Psalm 78:12, 43, the term “fields of Zoan” has long been identified with the corresponding Egyp. sḫt-D’ (nt), “Field of Dja’” or “Field of Dja’net” (i.e., of Tanis, Zoan). This region was the hinterland of the 14th Lower Egyp. province in the terminology of later times (Gardiner, JEA, V [1918], 248, 249), and this prob. adjoined the lower course of the Pelusiac arm of the Nile between Qantir (? Raamses) and near Qantara, in line with the suggested route of the Exodus and location of the Sea of Reeds.
2. Gulf of Suez. After reaching the wilderness of Shur/Etham (Exod 15:22; Num 33:8), the Hebrews in three days (? on third day, our mode of reckoning) reached Marah, went on to Elim and thereafter encamped by the yam-sup (Num 33:10, 11) before proceeding into the wilderness of Sin (Exod 16:1; Num 33:11) en route to Sinai which they reached after three more stops (Exod 17; 19:1, 2; cf. Num 33:12-15). On this reckoning, the yam-sup (of Num 33:10, 11) would be somewhere on the Gulf of Suez coast of Sinai, if Mount Sinai/Horeb be located in the S of that peninsula. (There seems no warrant for identifying this yam-sup with the Mediterranean Sea, as this would bring the Hebrews along the forbidden way of the land of the Philistines. To identify this yam-sup with the Gulf of Aqaba would prob. require a Mount Sinai located in Midian to the E of that Gulf, possible but perhaps improbable because it would take the Hebrews across the howling wilderness of Et-Tih instead of the wadies of south-central Sinai.) An application of the name yam-sup to the Gulf of Suez may perhaps be considered as simply an extended use of terminology to include the gulf adjoining the lakes region to the S.
3. Gulf of Aqaba. From periods in Heb. history subsequent to the Exodus, it is clear that the term yam-sup could also be applied to the present-day Gulf of Aqaba, along the E coast of the Sinai peninsula. 1 Kings 9:26 explicitly locates Ezion-geber—Solomon’s seaport settlement—beside Eloth on the shore of the yam-sup in the land of Edom, a location which fits the Gulf of Aqaba but neither that of Suez nor of Lake Ballaḥ. Jeremiah 49:21 alludes to the yam-sup in an oracle on Edom, again prob. the Gulf of Aqaba. From this basis, one may work back to occasional references in the Pentateuch. Deuteronomy 1:1 locates words of Moses “in the wilderness, in the Arabah over against Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth and Dizahab.” Paran is the wilderness in the vicinity of Kadesh-barnea (Num 10:12; 13:26; etc.), and the Arabah is the S end of the Jordan rift valley, between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba. Hence, Suph is some place in this vicinity, if it is not merely an abbreviation for yam-sup, the Gulf of Aqaba itself. (Such a place-name Suph might even be reflected also as Suphah in the poetic fragment in Num 21:14, but this is, of course, by no means certain.)
After dwelling by Kadesh-barnea (13:26) in the wilderness of Paran (12:16), the Hebrews were commanded to go to the wilderness by the way to the yam-sup (14:25; Deut 1:40). Thereafter occurred the incident of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram who were swallowed up by the earth with their tents (Num 16), an incident that may have occurred among the mudflats or kewirs of the Arabah (on phenomenon, cf. Greta Hort, Australian Biblical Review, VII [1959], 2-26 [esp. 19-26]), not so far from the Gulf of Aqaba. Similarly, after the burial of Aaron at Mount Hor consequent upon a further sojourn around Kadesh-barnea (20:22-21:3), Israel again went by the way of the yam-sup “to go around the land of Edom” (21:4; cf. Deut 2:1; Judg 11:16), a route which would appear to take them S from Kadesh-barnea to the head of the Gulf of Aqaba as if to go past the southern extremity of Edom and then to by-pass that land northward along its eastern border, and on past Moab (both lands refusing Israel entry, Num 20:14-21; Judg 11:17).
In the case of Exodus 23:31, one may possibly have a SW borderline of the promised land, running from the head of the Gulf of Aqaba (yam-sup) up to the Mediterranean (sea of the Philistines), i.e. roughly along the course of the Wadi el-’Arish as elsewhere attested (see Brook of Egypt). The contemporary narrow and wide uses of a term like yam-sup are not so unusual; cf. Egyp. parallels for seas and eastern lands cited in NBD, 1078b. See Exodus.
Bibliography References on specific points are given above. For Egyp. references to Pa-tjuf, see A. Erman and H. Grapow, Wörterbuch der Aegyptischen Sprache, V (1931), 359, with Belegstellen, V (1953) to 359:6-10. For the coasts of Sinai, see B. Rothenberg et al., God’s Wilderness (1961), esp. pp. 79ff. and plates 30-48.