Red Sea 1. Name. --The sea known to us as the Red Sea was by the Israelites called the sea, Ex 14:2,9,16,21,28; 15:1,4,8,10,19; Jos 24:6,7 and many other passages, and specially the sea of Suph. Ex 10:19; 13:18; 15:4,22; 23:31; Nu 14:25 etc. This word signifies a sea-weed resembling wool, and such sea-weed is thrown up abundantly on the shores of the Red Sea; hence Brugsch calls it the sea of reeds or weeds. The color of the water is not red. Ebers says that it is of a lovely blue-green color, and named Red either from its red banks or from the Erythraeans, who were called the red people. 2. Physical description. --In extreme length the Red Sea stretches from the straits of Bab el-Mendeb (or rather Ras Bab el-Mendeb), 18 miles wide. in lat. 12 degrees 40 N., to the modern head of the Gulf of Suez, lat. 30 degrees N., a distance of 1450 miles. Its greatest width may be stated at about 210 miles. At Ras Mohammed, on the north, the Red Sea is split by the granitic peninsula of Sinai into two gulfs; the westernmost, or Gulf of Suez, is now about 150 miles in length, with an average width of about 20, though it contracts to less than 10 miles; the easternmost or Gulf of el-Akabeh, is about 100 miles long, from the Straits of Tiran to the Akabeh, and 15 miles wide. The average depth of the Red Sea is from 2500 to 3500 feet, though in places it is 6000 feet deep. Journeying southward from Suez, on our left is the peninsula of Sinai; on the right is the desert coast of Egypt, of limestone formation like the greater part of the Nile valley in Egypt, the cliffs on the sea margin stretching landward in a great rocky plateau while more inland a chain of volcanic mountains, beginning about lat. 28 degrees 4 and running south, rear their lofty peaks at intervals above the limestone, generally about 15 miles distant. 3. Ancient limits. --The most important change in the Red Sea has been the drying up of its northern extremity, the tongue of the Egyptian Sea. about the head of the gulf has risen and that near the Mediterranean become depressed. The head of the gulf has consequently retired gradually since the Christian era. Thus the prophecy of Isaiah has been fulfilled, Isa 11:15; 10:5 the tongue of the Red Sea has dried up for a distance of at least 50 miles from its ancient head. An ancient canal conveyed the waters of the Nile to the Red Sea, flowing through the Wadi-t Tumeylat and irrigating with its system of water-channels a large extent of country. It was 62 Roman miles long, 54 feet wide and 7 feet deep. The drying up of the head of the gulf appears to have been one of the chief causes of the neglect and ruin of this canal. The country, for the distance above indicated, is now a desert of gravelly sand, with wide patches about the old sea-bottom, of rank marsh land, now called the Bitter Lakes. At the northern extremity of this salt waste is a small lake, sometimes called the Lake of Heropolis; the lake is now Birket-et-Timsah the lake of the crocodile, and is supposed to mark the ancient head of the gulf. The canal that connected this with the Nile was of Pharaonic origin. It was anciently known as the Fossa Regum and the canal of Hero. The time at which the canal was extended, after the drying up of the head of the gulf, to the present head is uncertain, but it must have been late, and probably since the Mohammedan conquest. Traces of the ancient channel throughout its entire length to the vicinity of Bubastis exist at intervals in the present day. The land north of the ancient gulf is a plain of heavy sand, merging into marsh-land near the Mediterranean coast, and extending to Israel. This region, including Wadi-t-Tumeylat, was probably the frontier land occupied in pact by the Israelites, and open to the incursions of the wild tribes of the Arabian desert. 4. Navigation. --The sea, from its dangers and sterile shores, is entirely destitute of boats. The coral of the Red Sea is remarkably abundant, and beautifully colored and variegated; but it forms so many reefs and islands along the shores that navigation is very dangerous, and the shores are chiefly barren rock and sand, and therefore very sparsely inhabited so that there are but three cities along the whole 1450 miles of its west coast --Suez, at the head, a city of 14,000 inhabitants; Sanakin, belonging to Soudan, of 10,000; and Massau, in Albyssinia, of 5000. Only two ports, Elath and Ezion-geber, are mentioned in the Bible. The earliest navigation of the Red Sea (passing by the pre-historical Phoenicians) is mentioned by Herodotus: --Seostris (Rameses II.) was the first who passing the Arabian Gulf in a fleet of long vessels, reduced under his authority the inhabitants of the coast bordering the Erythrean Sea. Three centuries later, Solomons navy was built in Ezion-geber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea (Yam Suph), in the land of Edom. 1Ki 9:20 The kingdom of Solomon extended as far as the Red Sea, upon which he possessed the harbors of Elath and Ezion-geber. [ELATH; EZION-GEBER] It is possible that the sea has retired here as at Suez, and that Ezion-geber is now dry land. Jehoshaphat also made ships of Tharshish to go to Ophir for gold; but they went not; for the ships were broken at Ezion-geber. 1Ki 22:48 The scene of this wreck has been supposed to be Edh-Dhahab. The fleets appear to have sailed about the autumnal equinox, and returned in December or the middle of January. The Red Sea, as it possessed for many centuries the most important sea-trade of the East contained ports of celebrity. The Heroopolite Gulf (Gulf of Suez) is of the chief interest; it was near to Goshen, it was the scene of the passage of the Red Sea, and it was the tongue of the Egyptian Sea. It was also the seat of the Egyptian trade in this sea and to the Indian Ocean.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 00:26:31 +0000
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