Endnote 9 – Red Sea or Reed Sea?

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.