The commerce of the Red Sea was. in very ancient times, unquestionably great. The earliest records tell of the ships of tin' Egyptians, the Phoenicians, and the Arabs. Although the ports of the Persian Gulf received a pari of the Indian traffic, and the Hirayeritic maritime cities in ih<- south of Arabia supplied the kingdom of Sheba, the trade with Egypt was, we must believe, the mosl important of the ancient world. That all this traffic found its way to the head of the Herobpolitic Gulf semis prosed by the absence of any important Pharaonic remains farther south on the Egyptian coast Bul tin shoaling ..f the head of the gulf rendered the navigation, always dangerous, more difficult : it destroyed
the former anchorages, and made it necessary to carry
merchandise across the deserl to the Nile. This change appears to have been one of the main causes of the de- cay oi the i imerce of Egypt. We have seen that the
long-voyaging ships shitted their cargoes to Red-Sea
craft at the strait ; and Ptolemy l'hiladelphus, after
founding Arsinoe and endeavoring to reopen the old canal of the Red Sea, abandoned the upper route and
established the southern road from his new city Berenice, on the frontier of Egypt and Nubia, to Coptos, on the Nile. Straho tells us that this was done to avoid the dangers encountered in navigating the sea (xvii,l,§45). 1 hough t he stream of commerce was diverted, sufficient seems to have remained to keep in existence the former ports, though they have long since utterly disappeared. Under the Ptolemies and the Romans the commerce of the Red Sea varied greatly, influenced hy the decaying -late ,,f Egypt and the route to Palmyra i until the fall of the latter). But even its best state at this time can- not have been such as to make us believe that the [20 ships sailing from Myos Hormos. mentioned by Straho i ii. v. vi 12), were other than an annual convoy. The wars of Heraclius and Chosroes affected the trade of Egypt as they influenced that of the Persian Gulf.
Egypt had fallen low at the time of the Aral) occupa- tion, and yet it is curious to note that Alexandria even then retained the shadow of its firmer .".lory. Since the time of .Mohammed the Red Sea trade has heen in- significant. But the opening of the Sue/ ( 'anal has late- ly rendered it the great thoroughfare to India.
BED SEA, Passage of. The departure of the Is- raelites out of Egypt was their independence-day and the date of the nation's birth. As such it is always re- ferred to in Scripture in terms of lofty jubilee and de- vout acknowledgment of the power of Jehovah, which was so Strikingly displayed at almost every step. Two hundred and sixteen years before this event, their patri- arch. Jacob, had hit the laud of his childhood and old age, and emigrated with all his family to Egypt, then the most highly cultivated land on earth. Settled in the most fertile part of the country, they had grown to a population of some two millions of souls. Divine Providence bad specially fostered them. But Dow. for about eighty years, the Egyptian government, under a new and jealous dynasty, had adopted a severe policy towards them, and they were gradually reduced to a condition of servitude. Nevertheless, Jehovah had not forsaken them. Moses had been in process of training all these later years as an instrument for their deliver- ance, and the time hail at length arrived for their eman- cipation. We need not here review the mighty acts of divine interference by which the Egyptian court were finally compelled to grant the release of the Hebrews.
We will come at e to the scenes of their exit from
the country. The region where it occurred is not only memorable from the inspired narrative of that event, hut is likewise remarkable for its natural features, and interesting on account of the modern associations of the vicinity.
Goshen, the territory occupied by the Israelites in Egypt, -was an extension eastward of the "Delta," 01 triangular alluvial plain around the mouths ol the Nile. It seems to have corresponded substantially to tin pres- ent valley of Tumeilat, which is a fertile, tongue-shaped tract about eighteen miles long, and averaging about two and a half miles broad, extending along the present railway which branches oil' to [smailia from the direct hue between Alexandria and Cairo. Westward Goshen probably included, likewise, a considerable tract of the
adjoining Delta. The ruins scattered along the con- tinuation of the valley, still farther east, are thought to indicate a populous region there likewise, and heme the name of Goshen is usually extended t siderahly far- ther in that direction : hut the neglect of irrigation has allowed the sands of the desert on either side to en- croach upon this narrow tract, so that it is now almost uninhabitable The portion named above, however, is still so rich that it was sold in 1863 for two million dol- lars, and is now worth much more. See < Ioshen.
The government works upon which the Israelites were compelled to serve were public edifices in the two cities Pithom ami Raamses, or Rameses, doubtless situ- ated in or near the land of < ioshen. The first of these place- i- generally identified with the present '/'.// , I-