Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Dear Jonathan,

One difficulty for Mr. Harel's thesis is that the Bible also calls the Gulf
of Aqaba the "Reed Sea":

1Kings 9:26 And king Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion-geber, which is
beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red sea, in the land of Edom.

This suggests that the Gulf of Aqaba was linked in ancient minds with the
body of water Moses crossed, which would be natural if he crossed the Red
Sea.

I grew up on Long Island Sound near New York, whose water is from the
Atlantic Ocean. There was a harbor in my area, and a bay off the harbor
that was full of reeds.

Here is a description of a bird that lives in reeds by salt water
http://www.audubon.org/bird/BoA/F33_G4b.html:

Although this species is a constant resident, and extremely abundant along
the salt-marshes and reedy sea islands of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida,
Alabama, and Louisiana, to the mouths of the Mississippi, and probably
farther south, at all seasons of the year, it leaves these districts in
considerable numbers in spring, and extends its movements along the
Atlantic shores as far as the Middle States. They confine themselves
entirely to the salt-marshes in the immediate vicinity of the Atlantic, the
islands and the channels between them and the main shores, but are never
seen inland or on fresh waters, unless when, during high tides, they remove
to the margins of the main, where, indeed, during heavy gales and high
seas, these poor birds are forced to take refuge, in order to escape the
destructive fury of the tempest that, notwithstanding their utmost
exertions, destroys great numbers of them.

                                Yours,
                                Harold Holmyard