Poole, Reginald S.: The cities of Egypt (London, 1882)

MIGDOL.

27

' Thy way (was) in the sea, and thy path in the great
waters, and thy footsteps were not known (Psalm lxxvii.
19).'

The able German scholar, Dr. Brugsch, who has more
than any one illustrated the story of Israel in Egypt,
astonished the Oriental Congress held at London in
1874, with a theory of the route of the Exodus, which if
not new was enforced by a mass of new and curious
evidence. The idea that the Israelites did not cross the
Red Sea, but passed along the narrow and treacherous
way between Lake Serbonis and the Mediterranean, had
been already suggested by another learned German, Dr.
Schleiden, in his book on the Isthmus of Suez (Die
Landenge von Sues, 1858), but the brilliant revival of
the theory has hidden its first advocate in undeserved
oblivion. Having given him the credit due to an
originator, we may speak of the theory as Dr. Brugsch's,
since he has put it in the form best known to the public.
His view is here adopted as far as the identification of
Migdol, with a reserve as to the sites of the two previous
encampments at Succoth and Etham. Pi-hahiroth he

1 The reading is from the Queen's Printers' Bible (Sunday School
Centenary Bible), which with the Aids to the Student gives the
main results of the study of the text of Scripture.