The Life of This World is but Chattel of Deception #30
December 17, 2020
The Splitting of the Sea
The story of the splitting of the Sea and the Exodus of Moses and his people from Egypt is told in the Quran in the following verses:
“And when the two throngs sighted each other
The company of Moses said:
‘We will surely be overtaken’
He (Moses) said: ‘Certainly not
For with me is my Lord
Who will guide me’
Then We inspired Moses:
‘Strike the sea with your staff’
When he did, it split into two parts
Like an enormous mountain
Then We caused the others to approach,
Now We rescued Moses and those with him
All of them
And We let the others to drown.”
Quran, 26:62–68
But the story as was told in Exodus, 14: 1–4 while similar in the ending, differs quite a bit in details. Here is a sample of the story:
“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Tell the Israelites
To turn back and encamp near Pi Habiroth,
Between Migdo and the sea…
And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart and he will pursue them
But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaohs and his army
And the Egyptian will know that I am the Lord.’”
Exodus, 14: 1–4
“That night the people of Israel
left Ramses and started for Succoth
There were six hundred thousand of them
Besides all the women and children going on foot.”
Exodus, 12:37
Many people including some archaeological scholars doubted the story. Israel Finkelstein, the author of the Bible Unearthed argues in his book that the Exodus story should not be taken literally. He spent an enormous amount of time searching in the Sinai for any artifact and could not find any. It is simply not possible to have a huge number of people — 600,000 according to the Torah — living in area for about 40 years and not leave behind any artifacts.
In addition, it is not plausible that one could move that many people out of Egypt in the middle of the night to cross into the desert over a period of several hours. On top of that how could one provide food for that many people in the desert for a 40-year period?
The Quran, on the other hand, avoids this pitfall by actually referring to the Israelites as a small number:
“So, Pharaoh sent his recruiters to the cities
‘Those are a small band, to be sure
But they are certainly a nuisance to us’”
Quran 26: 53–55
As for the act of splitting the sea, a Russian oceanographer Naum Nolzinger spent about six months on a reef in the northern part of the Gulf of Suez and after some calculations, he concluded that it would take a windstorm to blow at a speed of 108 km/hr. to split the reef dry. That is obviously very possible according to the laws of physics which are set initially by none other than God Himself, the creator.
Muslims have no doubt about the validity of the story, being one of thousands of signs from God to warn us and to guide us into the believing in Him, worshipping Him and doing His work on earth to minimize the suffering of humanity.