From Succoth, the Israelites travel to Etham 'on the edge of the desert', then turn back to Pi-HaHiroth, located between Migdol and the sea and directly opposite Baal-zephon. Ramesses is generally identified with modern Qantir, the site of the 19th dynasty capital Per-Ramesses, and Succoth with Tell el-Maskhuta in Wadi Tumilat, the biblical Land of Goshen.

The Israelites' first journey is from Ramesses to Succoth. Pharaoh's army engulfed by the Red Sea, painting by Frederick Arthur Bridgman (1900) In the first layer (the oldest), God blows the sea back with a strong east wind, allowing the Israelites to cross on dry land in the second, Moses stretches out his hand and the waters part in two walls in the third, God clogs the chariot wheels of the Egyptians and they flee (in this version the Egyptians do not even enter the water) and in the fourth, the Song of the Sea, God casts the Egyptians into tehomot, the oceanic depths or mythical abyss. The narrative contains at least three and possibly four layers. (This song, at Exodus 15, is called the Song of the Sea). When the Israelites saw the power of God, they put their faith in God and in Moses, and sang a song of praise to the Lord for the crossing of the sea and the destruction of their enemies. The Egyptians pursued them, but at daybreak God clogged their chariot-wheels and threw them into a panic, and with the return of the water, the pharaoh and his entire army are destroyed.

At God's command, Moses held his hand out over the water, and throughout the night a strong east wind divided the sea, and the Israelites walked through on dry land with a wall of water on either side (Exodus 14:21&22). When the Israelites see the Egyptian army they are afraid, but the pillar of fire and the cloud separates the Israelites and the Egyptians. God causes the Pharaoh to pursue the Israelites with chariots, and the pharaoh overtakes them at Pi-hahiroth. There God tells Moses to turn back and camp by the sea at Pi-HaHiroth, between Migdol and the sea, directly opposite Baal-zephon. Crossing the Red Sea, a wall painting from the 1640s in Yaroslavl, RussiaДЄfter the Plagues of Egypt, the Pharaoh agrees to let the Israelites go, and they travel from Ramesses to Succoth and then to Etham on the edge of the desert, led by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

Splitting a river bible