In the queries of Michaëlis, sent to Niebuhr, when in Egypt, it was proposed to him to inquire upon the spot, whether there were not some ridges of rocks where the water was shallow, so that an army at particular times may pass over; secondly, whether the Etesian winds, which blow strongly all summer from the north-west, could not blow so violently against the sea as to keep it back on a heap, so that the Israelites might have passed without a miracle. And a copy of these queries was left, also, for Bruce, to join his inquiries likewise; his observations on which are excellent: “I must confess, however learned the gentlemen were who proposed these doubts, I did not think they merited any attention to solve them. This passage is told us by Scripture to be a miraculous one; and if so, we have nothing to do with natural causes. If we do not believe Moses, we need not believe the transaction at all, seeing that it is from his authority alone we derive it. If we believe in God, that he made the sea, we must believe he could divide it when he sees proper reason; and of that he must be the only judge. It is no greater miracle to divide the Red Sea than to divide the river Jordan. If the Etesian wind, blowing from the north-west in summer, could keep up the sea as a wall on the right, or to the south, of fifty feet high, still the difficulty would remain of building the wall on the left hand, or to the north. Beside, water standing in that position for a day must have lost the nature of fluid. Whence came that cohesion of particles which hindered that wall to escape at the sides? This is as great a miracle as that of Moses. If the Etesian winds had done this once, they must have repeated it many a time before and since, from the same causes. Yet Diodorus Siculus says the Troglodytes, the indigenous inhabitants of that very spot, had a tradition from father to son, from their very earliest ages, that ‘once this division of the sea did happen there; and that, after leaving its bottom some time dry, the sea again came back, and covered it with great fury.’ The words of this author are of the most remarkable kind: we cannot think this Heathen is writing in favour of revelation: he knew not Moses, nor says a word about Pharaoh and his host; but records the miracle of the division of the sea in words nearly as strong as those of Moses, from the mouths of unbiassed, undesigning Pagans.” Still skeptical queries have their use; they lead to a stricter investigation of facts, and thereby tend strongly to confirm the veracity of the history they mean to impeach. Thus it appears from the accurate observations of Niebuhr and Bruce, that there is no ledge of rocks running across the gulf any where, to afford a shallow passage. And the second query, about the Etesian or northerly wind, is refuted by the express mention of a strong easterly wind blowing across, and scooping out a dry passage; not that it was necessary for Omnipotence to employ it there as an instrument, any more than at Jordan; but it seems to be introduced in the sacred history by way of anticipation, to exclude the natural agency that might in after times be employed for solving the miracle; and it is remarkable that the monsoon in the Red Sea blows the summer half of the year from the north, the winter half from the south, neither of which therefore, even if wind could be supposed to operate so violently upon the waters, could produce the miracle in question.

Wishing to diminish, though not to deny, the miracle, Niebuhr adopts the opinion of those who contend for a higher passage near Suez. “For,” says he, “the miracle would be less if they crossed the sea there than near Bedea. But whosoever should suppose that the multitude of the Israelites could be able to cross it here without a prodigy would deceive himself; for, even in our days, no caravan passes that way to go from Cairo to Mount Sinai, although it would considerably shorten the journey. The passage would have been naturally more difficult for the Israelites some thousands of years back, when the gulf was probably larger, deeper, and more extended toward the north; for, in all appearance, the water has retired, and the ground near this end has been raised by the sands of the neighbouring desert.” But it sufficiently appears, even from Niebuhr’s own statement, that the passage of the Israelites could not have been taken near Suez; for, 1. He evidently confounded the town of Kolsum, the ruins of which he places near Suez, and where he supposed the passage to be made, with the bay of Kolsum, which began about forty-five miles lower down; as Bryant has satisfactorily proved, from the astronomical observations of Ptolemy and of Ulug Beigh, made at Heroum, the ancient head of the gulf. 2. Instead of crossing the sea at or near Ethan, their second station, the Israelites turned southward, along the western shore; and their third station at Pi-hahiroth, or Bedea, was at least a full day’s journey below Ethan, as Bryant has satisfactorily proved from Scripture, Exodus xiv, 2. And it was this unexpected change in the direction of their march, and the apparently disadvantageous situation in which they were then placed, entangled in the land, and shut in by the wilderness, with a deep sea in front, the mountains of Attaka on the sides, and the enemy in their rear, that tempted the Egyptians to pursue them through the valley of Bedea, by the direct route from Cairo, who overtook them encamping by the sea, beside Pi-hahiroth, opposite to Ball-zephon, Exod. xiv, 2–9.

