Joshua 2:10

For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you. Rahab uses the word יְהֹוָה . Whether this name were known to her or not, she knew what was signified by it, the one only self-existent God (since יהוה is clearly derived from הָיָה or הָוָה to be ) , the Author of all things, visible and invisible (see Joshua 2:11 ). The Red Sea. Brugsch, in his 'History of Egypt,' denies that יַם־סוּף should be rendered 'Red Sea,' and affirms that this error of the LXX . interpreters has been the source of endless misapprehensions. יַם־סוּף is an Egyptian word signifying flags or rushes, which abound not only in the Red Sea, but in the marshes on the shores of the Mediterranean, as, in fact, in all low-lying lands. It is here, according to Brugsch, in a treacherous and well-nigh impassable country, near that Serbonian bog, "where armies whole have sunk", that we are to look for the victorious passage of Moses, and the destruction of Pharaoh and his host. The סוּף or rushes were to be found in the Nile, as Exodus 2:9 , Exodus 2:5 shows (cf. Isaiah 19:6 ). So that יַם־סוּף by no means necessarily implies the Red Sea. Yet on the other hand we may remember, with the Edinburgh Reviewer, that the coastline of Palestine and of the delta of the Nile has undergone considerable changes during the historic period, and that the land has, during that period, largely encroached on the sea. Sihon and Og. As we read in Number 21. and Deuteronomy 2:1-37 ; Deuteronomy 3:1-29 . Whom ye utterly destroyed. Rather, devoted to utter destruction (see Joshua 6:21 ). Rahab seems to be aware that the extermination of these nations was in fulfilment of a Divine sentence.