Map of the probable route of the children of Israel as delineated by Sir William Dawson. What is here called Yam Suph is the Bitter Lakes. The only change which I would suggest is to place the crossing somewhat farther south. The ancient Pelusium is near the upper right-hand corner of the land area shown. The changes of level are evident from the discontinuance of the old Pelusic branch of the Nile.

dry. In addition to this indirect evidence of the former extension of the sea to the Bitter Lakes, is the fact that the deposits along the narrow valley all contain modern Red Sea shells. The depression is also indicated by the extensive amount of Nile mud deposited along Wady Tumilat, showing that, at a former time, the gradient was such as to draw from the Nile a pretty large body of water into the Bitter Lakes.

Supposing now the children of Israel to have been encamped near the south end of the Bitter Lakes, with Pharaoh and his six hundred chariots in their rear, the situation would seem to be hopeless but for the divine intervention described in the sacred record. The strong east wind, however, which the Lord sent at this time would open the way of escape, and account for all the phenomenal that are described; for this would press the water against the west side of the Red Sea, causing a resultant current to the south, and thus raise the water in the south end of the Red Sea and lower it at the north end. The extent of the effects produced by such a wind are amply illustrated in modern experience. For example, Lake Erie is 250 miles long, with its major axis lying nearly in the direction of the strongest winds. It is no unusual thing for a west wind to lower the water at Toledo seven feet below the average level, and at the same time to raise it seven feet above the level at Buffalo; while a change in the wind will exactly reverse the conditions, producing in a comparatively short time a difference of fourteen feet in the water levels at those two places.

An experienced lake captain tells me, that at one time, when he was anchored off the mouth of Saginaw River, which empties into a westerly projection of Lake Huron, a strong wind lowered the lake level so much that large areas of the shallow bay were made dry, and even the bottom of the river was exposed, so that visitors came in great crowds

to witness the spectacle. Similar phenomena are occasionally reported from Lake Menzales and the upper part of the Gulf of Suez.

Supposing, therefore, the water to have been seven feet deep over the low land now separating Suez from the Bitter Lakes, the wind would easily open a passage several miles wide, across which the children of Israel could easily get in one night; while the returning current, on the cessation of the wind, would be amply sufficient to overwhelm the tardy chariots of Pharaoh in their reckless pursuit.

Nor is this explanation at all derogatory to the miraculous character of the event. It simply brings the miracle into conformity with the natural conditions implied in the narrative. If the wind was one which had been foreordained from eternity, and originally involved in the mechanical operation of the meteorological forces of the world, it still would have been a miracle of foreknowledge which brought the children of Israel into such a position that they could avail themselves of the opportunity afforded. There was then no weather bureau to foretell storms; and, if there had been, it would not have ventured to foretell one more than a few hours in advance, while the children of Israel had turned to the south two days previously. Besides, the weather bureau even now does not expect more than seventy-five per cent of its prophecies to be correct. No uninspired sane leader would have conducted an army into such a pocket as that which Moses found himself in on the eve of that momentous event.

In reference to the expression "and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left” (Ex. xiv. 22), it is sufficient to say, that the word "wall" may here naturally be taken to mean a wall of protection. The Bitter Lakes on their left flank would prevent any adverse movement by Pharaoh from that direction. This figurative use of the word "wall" is frequent. For example, in

Prov. xviii. II, "The rich man's wealth is his strong city, and as a high wall in his own imagination"; in Isa. xxvi. I we read that God will "appoint salvation for walls and bulwarks"; and in Nahum iii. 8 Egypt is described as she

marg.

"that was situate among the rivers [canals], that had the waters round about her; whose rampart was the sea

marg.

[the Nile], and her wall was of the sea." So the passages in the Song of Moses must be interpreted in accordance with the highly rhetorical nature of the whole composition. Where we read in Ex. xv. 8, "And with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were piled up, the floods stood upright as an heap; the deeps were congealed in the heart of the sea," it should be noticed that this is represented as accomplished by the "blast of his nostrils," which "congealed the deeps," while later, in the twelfth verse, it is said, in reference to the same scene, that not the water, but the earth, swallowed them. Such rhetorical phrases ought not to be pressed literally.

An objection to this theory of the extension of the Gulf of Suez to Lake Timsah within the historical period has been urged with much plausibility by Professor Sayce, who maintains that the canal would never have been excavated through a waterless desert by the side of the Gulf as far as Suez if the Gulf then extended up to Lake Timsah. But there is clear evidence that even before the time of the Exodus such a canal had been built. This objection has been satisfactorily answered by Major R. H. Brown, the English engineer who has been inspector-general of irrigation in Lower Egypt for many years, who points out that a sheet of water from Suez to the Bitter Lakes so shallow that the wind would occasionally blow the bottom completely bare would not be favorable to navigation; so that any considerable commerce would demand a more reliable 1 See Land of Goshen and the Exodus, London, 1890, p. 39.