The Yam Suph in the Transjordan?
Deuteronomy describes the Israelites camped opposite Suph in the Transjordan. However, the Israelites cross a Yam Suph near Egypt. Moreover, King Solomon builds a fleet of ships on Yam Suph near Eilat. Where is Yam Suph?
Published: July 27, 2017
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Last Updated: October 28, 2026
I say “rush” and not “reeds” because “reed” in English is a general term referring to all kinds of marsh plants. The Hebrew verses differentiate suph (“rush”) from kaneh (“reed”).
שמות טו:ד מַרְכְּבֹת פַּרְעֹה וְחֵילוֹ יָרָה בַיָּם
Exod 15:4 Pharaoh’s chariots and his army He has cast into the sea;
וּמִבְחַר שָׁלִשָׁיו טֻבְּעוּ בְיַם סוּף.
And the pick of his officers Are drowned in Yam Suph.
All of these are E texts. The Priestly text does not give a name to the sea upon which the miracle occurred, and just calls it “the Sea.” See Exod 14:2, 9, 16, 21–23, 27, 29, 15:19. In my reconstruction, J also doesn’t name the sea, but a discussion of the J vs. E text for the splitting of the sea would take us too far afield.
This is a P text.
The following biblical texts all locate Yam Suph in or near Egypt: Exod 10:19, 13:18, 15:4, 22; Num 33:10–11; Deut 11:4; Josh 2:10, 4:23, 24:6; Psa 106:7, 9, 22, 136:13, 15; Neh 9:9.
Lake Manzeleh, El-Balkah Lakes, Lake Timsach and Bitter Lakes. See: James K. Hoffmeier, Israel in Egypt (Oxford 1996), pp. 164–169 and fig. 2. For further discussion See: James K. Hoffmeier and Stephen O. Moshier, “New Paleo-Environmental Evidence from North Sinai to Complement Manfred Bietak’s Map of the Eastern Delta and Some Historical Implications,” in Timelines: Studies in Honour of Manfred Bietak (OLA, vol. 143/II; Leuven: Peeters, 2006), 167-176
See: M. Lubetski, “Ezion-Geber,“ ABD, 2, 723–725.
Alternatively, the wilderness could be the Syrian wilderness and the River, the Nile. See Nili Wazana, All the Boundaries of the Land (trans. Liat Qeren; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2013), 102-116. On our current maps these two-geographical elements (Nile/Wilderness and Syria/Euphrates) can be found on northeast and southwest of the land of Israel. Yet, if the worldview of the writer was similar to that of the Madaba map, it would place one of the elements on the north side of the land and the other on the south. For more on this geographical conception, see my “Ancient Mapping: Israelite versus Egyptian Orientation,” TheTorah.com (2017).
This is less expansive than the land promised to Abraham in Genesis 15, which includes land to the south as far as the Nile. For the different maps of the Promised Land in the Bible, see Yigal Levin, “Three Biblical Maps of Israel: Small Medium and Large,” TheTorah.com(2015).
See: I. Löw, Die Flora Der Juden, I (Wien – Leipzig, 1928 [reprint, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1967]) pp. 574–575; M. Copisarow, “The Ancient Egyptian, Greek and Hebrew Concept of the Red Sea,” VT 12 (1962): pp. 1–13 [7–8]; N.H. Snaith, “ים סוף: The Sea of Reeds: The Red Sea,” VT 15 (1965): pp. 395–398 [395].
The possible confusion between suph and soph can help us explain another problem. At first glance, it looks as if Jonah 2:6 suggests that suph grows in the Mediterranean, a body of salty water.
אֲפָפוּנִי מַיִם עַד נֶפֶשׁ תְּהוֹם יְסֹבְבֵנִי סוּף חָבוּשׁ לְרֹאשִׁי.
The waters closed in over me, The deep engulfed me. Suph twined around my head.
The NJPS translates the phrase as “sea-weed” a creative solution, since otherwise suph always means rushes. Again, I think the Greek translation here is the key. The LXX reads soph instead of suph, and translates as έσχύτη meaning “end.” Accordingly, Jonah sees himself metaphorically as wearing a headdress announcing his coming end: “the end is [a hat] upon my head.” A similar metaphor is attested in Isa 59:17, “a helmet of triumph on his head” (כובע ישועה בראשו). Today, a person might say, “the end is engraved on my forehead.”
Perhaps the Alexandrian reading of the Hebrew Bible was Yam Soph (instead of Yam Suph) everywhere.
The text in Jeremiah 49:21 (quoted above) reads particularly well with Soph instead of Suph, since it makes the prophecy more dramatic; the word soph/“end” echoes the destruction of Edom.
If the reference is to the Gulf of Aqaba, then the Torah here means that the Israelites should turn south towards the Gulf, but, as this would not bring them closer to the Promised Land, it would have to be describing a route in which the Israelites get below Edom, and then come up on the other side. This is what I suggested in my, “Why Deuteronomy Has an Account of Aaron’s Death in the Wrong Place,” TheTorah.com (2015), appendix 1 and fn 16.
See: C.P. Davies, “Quaternary Paleoenvironments and Potential for Human Exploitation of the Jordan Plateau Desert Interior,” Geoarchaeology: An International Journal 20 (2005), pp. 379–400, esp. p. 382.
See: Davis, pp. 384, 392–393.
See: R. Huckriede und G. Wiesemann, “Der jungpleistozäne Pluvial-See von El Jafr und weitere Daten zum Quartär Jordaniens,” Geologica et Palaeontologica 2 (1968): pp. 73–95; L.A. Quintero and P.J. Wilke, “Archaeological Reconnaissance in the Al-Jafr Basin, 1997,”ADAJ 42 (1998): pp. 113–122 [120–121].
See: L.A. Quintero, P.J. Wilke and G. O. Rollefson, “From Flint Mine to Fan Scraper: The Late Prehistoric Jafr Industrial Complex,” BASOR 327 (2002), pp. 17–47, esp. pp. 18, 45–46.
On the meaning towards, see: H.L. Ginsberg, “A Preposition of Interest to Historical Geographers,” ASOR 122 (1951): pp. 12–14. Also note the dispute of R. Levi and R. Yohanan on the meaning of that word in Hos 14:2 (see: Yalqut Shimoni 14:530, s.v. “Shuva Yisrael”).
