together with extensive tracts on either side of the Gulf of Suez. But this occurred in the distant past, probably many ages before mankind dwelt in these regions at all. There was, however, a more recent period, as the land slowly rose out of the waters—and Professor Hull thinks it may have coincided with the time of the Exodus—when the waters were just 26 feet higher than they are at present, and then, although Lower Egypt would not be submerged, the Gulf of Suez must have extended northward as far as the Bitter Lakes, making an arm of the sea about a mile wide and 20 or 30 feet deep.
It is suggested by M. Naville that the Israelites, when they turned back from Etham, came down on the western side of this arm of the sea, and got into a defile, so that they appeared to be caught in a trap. Pharaoh thought so, and said, "They are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in;" and so he pursued them, and thought to obtain an easy victory. But Moses had clear knowledge of what he was to do. Although the waters of the gulf were for the most part 20 or 30 feet deep, and quite impassable, there was one place (near the present Châluf) where they were quite shallow, where the land now is 26 feet higher than the waters, and where, at that time, reeds were growing. This part of the gulf was a shallow sea of reeds: and what the Hebrew Bible really says is that the Israelites crossed the sea of reeds—yam Souph[1]—which was the former extension of the Red Sea northwards. This place was so shallow that when the north-east wind blew, co-operating with a retreating tide, it was liable to be rendered dry; and because the tribes of the Desert used then to rush in, through this temporary gateway, and carry off the cattle, and plunder the fertile district around Pithom, the Pharaohs had established a
- ↑ Gesenius gives the meaning, "rush, reed, seaweed;" and in Exod. ii. 3, Moses is said to have been laid in an ark of souph or reeds.
