Yam Suph

Yam Suph (Hebrew: יַם-סוּף) has traditionally been understood to refer to the saltwater inlet located between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, known in English as the Red Sea. More recently, alternative western scholarly understandings of the term have been proposed for those passages where it refers to the Israelite Crossing of the Sea as told in Exodus 13-15. These proposals would mean that Yam Suph is better translated in these passages as Sea of Reeds or Sea of Seaweed; see Egyptian reed fields, also described as the ka of the Nile Delta. In Jewish sources, 1 Kings 9:26 yam suph is translated as "Sea of Reeds" ("near Eloth" "in the land of Edom").

The phrase Yam Suph occurs about 23 times in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible/Old Testament). In the narrative of the Exodus the phrase refers to the body of water which the Israelites crossed following their exodus from Egypt. The appropriate translation of the phrase remains a matter of dispute, as does the exact location referred to. One possible translation of Yam Suph is "Sea of Reeds", (suph by itself means 'reed', e.g. in Exodus 2:3). This was pointed out as early as the 11th century, by Rashi.

This may refer to a large lake close to the Red Sea, which has since dried up due to the Suez Canal. It was in Egypt, specifically in the Suez valley next to the Sinai Peninsula, and north of the Gulf of Suez. It could also be the Gulf of Eilat, to which is referred in the Books of Kings (1 Kings 9:26). The Lake of Tanis, a former coastal lagoon fed by the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, has also been proposed as the place Moses parted the waters.Heinrich Brugsch suggested that the Reed Sea is Sabḫat al Bardawīl, a large lagoon on the north coast of the Sinai Peninsula.

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