Niebuhr wonders how the Israelites could suffer themselves to be brought into such a disadvantageous situation, or be led blindfold by Moses to their apparent destruction. “One need only travel with a caravan,” says he, “which meets with the least obstacle, namely, a small torrent, to be convinced that the orientals do not let themselves be led, like fools, by their caravan baschi,” or leader of the caravan. But the Israelites went out of Egypt with “a high hand,” though led by Moses, yet under the visible guidance and protection of “the Lord God of the Hebrews,” who “went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, and by night in a pillar of fire;” and who, for their encouragement, to enter the passage of the sea miraculously prepared for them, removed the cloud which went before the camp of Israel hitherto, and placed it behind them. “And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to the one, but gave light by night to the other: so that the one came not near the other all the night,” Exod. xiv, 8–20.

Niebuhr wonders, also, how Pharaoh and the Egyptians could be led to follow the Israelites. “Pharaoh must have wanted prudence, if, after having seen so many prodigies in Egypt, he had entered into a sea of more than three leagues wide: all the Egyptians, too, must have been bereft of understanding, in wishing to pursue the Israelites into such a sea. Doubtless they knew their own country well enough to distinguish the bottom of a large sea, which bounds Egypt on that side, from a desert.” But Pharaoh and the Egyptians probably did not know their situation. The cloud which separated them from the Israelites increased the darkness of the night; and they probably did not enter into the sea till about midnight, by which time the van of the Israelites might have reached the eastern shore. Meanwhile, the bed of the sea, now beaten by the feet of the immense multitude of men and cattle that had gone before, might not have been easily distinguishable from the desert. If we ask, Why did the Egyptians venture to pursue the Israelites by night? Why did they not wait till day light, when they could see whither they were going? Niebuhr himself has unwittingly answered the question: Pharaoh wanted “prudence,” indeed, and the Egyptians were “bereft of understanding.” And this is the Scriptural solution; for God hardened the heart of Pharaoh to follow after them, that he might be honoured upon Pharaoh and all his host; and that, by their miraculous destruction, the Egyptians might know that he was the Lord supreme, Exod. xiv, 4–18. The Egyptians did not find out their mistake till the “morning appeared,” or till day-break, when the rear of the Israelites had gained the shore, and the Egyptians had reached the middle of the sea, and their whole host had entered into it: then, indeed, they attempted to fly back, but in vain; for “their chariot wheels were broken off, so that they drave them heavily, and their host was troubled” by the Lord, who looked or frowned upon them through the cloudy pillar of fire, and overwhelmed all their host in the midst of the sea; when the sea suddenly returned to his strength at the signal of Moses stretching forth his hand over it, Exod. xiv, 24–28.

The particulars of this transaction demonstrate, that neither the host of the Israelites, nor the host of Pharaoh, could possibly have passed at the head of the gulf near Suez; where the sea was only half a league broad, according to Niebuhr’s own supposition, and consequently too narrow to contain the whole host of Pharaoh at once; whose six hundred chariots alone, exclusive of his cavalry and infantry, must have occupied more ground. Manetho, and the Egyptian writers, have passed over in silence this tremendous visitation of their nation. An ancient writer, however, Artapanus, who wrote a history of the Jews, about B. C. 130, has preserved the following curious Egyptian traditions:--“The Memphites relate, that Moses, being well acquainted with the country, watched the influx of the tide, and made the multitude pass through the dry bed of the sea. But the Heliopolitans relate, that the king, with a great army, accompanied by the sacred animals, pursued after the Jews, who had carried off with them the substance of the Egyptians; and that Moses, having been directed by a divine voice to strike the sea with his rod, when he heard it, touched the water with his rod; and so the fluid divided, and the host passed over through a dry way. But when the Egyptians entered along with them, and pursued them, it is said, that fire flashed against them in front, and the sea, returning back, overwhelmed the passage. Thus the Egyptians perished, both by the fire, and by the reflux of the tide.“

