Forward: The following article is an excerpt from the book The Signature of God by author Jeffrey Grant. In combining historical evidence of the Red Sea crossing with the Torah, it offers secular readers a greater understanding of this monumental event.

"The wind blowing, the sea dividing into parts, they pass over." Sinai Inscription No. 1 Translated by Charles Forster

In Exodus they were describing the events from their own experience or from the eyewitness descriptions of others. One of the most fascinating of these inscriptions was described in Rev. D. A. Randall’s book The Handwriting of God in Egypt and Sinai (Rev. D. A. Randall, The Handwriting of God in Egypt and Sinai, [Philadelphia: John E. Potter, 1862], p. 264). This long inscription was one hundred feet high and contained forty-one successive lines in hieroglyphic characters beneath the title that was engraved in letters six feet high.

Inscriptions Describing The Red Sea Crossing
Consider the words of this ancient inscription about the Israelites’ escape from Egypt. Six ancient inscriptions were found on different cliffs in the Wadi Sidri, located on one of the natural routes the Jews would have chosen when entering the interior of the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt. In his book, Sinai and Palestine, Dr. A. P. Stanley wrote about his 1853 visit to Wadi Sidri as the natural place leading up from the Red Sea: "A stair of rock, the Nukb Badera, brought us into a glorious Wadi (Sidri) enclosed between red granite mountains …. In the midst of the Wadi Sidri, just where the granite was exchanged for sandstone, I caught sight of the first inscription" (A. P Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, London: John Murray, 1905, p. 70). Another writer, Golius, revealed that the Arabic word Sidri can be interpreted as "a way that leads up from the water as at a landing place." Consider the message found in the following eight separate inscriptions about the Israelites’ crossing of the Red Sea. (Moses described the events of their escape from Egypt in Exodus, chapter 14). The numbers in brackets following the translated inscription refer to their original numbering identification as recorded in Rev. Forster’s book, Sinai Photographed. Inscription, Number 41, actually names Moses as the leader of the Israelites.

The Sinai Inscriptions
The wind blowing, the sea dividing into parts, they pass over. (1) The Hebrews flee through the sea; the sea is turned into dry land. (4)

The waters permitted and dismissed to flow, burst rushing unawares upon the astonished men, congregated from all quarters banded together to slay treacherously being lifted up with pride (5)

The leader divideth asunder the sea, its waves roaring. The people enter, and pass through the midst of the waters. (10)

Moses causeth the people to haste like a fleet?winged she-ostrich crying aloud;
the cloud shining bright, a mighty army propelled into the Red sea is gathered into one; they go jumping and skipping. Journeying through the open channel, taking flight from the face of the enemy The surge of the sea is divided. (41)
The people flee, the tribes descend into the deep.
The people enter the waters.
The people enter and penetrate through the midst.
The people are filled with stupor and perturbation.
Jehovah is their keeper and companion. (23)
Their enemies weep for the dead, the virgins are wailing.
The sea flowing down overwhelmed them.
The waters were let loose to flow again. (8)
The people depart fugitive. A mighty army is submerged in the deep sea, the only way of escape for the congregated people. (21)

The Bible’s Account of the Red Sea Crossing

Contrast the wording and details of the Sinai inscriptions and Moses words as recorded in Exodus 14:21-29. ‘And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground: and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left. And the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them to the midst of the sea, even all Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots, and his horsemen. And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians, And took off their chariot wheels, that they drove them heavily: so that the Egyptians said, ‘Let us flee from the face of Israel; for the Lord fighteth for them against the Egyptians.’ And the Lord said unto Moses, ‘Stretch out thine hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen.’ And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to his strength when the morning appeared; and the Egyptians fled against it; and the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea. And the waters returned, and covered the chariots, and the horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there remained not so reach as one of them. But the children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea; and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left" (Exodus 14:21-29).

The ancient inscriptions precisely describe the Exodus, the role of Moses, and the Jews’ miraculous crossing of the Red Sea. The obvious questions are: Who inscribed these messages? And when? Another obvious question is: What could have motivated someone in the past to inscribe this record with such enormous effort when the desolate nature of the terrain would guarantee that very few people would ever see and admire the writer’s handiwork? A close examination of the inscriptions reveals that the manner and style of expression is quite different from the language Moses used in the Book of Exodus. If a religious pilgrim or traveler in the distant past wanted to inscribe the biblical story from the Book of Exodus in stone, we would expect him to either quote Exodus exactly or at least use many of the same words as written by Moses. In addition, we would expect such a person to follow the biblical narrative quite closely. However, the inscriptions are quite different from the biblical text of Exodus. While the Sinai inscriptions detail many of the key events described in Exodus, the original language suggests that the writer was either an independent observer of these events or was recording events told to him by someone who had personally observed the Exodus.

The ancient Greek historian Diodorus Siculus wrote an extraordinary ancient report about the tribes in Egypt and the miraculous drying up of the Red Sea: "it is an ancient report among the Ichtheophagi, who inhabit the shores of the Red Sea, that by a mighty reflux of the sea which happened in former days, the whole gulf became dry land, and appeared green all over; and that the water overflowed the opposite shore, and thatall the ground continued bare to the very lowest depth of the gulf, until the water, by an extraordinary high fide, returned to its former channel." (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, lib. iii., c. ¢o). The parallels between Diodorus’ report and the Exodus account of the Red Sea crossing are fascinating.