Where did the Red Sea split? Diagnosing biblical geography’s meaning

Where was the Garden of Eden? Where are Sodom and Gomorrah located? Did Moses enter the Land of Israel? Where is Mount Sinai?

The answers to these and other perplexing questions regarding biblical geography, names and locations can be found in Places in the Parasha – Biblical Geography and its Meaning, a fascinating book by Prof. Yoel Elitzur, a member of the Academy of the Hebrew Language, and head of the Land of Israel studies department at Herzog College.

Perhaps the best way to capture the essence of this well-researched, 767-page tome is to quote the author himself: “We will read the Tanach as it is written,” writes Elitzur in his section on parashat Naso, “and attempt to understand what exactly it is saying, with the help of all the historical, geographical, archaeological and linguistic tools available to us.”

Indeed, Elitzur marshals a wide variety of archaeological, linguistic, and historical sources in dealing with various subjects throughout the text.

The book includes articles about each weekly Torah reading and selections for Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Passover and Shavuot. Elitzur focuses on a place or name listed in each specific parasha and analyzes its name, location and meaning. The author discusses the locations of many different sites listed in the Bible – Mount Nebo, the Golan, the Wilderness of Paran, Gerar and many others.

To get a feel for Elitzur’s work, consider one sample.

In a section titled “The Sea of Suf,” Elitzur writes about the Israelites’ crossing of the Red Sea after leaving Egypt. He takes issue with those who claim that the term “Red Sea” is a misspelling of the English translation of Yam Suf ­­– “Reed Sea.” While most modern scholars identify its location as one of the two Bitter Lakes, which are today part of the Suez Canal, Elitzur writes that the entire Gulf of Suez, which encompasses the Red Sea, is the correct location of the “Sea of Suf,” as it is termed in the text.

He explains that some scholars suggested a more northerly location for Yam Suf because of geographical and linguistic considerations. The biblical text describes a powerful east wind that blew for many hours before the sea divided. Some considered the marshy swamps near the northern lakes as an appropriate location for the drowning of the Egyptians, and others believed that there were likely to be greater differences in the water level between high and low tides in those locations. Another point of view suggested that the strong wind created sandstorms that could transport entire dunes into the lakes, such as Lake Bardawil, a shallow lake located within the Mediterranean Sea.

Linguistically, writes Elitzur, the Hebrew word “suf” refers to the sedge or papyrus. This freshwater plant grows on the banks of the Nile and is also found on the shores of the Bitter Lakes and in the Northern Sinai Peninsula. By contrast, the Red Sea is a salty sea that does not have such vegetation. Nevertheless, he writes, “In every place where the information found in the Tanach is clear, the biblical Sea of Suf is the Red Sea. Etymological speculations in scientific reconstructions of miraculous events cannot simply brush away hard data.”

Elitzur points out that the text (Numbers 33) states that the Jews camped at Mara in the wilderness of Etham after crossing the sea. This information, he writes, demonstrates that Etham was located on the edge of the Sea of Suf, on the border between “the wilderness and the land,” near the modern-day city of Suez, which is adjacent to the Red Sea.

Elitzur makes other interesting points along the way. For example, he writes that when the name of a person or place in the Tanach is given together with an explicit explanation for the name, there usually exists another, more straightforward explanation. When a person or place is named for a specific reason, he posits, it does not mean that this was when the name itself was created. Instead, he suggests that the reason indicates the giving of a new interpretation to reflect the events of the time.

For example, he cites the example of matzah.

“Why do we eat matzah on Passover?” he writes. The reason stated by the Torah – “since they had been driven out of Egypt and could not delay; nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves” (Exodus 12:39) – seems artificial, in Elitzur’s opinion. “Can it truly be that each of the 600,000 people who left Egypt began to knead their dough at precisely the same moment, such that none of the dough was able to rise?”

Accordingly, he suggests that the explanations given in the text cannot be considered the actual reason. “Rather, they take a homiletic approach in their explanations and leave the simple explanation unsaid, perhaps for us to attempt to understand it on our own.”

Modern biblical critics, says Elitzur, view biblical etiology – the study of causation – as a characteristic of primitive thinking. In their opinion, he says, people during the biblical period were naive and incapable of logical analysis.

In the view of modern scholars, says Elitzur, the ancients believed that the original reason that the Jews ate matzah on Passover, for example, was because their ancestors had not given their dough time to rise.

He disagrees and says that while the people of the biblical period enjoyed engaging in linguistic homiletics and etiological explanations, they were certainly able to distinguish between them and the elements of cause and effect. When Esau cries, “Was he, then, named Jacob that he might supplant me (va’ye’akvani) these two times? First he took away my birthright, and now he has taken away my blessing!” (Genesis 27:36), his purpose was not to provide the correct explanation for Jacob’s name. Rather, Elitzur writes, “He and those who heard his declaration understood that this was merely a defiant, personal statement formulated as a name interpretation.”

Places in the Parasha includes many photos and maps that clarify and explain the biblical geography discussed in each section. Elitzur lists four or five additional sources for further study after each article.

While the book is based on Elitzur’s original Hebrew work, Makom Baparasha, which was published in 2014, the English translation is smooth and easy to read. Readers interested in gaining a deeper understanding of biblical locations will find this book invaluable.