The Sons of Israel themselves came to Ancient Egypt in the years of famine and were there in the position of today's guest workers. They worked mainly on construction sites. This went on for several centuries. However, the fertility of the Jews began to alarm the Egyptian pharaohs. Probably Ramses II (1290-1224 BC) commanded the midwives to kill every newborn son of the Jews. Since the grandmothers did not follow his orders, the pharaoh ordered every Jewish male baby to be thrown into the river. Moses' mother wove a basket of reeds and left her son in it by the river. Pharaoh's daughter found the baby, took pity on him and took him to the palace. In fact, Moses was brought up at the Egyptian court as a prince. But when he turned 40, he became concerned about the fate of the Jewish people. He killed an overseer who mistreated the Israelites,fled from the palace and began to live like a simple shepherd. It was then that the god Yahweh appeared to him in a burning, but not burning, thorn bush and announced that he was entrusting Moses with a mission to take the sons of Israel from Egyptian slavery to a country where milk and honey flow.
Heading south
The Old Testament Exodus tells the dramatic and adventurous story of how Moses led his people out of Egypt. True, this story does not contain indications of when it happened, but many researchers agree that the Exodus took place during the time of Pharaoh Merneptah, the successor of Ramses II. Then Egypt was weakened by wars with aggressive neighbors, which the Jews decided to take advantage of.
First, Moses wanted to settle the matter peacefully. He got an appointment with Pharaoh and asked him to let the Jewish people go. But he not only refused, but further intensified the oppression of the Jews. However, the sons of Israel had the divine patron Yahweh, who sent ten plagues to Egypt. Pharaoh showed integrity. He held out when the water in Egypt turned to blood, when houses were attacked by toads, midges and dog flies, while people and livestock fell ill with inflammation with abscesses, and hail broke the crops, when the east wind brought locusts, and darkness enveloped the whole earth Egyptian. But, finally, it broke down after the tenth execution, which consisted in the fact that the firstborn of the Egyptians, including Pharaoh, and all the firstborn of their livestock perished, and the sons and livestock of the sons of Israel continued to grow.
There is one mysterious moment in the further history. In Exodus (chapter 3, verse 21) Yahweh says: “And I will give this people mercy in the eyes of the Egyptians; and when you do, you will not go empty-handed. Each woman will beg from her neighbor and from her living in the house for her silver and gold things, and clothes; and you will dress both your sons and your daughters with them, and you will wrap the Egyptians. Some scholars, on the basis of this, put forward the version that the Exodus of the Israelites was preceded by their armed uprising, during which they plundered Egyptian houses. If this is so, then it becomes clear why Pharaoh, who first allowed the sons of Israel to leave Egypt, then rushed after them in pursuit.
He almost overtook them on the shores of the Red (Red, or Reed) Sea. And here Moses, with the help of Yahweh, revealed himself to be a true miracle worker. In this regard, the Bible says: “And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea with a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters parted. And the children of Israel went on dry land in the midst of the sea: the waters were a wall to them on the right and on the left."
I must say that the picture of the parting sea for someone who has at least some imagination looks impressive. Artists most often imagine it this way: giant water shafts, edged on top with white ridges of foam, like walls, moved apart on the sides and stood motionless. And along a narrow strip of land, struck by an unprecedented miracle, the children of Israel are running and hurrying, urged on by the fatherly harsh Moses.
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But did this scene really look like?
Miracle mechanism
The miraculous salvation of the Israelites, who passed through the parting sea, is still considered one of the key instructive and symbolic biblical events to this day. It symbolizes the salvation of those who believe in the true God and the terrible death of the pagans as unrepentant sinners, who were embodied by the Egyptians. And this event later became the prototype of the ritual of Baptism. Already in the New Testament, in the First Epistle to the Corinthians of the holy Apostle Paul, it is said: “I don’t want to leave you, brothers, in ignorance that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in sea.
Therefore, the question of whether in reality the sea could have parted for the Israelis is extremely important. If not, then many religious dogmas can be questioned. And scientists for many years spared no effort to objectively assess the reality of the biblical miracle.
There are several versions on this score.
The Israelites who crossed the sea without getting their feet wet is called Yam-Suf in Hebrew. In the exact translation Yam-Suf means “sea of reeds”. The mention of the Red Sea appeared only in the New Testament, which means that we can conclude that Moses led his people not through the sea, but through the Bitter Lakes, overgrown with reeds. The Israelites, using a shallow ford, went through the marshes, and the heavy chariots of the Egyptians got stuck in them.
It is possible that the Israelis chose the path along the narrow isthmus that separated the Mediterranean Sea from Lake Sirbonis. Lake Sirbonis lies a few meters below sea level and often dries up to such an extent that you can safely walk along its bottom without getting your feet wet. But the threat is posed by sudden oncoming storms that fill it with water. The Israelis managed to pass the dried-up lake, and then a hurricane came from the north, driving giant waves in front of them, which broke through a narrow dam and hit the Egyptians.
Another version is directly related to space: they say, the planet Venus passed so close to the Earth that the waters of the sea rose by the force of its gravity and let the Israelites through, and then Venus withdrew, its gravity weakened, and the deep sea swallowed the Egyptians.
There is also such a consideration: the sea parted before the sons of Israel due to a powerful volcanic eruption in 1628 BC, when it practically destroyed the island of Santorini in the Aegean Sea.
What did the computer say?
And finally, new computer technologies have said their weighty word. Experts from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado (NCAR) and the University of Colorado at Boulder, using computer simulations, proved the possibility of such an event as the separation of the sea. Scientists have assumed that the biblical events took place where the ancient branch of the Nile approached shallow coastal lagoons, near present-day Port Said. The chase could have gone through a lagoon known as Lake Tanis. A computer model showed that an east wind blowing at 139 km / h for at least 12 hours could have created a 3.2 kilometers wide and 4.8 kilometers long corridor in the water that could be open for about four hours.
So the biblical miracle with the exodus of the Israelites could well have taken place, but it was completely natural, not divine. True, it is difficult to say why this or that natural phenomenon happened in that place and with the children of Israel.
So the element of miracle is still present in all this.
Pharaoh was swallowed up by the abyss?
Russian scientists have also put their hand to the explanation of biblical mysteries.
Employees of the Institute of Oceanology of St. Petersburg Alexey Androsov and Naum Wolzinger put forward the following theory: due to a strong hurricane wind, a reef in the Suez Canal area could be exposed, and along it Moses took his people across the sea "like dry land."
But if scientists are still arguing with the fact that the sea has "parted", then it seems that they have already agreed with the fact that the pharaoh and his subjects, most likely, died in the pursuit. And this is confirmed by the following fact: in 1898, the mummy of Pharaoh Merneptah was found in the Valley of the Kings. And there were rumors that "symptoms of inlay with crystals of salt" were found on it, which were proof that the pharaoh really drowned in the sea.
And it is possible that he drowned in pursuit of Moses.
Magazine: Mysteries of History No. 1, Oleg Alexandrov
