(5 of 8)
Like Mount Sinai, the Sea of Reeds (mistranslated as the Red Sea) has been located at various sites all over the Middle East. A current scholarly favorite is Lake Sirbonis (now called Sabkhet el Bardowil), a Mediterranean lagoon on the northeastern shore of the Sinai separated from the sea by a narrow land barrier. Critics claim to discern several different accounts within the Bible, depending on which of four ancient versions of the story has been woven into the existing Scripture text. A fragment attributed to the writer called E notes a fairly minor miracle, the providential bogging down of the Egyptian chariot wheels in the mud of the seabed. The fragment called J ignores Moses and Aaron, crediting the Lord, who straightforwardly "drove back the sea with a strong east wind all that night, and turned the sea into dry ground," and the Israelites don't even cross the sea; they just watch as the Egyptians are overwhelmed by it. The strand called P bolsters the priestly role, providing the familiar image of Moses parting the waters and bringing them back together in a deadly rush with his outstretched arm. Before the miracle, as the Israelites saw Pharaoh's warriors bearing down on them, they had asked Moses, "Was it for want of graves in Egypt that you brought us to die in the wilderness?" But now they broke into what Jack Miles, in his book God: A Biography, calls "one of the great, exultant victory songs in all literature," the Song of the Sea, in the 15th chapter of Exodus. An ancient rabbinical commentary elaborated, "Even the sucklings dropped their mothers' breasts to join in singing, yea, even the embryos in the womb joined the melody, and the angels' voice swelled the song."
If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots, when we ate our fill of bread!
At the early going, God responds to the Israelites' want with a string of gifts. When the waters at Marah are bitter, Moses throws in a piece of wood and they become magically sweet. A similar shortage at Meribah is solved when God directs Moses to strike a rock with his staff, and water pours forth. When food runs out in the wilderness, he promises to "rain down bread for you from the sky." Of all the biblical wonders, manna may admit to the most exact scientific explanation. (Its name is derived from the Israelites' reaction and may best be translated, "Whatta?") Scripture describes manna as "a fine and flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground," which falls with the dew but melts when the sun grows hot. In June in the Sinai peninsula, a plant louse that feeds on the fruit of the tamarisk tree secretes a yellow honey-like substance that congeals in the cool of the evening but melts in the day. The similarity is not lost on the locals: for at least 500 years they have peddled it to religious pilgrims, most recently under the brand name Mannite.
Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke, for the Lord had come down upon it in fire; the smoke rose like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled violently... As Moses spoke, God answered him in thunder.