According to the original Hebrew, how did Moses's Red sea crossing look?

Question

I heard a different viewpoint on the depiction of the whole red sea crossing than I am used to, and now I am wondering what the correct interpretation is.

Instead of the sea splitting open and forming a canyon, it formed an ice bridge; almost like two large sea waves running toward each other and freezing just before they reach each other.

This main depiction comes from Exodus 15:8 KJV:

And with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered together,
the floods stood upright as an heap,
and the depths were congealed (frozen) in the heart of the sea.

The other defense of this viewpoint comes from Exodus 14 and 15 KJV:

• The land or ground (14:21,22,29; 15:19) are in italics indicating that they are implied rather than explicit in the Hebrew. Explicitly, they are walking on something that is dry (possibly ice).
• "Wall" (14:22,29), indicates a "wall" not a canyon.
• "Divide" (baqa') (14:16, 21) means "to separate."
• "Sank into the bottom as a stone" (15:5): you cannot sink if you're already on the ground.
• etc.

This view and the classic view are in my opinion worlds apart, but this may be due to translation issues. As much as I am opposed to the ice bridge view it does entertain, but also confuse, so:

According to the original Hebrew texts, how did Moses's Red sea crossing actually look?

Answer 1

Crucial pieces in this puzzle that I believe you are missing, scripture states many times that the Children of Israel walked in the MIDST OF THE SEA in Exodus 14 v 22, and God repeats this virtually word by word, 7 verses later in Chapter 14 v 29 Yes, congealed water is ice.... Why can so many not see the reality of what is said so plainly in scripture? Ice walls, no "bridge", they walked on the dry ground, in the morning the ice dam walls cracked and failed, hence the reason the ground became slushy, bogging the chariot wheels. As scripture states, the water that over swept the Egyptian army, came from behind, from the West, and is why the Children of Israel ON THE EAST SIDE, saw their remains, proof to them of their Gods saving grace and awesome power. Check out my website: https://sites.google.com/site/redseacrossingtruth2/homepage Cheers Ted aka Flying Kiwi

Answer 2

I think that the term "Red Sea" is a mis-translation of the term "Reed Sea". This was a small body of water that was north of the usually proposed route that Moses took. It no longer exists as a result of the creation of the Suez Canal. It was a shallow boggy area. It does not strain ones credulity nearly as much to imagine the events of the crossing as presented in the bible to have occurred here as it does to imagine the immense forces required for the Red sea to part.

Answer 3

The ice bridge theory has merit. The walls lining both sides of the bridge would simply be the height of the ice sheet above sea level. There is no ancient word for "bridge" in Hebrew. So Moses is using vocabulary available to him. Most ancient walls were also roads upon which you could walk. Think of the great wall of china. That wall is actually two walls, one on your right and one on your left.

Reed Sea is also a mistranslation of yam sop. Reeds only grow in shallow lakes in northern Egypt, too shallow to destroy an entire Egyptian army. The Hebrew term sop is actually derived from sopa, "storm." It is the "storm sea" because storms come from that direction. The Greek "Red Sea" has nothing to do with the color of the sea but its location in the south where storms arise.

I also wish to make a correction. I suggested the walls of water might be the sides of the ice landbridge. Looking at this further, I see that ice sheets can have compression zones with sails. These are lines of broken ice forced upward above the level of the ice sheet. This is actually a better explanation, as Moses would be describing the landscape of the ice arch's compression zone corridor, with both ends fastened to opposite shorelines. These pressure ridge sails can be sharp-crested with sides sloping at 40 degrees. That is a wall of water by any definition. These sails may or may not have lined the entire length of the corridor, but that wouldn't matter.