Brook of Egypt
The Brook of Egypt (Hebrew: נַחַל מִצְרַיִם, romanized: naḥal mitzrayim, lit. 'wadi of Egypt'[1]) is a wadi identified in the Hebrew Bible as forming the southernmost border of the Land of Israel.[2] A number of scholars have identified it with Wadi al-Arish,[3] an ephemeral river flowing into the Mediterranean sea near the Egyptian city of Arish, while Israeli archaeologist Nadav Na'aman believes that the landform referenced in the Bible is the Besor Stream, just to the south of Gaza.[4][5] A related phrase is nahar mitzrayim ('river of Egypt'), used in Genesis 15:18.
Wadi al-Arish
[edit]According to Exodus 13:18–20, the locality from which the Israelites journeyed after departing Egypt was Sukkot. The name Sukkot means "palm huts" in Hebrew and was translated Al-Arish in Arabic. It lies in the vicinity of Arish, the hometown of the Jewish commentator Saadia Gaon who identified Naḥal Mizraim with the Wadi al-Arish. Ishtori Haparchi, in his 14th-century work Kaftor va-Ferach (Hebrew: כפתור ופרח), also identifies the Brook of Egypt as Wadi al-Arish.[6]
The Septuagint translates Naḥal Mizraim in Isaiah 27:12 as Rhinocorura.
Although in later Hebrew the term naḥal tended to be used for small rivers, in Biblical Hebrew, the word could be used for any wadi or river valley.[7]
According to Sara Japhet, "Nahal Mizraim" is Wadi al-Arish, which empties into the Mediterranean Sea about 30 miles south of Raphia, and "Shihor Mizraim" is the Nile.[8]
Nahal Besor
[edit]The Israeli archaeologist Nadav Na'aman has suggested in papers published in 1979[4] and 1995[5] that Wadi Gaza, or Nahal Besor, is the Brook of Egypt. Certainly, it was controlled by Egypt in the Late Bronze Age and inhabited by Philistines into the Iron Age.[9] In the 1995 paper Na'aman cites evidence that "the area of Nahal Besor experienced an unprecedented demographic boom in the seventh century, whereas the area near Wadi el-'Arish was sparsely inhabited at that time",[5] which he believes lends circumstantial support to his hypothesis.
The Nile tradition
[edit]One traditional Jewish understanding of the term Naḥal Mizraim is that it refers to the Nile. This view appears in the Palestinian Targum of Numbers 34:5, where נחלה מצרים is translated נילוס דמצריי ("the Nile of the Egyptians") — as preserved in the Neophiti and Vatican manuscripts, as well as in Pseudo-Jonathan.[10] It also appears in medieval commentaries by Rashi and David Kimhi on Joshua 13:3.[11] However, most historical commentators, such as Abraham Ibn Ezra, Bahya ben Asher, Samuel David Luzzatto, Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, Moisè Tedeschi on Numbers 34:5, and the translators of the Targum Onkelos reject this interpretation, as do modern scholars.[12]
References
[edit]- ^ NRSV. The name Brook of Egypt is used in some English translations of the Bible (e.g., JPS 1917, NKJV, NLT).
- ^ Görg, M. (1992). Freedman, David Noel (ed.). Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary. New York: Doubleday. s.v. “Egypt, Brook of”.
- ^ Paul K. Hooker, "The Location of the Brook of Egypt", in M. Patrick Graham, William P. Brown and Jeffrey K. Kuan (eds), History and Interpretation: Essays in Honour of John H. Hayes (Sheffield: JSOT Press / Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), p. 204.
- ^ a b Nadav Na'aman, "The Brook of Egypt and Assyrian Policy on the Egyptian Border". Tel Aviv 6 (1979), pp. 68–90.
- ^ a b c Nadav Na'aman, "Province System and Settlement Pattern in Southern Syria and Palestine in the Neo-Assyrian Period", in Mario Liverani (ed.), Neo-Assyrian Geography (Rome: Quaderni di Geografia Storica, Università di Roma La Sapienza, 1995), p. 111.
- ^ Shneor, David (2012). "Geographical Descriptions of Eretz Israel in "Kaftor VaFerah" Compared to Geographical Explanations of Medieval Exegetes". Cathedra: For the History of Eretz Israel and Its Yishuv (in Hebrew) (143): 107. ISSN 0334-4657. JSTOR 23409916.
- ^ The dictionary of classical Hebrew. David J. A. Clines, Society for Old Testament Study. Sheffield. 1993–2016. ISBN 1-85075-244-3. OCLC 29742583.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link) - ^ Sara Japhet, From the Rivers of Babylon to the Highlands of Judah: Collected Studies on the Restoration Period. Eisenbrauns, 2006 ISBN 157506121X p42
- ^ Othmar Keel; Christoph Uehlinger (1998). Gods, goddesses, and images of God in ancient Israel. Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 144. ISBN 978-0-567-08591-7. Retrieved 2 May 2011.
- ^ "The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon".
- ^ Yehoshua 13:3 at AlHaTorah.org (the Torah with commentaries). Accessed 15 July 2025.
- ^ Bemidbar 34 – Parashat Masei at AlHaTorah.org (the Torah with commentaries). Accessed 15 July 2025.
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