Footnotes

1.

It is also referred to as the Song of Moses or the Song of Miriam by some scholars.

2.

The Revised Standard Version and the New American Bible are examples of Bibles containing this annotation. The New English Bible gives Sea of Reeds as an alternative translation. The editors of the New International Version append a corrective note at each occurrence: “Hebrew Yam Suph; that is, Sea of Reeds.” The New Jewish Publication Society translation and The Jerusalem Bible both translate yam sûp as “the Sea of Reeds.”

3.

Much of this evidence comes from the preeminent authority on hieroglyphics, Sir Alan Gardiner; he thus refutes his own conclusion that the connection between p´-twf(y) and Biblical yam sûp is “beyond dispute.” A. Gardiner, Ancient Egyptian Onomastica (Oxford University, 1947) 2, pp. 201–202.

4.

¹wssy: The Sea of Reeds: The Red Sea,” Vetus Testamentum 15 (1965), pp. 395–98, esp. 397, 398. See also J. A. Montgomery, “Hebraica (2) yam sûp (‘The Red Sea’) = Ultimum Mare?” Journal of the American Oriental Society 58 (1938), pp. 131–132. It has been objected that sôp is an Aramaic word which was introduced into Hebrew at a late date (M. Wagner, Die lexikalischen und grammatikalischen Aramaismen in Alttestamentlichen Hebräisch [Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 96; Alfred Töpelmann: Berlin, 1966], p. 87). However, the occurrence of verbal forms of this root in Amos 3:15; Psalm 73:19; Jeremiah 8:13 and Zephaniah 1:2, 3 indicates that sôp need not be considered a late Aramaism in Hebrew; see G. Ahlstrom, “Joel and the Temple Cult in Jerusalem,” Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 21 (1971), pp. 2–3.

5.

One is reminded that in the Israelite conception, the earth was an island of dry land surrounded on all sides by, and floating in, the primeval waters of chaos (Psalms 24:1–2; 104:5–7; 136:6). E. Levine (The Aramaic Version of Jonah [Jerusalem: Jerusalem Academic Press, 1975], pp. 75–77) relates that in later midrashic tradition Jonah while in the belly of the fish was shown the path of the Israelites through the Red Sea (b. Sota 45b; Midrash Jonah, h.l.; Yal. 551 Rashi, Comm. ad h.l.); this was possible, according to Ibn Ezra and Kimchi ad h.l., because “the Red Sea extends to, and mingles with the waters of Jaffa.”

6.

To J, I assign the following verses 13:21–22; 14:5b–6, 9a, 10b, 11–14, 19b, 20, 21b, 24, 25b, 27b, 30–31. To E, I assign the following 13:17–19; 14–5a, 7, 19a, 25a. To P, I assign the following: 13:20; 14:1–4, 8, 9b–10a, 10c, 15–18, 21a, 21c–23, 26–27a, 28–29.

7.

The small b indicates the second half of the verse. Scholars divide Biblical verses into colons or parts, designated a and b, and sometimes a third colon designated c.

8.

“The Reed Sea: Requiescat in Pace,” Journal of Biblical Literature 102 (1983), pp. 27–35.

Endnotes

1.

A. M. Silberman, ed., Pentateuch with Rashi’s Commentary Translated into English: Exodus (London: Shapiro, Valentine & Co., 1930), p. 67.

2.

H. Brugsch, L’Exode et les monuments Égyptiens (Leipzig, 1875); see H. Cazelles, “Les localisations de l’Exode et la critique littéraire,” Revue Biblique 62 (1955), p. 323. The identification of p´-twf with Biblical yam sûp is also espoused by R. Caminos (Late Egyptian Miscellanies [London, 1954], p. 79) and R. Montet (Egypt and the Bible [Fortress: Philadelphia, 1968], p. 64).

3.

