The Scriptural references to the Red Sea are directly connected with its northern gulfs. Those which concern the Gulf of Akabah, on the north-west, are comparatively few and unimportant. In Ex., xxiii, 31, that gulf is simply given as the southern limit of the Holy Land; in III Kings, ix, 26; II Par., viii, 17, it is spoken of in connexion with Solomon’s maritime commerce, and in III Kings, xxii, 48, in reference to Josaphat’s unsuccessful attempt in the same direction; finally, in Jer., xlix, 21, it is mentioned in a prediction of the utter ruin of Edom. The Scriptural references to the Gulf of Suez, on the north-east, are on the contrary both numerous and important, for it is the miraculous passage of that arm of the Red Sea which is described in Ex., xiv, celebrated in Moses’ Canticle (Exodus 15), and repeatedly referred to in other parts of Holy Writ, despite the recent theories framed to disprove the traditional identification of the Gulf of Suez with the Red Sea crossed by Israel, at the time of the Exodus. Brugsch and others have indeed argued that the water which was dried up to let Israel pass was the northern end of the Sirbonian Bog, on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, between Egypt and the south-west extremity of Chanaan, but ***this theory is untenable because contrary not only to the statements of the Biblical narratives but also to the recent discoveries which have settled the position of Gessen, whence the Israelites set out for Palestine. ***Again, Beke and others have advanced the view that the eastern arm of the Red Sea, i. e. the Gulf of Akabah, and not the Gulf of Suez, is that which the Hebrews crossed. ***But this view also is inconsistent with the most natural interpretation of the Biblical data concerning the Exodus. The traditional identification of the Gulf of Suez with the Red Sea crossed by Israel should therefore not be given up. ***
