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Should יַם־סֽוּף be translated as Red Sea or Reed Sea?

08 April 2025  

Exodus 15.4 reads as:

AV/KJV: Pharaoh’s chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea: his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red sea.

CEB: Pharaoh’s chariots and his army he hurled into the sea; his elite captains were sunk in the Reed Sea.

NIV: [footnote] Or the Sea of Reeds; also in verse 22

The translation, ‘Red Sea’, for the Hebrew יַם־סֽוּף (= yam suph) has been queried on occasion. Unbelieving scholarship would claim that since the literal translation of יַם־סֽוּף (= yam suph) is ‘Sea of Reeds’ and since reeds do not normally grow in saltwater environments but in fresh water, that therefore the Exodus crossing was in some shallow freshwater lake with reeds and not in a deep sea requiring a supernatural power to divide the waters.

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