Representative examples include the following: Y. Aharoni and M. Avi-Yonah, The Macmillan Bible Atlas (Macmillan: New York, 1968), p. 40; B. W. Anderson, Understanding the Old Testament, 3d ed. (Prentice-Hall: Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1975), p. 68; J. Bright, A History of Israel, 2d ed. (Westminster: Philadelphia, 1972), pp. 120–21; H. Cazelles, “Les localisations de l’Exode et la critique littéraire,” Revue Biblique 62 (1955), pp. 321–64, esp. 340–43; B. S. Childs, The Book of Exodus, Old Testament Library (Westminster: Philadelphia, 1974), p. 223 et passim; F. M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Harvard University: Cambridge, Mass., 1973), p. 128; J. Finegan, Let My People Go (Harper & Row: New York, 1963), pp. 17–89; S. Herrmann, A History of Israel in Old Testament Times (Fortress: Philadelphia, 1975), pp. 62–64; J. E. Huesman, “Exodus from Egypt,” New Catholic Encyclopedia 5, pp. 741–48, esp. 145–46; N. Lohfink, Das Siegeslied am Schilfmeer (Joseph Knecht: Frankfurt, 1965), pp. 102–28; J. L. McKenzie, Dictionary of the Bible (Bruce: Milwaukee, 1965), p. 723; J. L. Mihelic, “Red Sea,” Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible 4, pp. 19–21; M. Noth, Exodus, Old Testament Library (Westminster: Philadelphia, 1962), pp. 107–11; J. C. Rylaarsdam, “Exodus: Introduction and Exegesis,” Interpreter’s Bible 1, pp. 930–31; G. E. Wright, Biblical Archaeology, rev. ed. (Westminster: Philadelphia, 1962), pp. 60–62; “Exodus, Route of,” Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible 2, pp. 197–99. The Reed Sea hypothesis is given as a possibility, without endorsement, by M. Brawer and M. Avi-Yonah, “Red Sea,” Encyclopedia Judaica 14, pp. 14–16; G. Cornfeld, ed., Pictorial Biblical Encyclopedia (Macmillan: New York, 1964), pp. 302–303; B. Oded, “Exodus,” Encyclopedia Judaica 6, pp. 1042–50, esp. 1048–50.

4.

The eight certain references in Egyptian texts have been carefully collated and annotated by A. Gardiner, Ancient Egyptian Onomastica (Oxford University, 1947), 2, pp. 201–202.

5.

Translated by R. Caminos, Late Egyptian Miscellanies (London, 1954), p. 14.

6.

Herodotus, 1, 180, and Pindar, Pythian Odes 4, 448 in the fifth century B.C.

7.

Xenophon, Cyropaedia 8.6.10, fourth century B.C.

8.

See Liddell and Scott, Greek-English Lexicon, under the word erythros II.

9.

Am zû qanîta means “the people whom you have created,” not “the people whom you have purchased” (Revised Standard Version) or “ransomed” (New Jewish Publication Society). Although qanâ normally does mean “to acquire,” a second meaning of “to create” is now established from extra-Biblical texts wherein one of the titles of the god El is “Creator of heaven and earth”; see F. M. Cross and D. N. Freedman, “The Song of Miriam,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 14 (1955), p. 249. The reluctance of P. Humbert (“Qana en hébreu biblique,” in Opuscles d’un hébraïsant [Université de Neuchatel, 1958], pp. 166–174), to accept this meaning because of the parallel to ‘am zû ga’al ta “the people whom you have redeemed” (verse 13) is unwarranted; ga’al (to redeem) is elsewhere paralleled by verbs of “creation” (Deuteronomy 32:6 and Isaiah 43:1; Isaiah 44:24; Isaiah 54:4). The concept of God creating Israel as a people is present elsewhere in Malachi 2:10 and frequently in Second Isaiah; for the latter see C. Stuhlmueller, “Creative Redemption in Deutero-Isaiah,” Analecta Biblica 43 (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1970), pp. 193–229.

10.

See Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, pp. 138–44; P. Miller, The Divine Warrior in Early Israel (Harvard University: Cambridge, 1973), pp. 113–117; S. Norin, “Er Spaltete das Meer: Die Auszugsüberlieferung in Psalmen und Kult des Alten Israel,” Coniectanea Biblica, Old Testament Series 9 (C.W.K. Gleerup: Lund, 1977), pp. 77–107.

11.

The punctuation of the Masoretic Text followed here yields better sense than the common modern practice of editing the text according to strictly metrical considerations (Biblia Hebraica [Kittel], Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, etc.).