The latter account is extremely curious: it not only confirms Scripture, but it notices three additional circumstances: 1. That for their protection against the God of Israel, the Egyptians brought with them the sacred animals; and by this means God executed judgment upon all the bestial gods of Egypt, as foretold, Exod. xii, 12, that perished with their infatuated votaries; completing the destruction of both, which began with smiting the first-born both of man and beast. 2. That the recovery of the jewels of silver and jewels of gold, and raiment, which they asked and obtained of the Egyptians, according to the divine command, Exod. xii, 35, 36, was a leading motive with the Egyptians to pursue them; as the bringing back the Israelites to slavery had been with Pharaoh and his servants, or officers. 3. That the destruction of the Egyptians was partly occasioned by lightning and thunderbolts from the presence of the Lord; exactly corresponding to the psalmist’s sublime description: “The waters saw thee, O God, the waters saw thee; they were afraid: the depths also were troubled. The clouds poured out water, the air thundered, thine arrows also went abroad. Yea, he sent out his arrows, and scattered them; he shot forth lightnings, hail stones, and coals of fire, and discomfited them. Then the channels of waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered, at thy rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils,” Psalm lxxvii, 16, 17; xviii, 13–15.

The Red Sea derived its name from Edom, signifying “red,” a title of Esau, to whom the bordering country of Edom, or Idumæa, belonged, Gen. xxv, 30; xxxvi, 31–40. It was also called Yam Suph, “the weedy sea,” in several passages, Num. xxxiii, 10; Psalm cvi, 9, &c, which are improperly rendered “the Red Sea.” Some learned authors have supposed that it was so named from the quantity of weeds in it. “But in contradiction to this,” says Bruce, “I must confess, that I never in my life, and I have seen the whole extent of it, saw a weed of any sort in it. And indeed, upon the slightest consideration, it will appear to any one, that a narrow gulf, under the immediate influence of monsoons, blowing from contrary points six months each year, would have too much agitation to produce such vegetables, seldom found but in stagnant water, and seldomer, if ever, found in salt ones. My opinion then is, that it is from the large trees, or plants, of white coral, perfectly in imitation of plants on land, that the sea has taken the name ‘weedy.’ I saw one of these, which, from a root nearly central, threw out ramifications in a nearly central form, measuring twenty-six feet diameter every way.” This seems to be the most probable solution that has been hitherto proposed of the name. The tides in this sea are but moderate. At Suez the difference between high and low water did not exceed from three to four feet, according to Niebuhr’s observations on the tides in that gulf, during the years 1762 and 1763.

REED, אגמון, Job xl, 21; xli, 2, 20; Isaiah ix, 14; xix, 15; lviii, 5; κάλαμος, Matt. xi, 7; a plant growing in fenny and watery places; very weak and slender, and bending with the least breath of wind, Matt. xi, 7; Luke vii, 24. Thus it is threatened, “The Lord shall smite Israel as a reed is shaken in the water, and he shall root up Israel out of the good land which he gave to their fathers, and shall scatter them beyond the river, because they have made their idol groves, provoking him to anger,” 1 Kings xiv, 15. The slenderness and fragility of the reed is mentioned in 2 Kings xviii, 21; Isaiah xxxvi, 6; and is referred to in Matt. xii, 20, where the remark, illustrating the gentleness of our Saviour, is quoted from the prophecy of Isaiah, xlii, 3. The Hebrew word in these places is קנה, as also in Job xl, 21; Isaiah xix, 6; xxxv, 7; Ezek. xxix, 6. See [Cane].

