=The Scene of the Exodus.= Of the two ways which led eastward from Egypt, the Israelites chose the southern, that ran directly into the desert. The northern route, the Way of the Philistines, was already guarded by strong, warlike peoples. Unfortunately, the oldest biblical account of the exodus contains no geographical data, and none of the three or four places mentioned in the late priestly narrative have been identified. The interpretation which places the scene of the exodus near the present port of Suez, at the northern end of the western arm of the Red Sea, is based wholly on the biblical reference to the Sea of Reeds, which is commonly translated Red Sea. That this term is frequently used in the Old Testament as the designation of the Red Sea is unquestioned; but there is no place in the vicinity of the present Port of Suez which satisfies the conditions implied by the biblical narrative. Furthermore, it is difficult to see what would have led the Hebrews to make this long and difficult détour to the south rather than escape to the desert directly east of the Wady Tumilat. The biblical narrative implies that the latter was the course followed. The significant term, Sea of Reeds, points not to the Red Sea, in whose saline waters reeds would not thrive, but to the marshy shores of the Crocodile Lake, the modern Lake Timsah, which lay directly east of the Wady Tumilat. Into it poured the fresh waters from the Nile, which were conducted thither by the canal that ran along the wady. Even though the modern Suez Canal, which runs through it, has transformed conditions, Lake Timsah is still surrounded by a thicket of vegetation. Inasmuch as the Hebrews frequently used the word sea (for example, the Sea of Galilee) as the designation of an inland lake, the name Sea of Reeds was exceedingly appropriate.