The Old English Exodus and the Read Sea

Abstract

This essay suggests that the Old English Exodus, a poem that focuses on the events that precede the reception of the law at Mount Sinai, presents Moses as reading the Red Sea in order to emphasize his identity as a literate and literary figure. Moses reads the sea just as medieval Christians endeavored to read the world, looking to find the divine meaning inscribed within it. The method he applies, peeling back the obscuring waves, fashioning shining walls of water, and revealing ealde staðolas — old foundations, or even foundational truths — models the sort of interpretation a reader might then apply to the notoriously difficult Old English poem. The poet plays with the imagery of the parting sea to hint at what this interpretive method might look like, suggesting ways in which literal and metaphoric depth begin to blur, how waves of water work like layers of language, and how the swirling sea acts as a riddling text to be fathomed. But to really get to the bottom of things, the poem implies, one has not only to search for the staðol, but to make something out of the seeming obscurity that surrounds it.