REFORMATION, usually spoken of the great Reformation in the church, begun by Luther in 1517. The sad departure from the standard of holiness which the Romish hierarchy should have placed before them, combined with the indecency and arrogance with which they trampled upon the rights of sovereigns, and upon the property and the comfort of all classes of men, had, for a considerable period, produced a general conviction, that a reformation of the church in its head and members, to use the expression which was then prevalent, was absolutely requisite: and some steps to accomplish this had been actually taken. The celebrated council of Constance, while, in its efforts to heal the schism which had so long grieved and scandalized the Catholic world, it set aside the rival pontiffs who claimed to be the successors of St. Peter, laid down the important maxim, that a general council was superior to a pope, and that its decisions can restrain his power; and this doctrine, which might otherwise have appeared to arise out of the extraordinary circumstances under which it was declared, was fully confirmed by the council of Basil, which met several years after, and which decided the point upon grounds that might at all times be urged. The popes, indeed, remonstrated against this, but still they were compelled to lower their tone; and they were often reminded, even within the precincts of their own court, that the period was fast approaching when the fallacy of many of their pretensions would be ascertained and exposed. It had become common, before the election of a new pontiff, to frame certain articles of reformation, which the successful candidate was required to swear that he would carry into effect; and although the oath was uniformly disregarded or violated, the views which led to the imposition of it indicated the existence of a spirit which could not be eradicated, and which might, from events that could not be foreseen, and could not be controlled, acquire a vigour which no exertion of power could resist. Such, under the beneficent arrangement of Providence, was soon actually the case. In the progress of the opposition made to some of the worst abuses of Rome, they who conducted that opposition were guided to the word of life; they studied it with avidity and with delight; and they found themselves furnished by it with sufficient armour for the mighty contest in which they were to engage. They discovered in the New Testament what Christianity really was; their representations of it were received with wonder, and read with avidity; the secession from the church of Rome became much more rapid and much more extensive than it had previously been, and all possibility of reconciliation with that church was done away. Of this the popes were fully aware; and as the only way of counteracting that which was to them so formidable, they attempted, by various devices, to fetter the press, to prevent the circulation of the Bible, and thus again to plunge the world into that intellectual darkness from which it had been happily delivered. The scheme was impracticable. The “Indices Expurgatorii,” in which they pointed out the works that they condemned, and which they declared it to be heresy and pollution to peruse, increased the desire to become acquainted with them; and although some who indulged that curiosity suffered the punishment denounced by the inquisition against the enemies of papal superstition, there was an immense proportion which even spiritual tyranny could not reach; so that the light which had been kindled daily brightened, till it shone with unclouded lustre through many of the most powerful and the most refined nations of Europe.

It is worthy of careful observation, that the resistance which ultimately proved so successful, was first occasioned by practices that had been devised for establishing the monstrous despotism of the popes; that when it commenced, it was directed against what was conceived to be an abuse of power, without the slightest suspicion being entertained that the power itself was unchristian; that the reformers gradually advanced; every additional inquiry to which they were conducted enlarging their views, and bringing them acquainted with fresh proofs of that daring usurpation to which men had long submitted, till at length the foundation upon which the whole system, venerated through ages, rested, was disclosed to them, and perceived to be a foundation of sand. The consequence was, that the supremacy of the pope was by multitudes abjured; that he was branded as antichrist; that communion with the popish church was avoided as sinful, and that the form of ecclesiastical polity, the essential principle of which was the infallibility of the bishop of Rome, was for ever renounced. The wonderful manner in which this signal revolution, so fraught with blessings to mankind, was accomplished, the various events which mark its history, and the characters and exertions of the men by whose agency it was effected, cannot be too often surveyed, or too deeply fixed in the memory. The whole, even with reference to the illumination of the human mind and the improvement of the social state of the world, is in a high degree interesting; and that interest is unspeakably increased by our discerning the most striking evidence of the gracious interposition of Providence dissipating the cloud which obscured divine truth, and restoring to mankind that sacred treasure which is sufficient to make all who seriously examine it wise unto salvation. It does not, however, come within the province of this work to give a minute history of the origin and progress of the Reformation, to trace the steps of Zuinglius and of Luther, and to detail the circumstances which advanced or retarded them in the glorious career upon which they had entered. Much discussion has taken place with respect to the motives by which Luther was actuated. This point, in reference to what he accomplished, is really of little moment; but there cannot be a doubt that although he might, throughout his arduous struggle, be guided occasionally by inferior considerations, he was eventually, at least, chiefly animated by the noble and disinterested wish to emancipate his fellow creatures from what he was convinced was the direct and most infatuated spiritual oppression; that he looked to Heaven for support, and that such support he largely received.