Cleansing our mitzrayim, but not by radical action

They traveled from the Sea of Reeds, and they went out to the Shur Wilderness, and they walked for three days in the wilderness and they did not find water. And they came to Marah, and they were unable to drink water from Marah, for they were bitter. (15:22-23)

Today we are going to ask two questions, leaving one unanswered, while learning a lesson from the second. First: Where was Yam Suf (the Sea of Reeds) and the splitting of the sea (note how it’s not a “crossing” of the sea)? Second: Is this the three day journey of which Moshe spoke?

The first question is wrought with controversy. The Targum Yonatan notes the view that the sea split into 12 “lanes” to allow each tribe to go through at the same time. With 3 million people going through the sea, this would maximize the efficiency while minimizing the amount of time it would take to get to the other side of the sea-walls. 

Ramban describes the Egyptian army’s drive to pursue as a shigaon (madness) because a people who had recently experienced 10 plagues should have surely noted the trap that running between walls of water would be.

Ibn Ezra notes the 12-lane opinion as he explains that they entered the sea and exited at the same location – the lanes were horseshoe-shaped, allowing the Israelites to end up where they began. This notion is supported by the viewpoint of Chizkuni who says the only reason for going through the sea was for Pharaoh’s army to drown, but not to “get to the other side.”

Before 1869, there was no need to cross any waterway to get from Egypt to Sinai or Canaan. Was the crossing in a lake – such as Timsah, or the Great Bitter Lake? Or was it in the Red Sea? And if the Red Sea, was it the Western side of Sinai, or the Eastern Sinai, to get them to the area of Midian, where the mountain on which Moshe encountered the Burning Bush was? (Google “red sea crossing at nuweiba” for an interesting theory, though their getting there in 3 to 6 days is problematic on account of logistics.)

In any case, we don’t know where the crossing was, so the possibilities abound.