of the place, since (1) the Lake Serbonis contains no weeds, sedge, or rueheR of any kind, 1 and (2) it ie, and always must be, eo long ae it ie a lake, fed by a deep channel connecting it with the Mediterranean, eo that the tongue of land ie not continuous, and cannot be used ae a road, unlees by an army carrying pontoons, or a email company of travellers, who might be conveyed across the channel in boats. Fifthly, it assumes that the expression Yam- Supli is used by the writer of the Pentateuch of two quite different pieceR of water, since no one can possibly deny that Yam-Suph in Num. xxxiii. 10', 11, ie used of the Red Sea. Finally, it ie in the teeth of a twofold tradition, Egyptian 2 and Jewieh,3 which unhesitatingly made the upper end of the Red Sea the scene of the disaster. On the destruction of the Egyptians, the Israelites, according to Dr. Brugech, turned sharp to the south from Baal-zephon, or the Mone Caeius, and entered the wilderness of Shur, now the Tih, in long. 32° 50' nearly A recent examination of the locality has shown such a movement to have been impossible, since the Lake Serbonie continues in an unbroken line from long. 32° 32', where it commences, to long. 33° 20', where it terminates, at a place called El Saramit.' Even at this point there ie no escaping from the tongue of land on which the Israelites are supposed to have entered, without crossing the channel connecting Lake Serbonis with the Mediter- ranean, 6 so that, having reached the end of the spit, the Israelites would have had no course open to them but to have turned back and retraced their steps to the supposed site of Pihahiroth. From the Mons Casius, hie Baal-zephon, Dr. Brugsch, having conducted the Israelites across a tongue of land which does not exist, makes them enter the wilderness of Shur, and travel three days in a south-west direction to Marah, which he identifies with the "Bitter Lakes." It seems to have escaped him that the distance is one of at least seventy miles, which could not certainly have been accomplished under five days, and being through an arid desert would probably have taken six. He also fails wholly to account for the extraordinary change of mind on the part of the Israelites, who, having marched out of Egypt thirty miles on the direct road to Palestine, suddenly turn round and go back to the very confines of Egypt,
1 Greville Chester, in the 'Qua.rterly Statement,' p. 155 :-" The clee.r bright water of Lake
Serbonis is as devoid of lacustrine vegetation BB the Dead Sea itself. Of it there is no trace uhatsoever. But more, it is matter of fact that Lake Serbonis is almost equally dei-oid of marine vegetation." 2 The Egyptian tradition appears in Polyhistor, who reports the people of Memphis as
maintaining tbat the passage of the sea was made by Moses watching the ebb of the tide, (' l<'ragm. Hist. Gr.' vol iii. p. 223), which could only bo done on the Red Sea side of Egypt, not on the side of the Mediterranean, which is tideless. 3 Tho Jewish tradition has never been doubted. It appears by the regular translation of Yo.rn-Suph by the LXX., in every place but one where it occUIS, by 1/ ipuflp4 f/d.J.c,trua, "th~ Red Sea.'' ' Greville Chester, in the 'QuBrlerly Statement,' p. 15¼ • Ibid. p. 157 nx.ii INTRODUCTION.
taking a line from Etham t,o Marah which must have measured at least 140 miles, when the two places (acoording to him) were not muoh above thiTty miles apart. It seems needless to pursue Dr. Brugsch's theory any further. It is alike in contradiction with tradition, geography, and common sense. Its apparent foundation is a string of geographical names, supposed to be identical in the nomenclature of ancient Egypt and in that of the writer of Exodus. But on careful examination the agreement is found to be strained and forced. Only one of the Scriptural names (Migdol) really occurs upon Dr. Brugsch's line of march, and that name is of a generio character ( migdol meaning simply "a tower"), and so likely to have been borne by more than one place. 1 The other names are either pure inventions. not found in Egyptian geography, as Baal-zapouna and Pi-hakhirot, 2 or names not really the same as the Hebrew, e.g. Thukot and Khfltarn. Common sense forbids belief in a route which involves the making of a circuit of 140 miles to reach a place thirty miles off, the performance of a six or seven days' journey in the 6pace of three, and the assignment by one and the same writer of one and the same name to two quite different sheets of water, without any note of distinction or indication that two " seas " are meant. Returning then to Etham, which we have placed conjecturally at El- Kantara, and which must certainly have been either there or in the neigh- bourhood, perhaps toward Ismailia, we have now to trace the further march from Etham to Sinai. We imagine, then, that on the command being given, -" Speak unto the children of Israel that they turn and encamp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, over against Baal-zephon" (Ex. xvi. 2), the direction of the route was altered from east or south-east to due south-the "Bitter Lakes " were placed on the left hand, and the march continued southwards along the western shore of the Red Sea until an extensive camping-ground was reached, lying between a place called Migdol, quite distinct from the northern Migdol, and another called Pi- hahiroth, which was on or near the Red Sea. An exact location of these places is impossible, since neither in ancient nor modern geography have we any clear trace of the names, 3 and the position of the northern extremity of 1 There were two Migdols in Palestine, distinguished e.s Migdol-EI, and Migdol-Ga.d. Lepsius
and Stuart Poole maintain thl!.t there were at least two in Egypt. It is in favour of this contention that the northem Migdol had a descriptive epithet! being called in t~~ Egyptian l\Titings "the Migdol of King Seti-Menephthah" (Brugsch, 'Hist. of Egypt,' vol. 11. p. 359). 2 Ba.al-zaponna is found in the Egyptian texts as an epithet of the god Ammon, but not as
the name of a place. Pi-hakhirot is not found at all, but is supposed by Dr. Brugsch to be a name that might have been given to a place situated at "the entrance of the gulfs" (ib. p. 363). But Jablonsky's etymology-" the place where sedge grows "--iieems to be quite as probable. ' The ancient geographers (Hecatmus, Fr. 282; • Itin. Antonin.'_p. 76, ed. Parthey) have a Magdolas which corresponds to the northern Egyptian Migdol : Herodot118 has a Magd11_!118 (ii 159: which seeIDli to represent Megiddo. But there is no trace of the southern Egyptian INTRODUCTION. xxxiii