The Land of Goshen and the Exodus

Abstract

THIS extraordinarily interesting account of the bondage of Israel in Egypt and their exodus therefrom, written with the erudition of the scholar and the charm of the non-professional, is issued a third time. Sir Hanbury Brown advocates the view that the land of Goshen lay immediately west of the present Suez Ship Canal, that the western arm of the Red Sea extended at the time of the exodus over the Bitter Lakes and Lake Timsah, almost as far as Tel el Maskhuta (Pithom of the Bible), and that the crossing of the Red Sea took place between Lake Timsah and the Bitter Lakes, below Tussum, near Serapeum. In the new edition he contends that the term “Yam Suph” refers to the expanse of water now called the Red Sea, in opposition to Sayce's view which limits the term to the Gulf of Akabah, namely, the arm to the east of the Sinai peninsula. The author also identifies the present Ayun Musa as the Elim of the exodus: this, like many other views advanced by him, is rendered eminently reasonable by his advocacy. The last chapter, entitled “Modern Events in Goshen,” contains illuminating parallels from modern history to the events associated with the sojourn of Israel in Egypt, including an interesting reference to the attack on the Suez Canal during the recent war.