Exo 13:18:
the Sea of Reeds.
This is not the Red Sea, as older translations have it, but most likely a marshland
in the northeastern part of Egypt. (Marshes might provide some realistic kernel
for the tale of a waterway that is at one moment passable and in the next
flooded.) But it must be conceded that elsewhere yam suf refers to
the Red Sea, and some scholars have recently argued that the story means to
heighten the miraculous character of the event through the parting of a real
sea. Even if the setting is a marsh, the event is reported in strongly
supernatural terms. (Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible, 3 vols. [New
York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2019], 1:268, emphasis in bold added)
Translation of 1
Kgs 9:26:
And a fleet did Solomon make in Ezion-Geber, which is by Eloth on the
shore of the Red Sea in the land of Edom. (Robert Alter, The
Hebrew Bible, 3 vols. [New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2019], 2:474,
emphasis added)
Michael D. Oblath on the Sea of Reeds (Yam Sûp) being on the Coast of Elath (cf. 1 Kings 9:26)
