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Israel Picked Up Eden's Jewels at the Red Sea Before It Split

While Pharaoh's army closed in from behind, the Israelites were gathering pearls and precious stones that the river Pishon had carried out of Eden.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. What Was Already Waiting on the Shore
  2. The Four Factions
  3. The Rod Opens the Water
  4. What Was Carried Through

What Was Already Waiting on the Shore

The people arrived at the sea with an army behind them. There was nowhere to go except forward into water or backward into the soldiers. The standard reading of this scene is terror followed by miracle. The Israelites freeze. The sea splits. Israel crosses on dry ground. That is the shape of the event as the Hebrew Bible records it.

Targum Jonathan on Exodus 14, the Aramaic Torah paraphrase shaped in Palestine between the second and seventh centuries CE, gives the shore a much longer prehistory. The beach at the Sea of Reeds was not an empty stretch of sand between the Israelites and the water. The river Pishon, one of the four rivers that flowed out of Eden at the beginning of the world (Genesis 2:11-12), had been carrying its cargo across the river systems of the earth since the expulsion from the garden. Pearls, precious stones, gems of every kind, Eden's overflow had been working its way through the Gihon and finally into the Sea of Reeds for the entire span of human history.

When Israel camped at the water's edge, they were standing in the middle of an accumulation that had been building since before they were a people. The Targum says they gathered the stones while they waited. The army was coming and Israel was picking up jewels from Eden on the beach.

The Four Factions

When the Egyptian army appeared on the horizon, the camp split. Targum Jonathan preserves four distinct positions that formed among the Israelites at that moment, four different proposals for what to do with no good options visible.

One faction said to march into the sea. Another said to return to Egypt. A third said to stand and fight. A fourth said to shout and confuse the enemy. Four readings of the same impossible situation, and only one of them turned out to be correct, the first, though it required walking into water that had not yet moved.

Moses told them to stand still and watch the deliverance of God. It was a rebuke to all four factions, including the most courageous one. Even the group willing to charge into battle had chosen its own action over waiting for the divine signal. None of the four plans was the plan. The rod went up. The sea split. The path appeared.

The Rod Opens the Water

The rod Moses held at the shore was the same rod from Reuel's garden in Midian, the one inscribed before creation with the names of the ten plagues and the divine name. Targum Jonathan specifies that Moses stretched it over the sea, and the Tikkunei Zohar, the Kabbalistic expansion of the Zohar compiled in the late thirteenth century CE, adds a dimension to this moment: Moses transfers Israel over the sea so they do not drown in it. This is not only a physical act of parting water. The language implies something like a transfer of protective capacity, Moses placing his people on the other side of a boundary that would be fatal to cross without his mediation.

The Shir HaShirim Rabbah, the Midrash Rabbah on the Song of Songs, a compilation of Palestinian rabbinic interpretation assembled around the sixth century CE, preserves a darker reading of the same moment. Rabbi Tanhuma, citing Rabbi Yehuda ben Rabbi Simon, insists that the fear at the sea was not only about Pharaoh's army. The tradition he recalls involves the Israelites seeing the bodies of the Egyptians who had drowned, and the text asks a hard question about whether a people can celebrate the suffering that purchased their freedom. The answer is complicated and the midrash knows it.

What Was Carried Through

On the far side of the sea, Israel carried Eden's stones. The jewels gathered on the beach while waiting for the miracle went with them into the wilderness. The rod that had split the water went with them. The memory of what had been given up to cross that water went with them too. Freedom has weight, and what you carry out of the place of your rescue matters as much as the crossing itself.

Red SeaExodusEdenMosesIsraelMiraclesMidrash AggadahTargum Jonathan
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The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Targum Jonathan on Exodus 14Targum Jonathan

The splitting of the Red Sea is dramatic enough in the Hebrew Bible. The Targum Jonathan on (Exodus 14) turns it into something almost mythological, adding details about the Garden of Eden, a magical rod, and the Israelites dividing into four panicking factions on the shore.

The Targum reveals that when the Israelites camped by the sea, they were "gathering pearls and goodly stones, which the river Pishon had carried from the garden of Eden into the Gihon, and the Gihon had carried into the sea of Suph." Eden's treasures had been washing through the world's rivers and accumulating on this very beach. The Hebrew text says nothing about this.

When the Egyptians approached, the Targum says Israel split into four groups. One said to march into the sea. One said to return to Egypt. One said to fight. One said to scream and confuse the enemy. Moses addressed each faction separately with a different response. This four-faction tradition, absent from the biblical text, became one of the most famous midrashic (rabbinic interpretive commentary) additions to the Exodus story.

The rod Moses held was no ordinary staff. The Targum says it was "the great and glorious rod which was created at the beginning," engraved with the Great Name of God, the ten plagues, the three patriarchs, the six matriarchs, and the twelve tribes. This rod was a primordial artifact, created before the world, carrying the entire history of Israel inscribed on its surface.

The sea split into twelve separate paths, one for each tribe. The waters congealed "like a wall, three hundred miles on their right hand and on their left." And God deliberately kept the Egyptians alive in the water long enough to experience their punishment fully, rather than letting them drown quickly. The Targum's God is not just powerful. He is precise.

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Shir HaShirim Rabbah 15:2Shir HaShirim Rabbah

Shir HaShirim Rabbah turns to The Hidden Terror of Slavery Behind the Red Sea Miracle.

The Shir HaShirim Rabbah, a Midrashic (rabbinic interpretive commentary) collection of interpretations on the Song of Songs, offers a chilling glimpse into this darkness. It’s not an easy read, but it's a vital one. It forces us to confront the depths of despair from which freedom was ultimately forged.

Rabbi Tanhuma, quoting Rabbi Yehuda ben Rabbi Simon, asks a powerful question. We read in (Isaiah 43:16) about God making "a way in the sea" and "a path in mighty waters." But, Rabbi Tanhuma asks, is that really the difficult part? No, he answers. The truly difficult feat, the verse continues (Isaiah 43:17), is what God does with the enemy: "Who brings out chariots and horse, an army, and a mighty force." It's not just about the miracle, it's about the justice that follows.

Rabbi Yudan adds a gruesome detail: The Egyptians weren't just defeated, they were hunted down, pursued relentlessly, driven into the very sea that had parted for the Israelites.

But the Midrash doesn't stop there. It dives into the suffering of the Israelite women, painting a heartbreaking picture of their lives under Pharoah. Rabbi Hanan describes how the Egyptians would take Israelite children and hide them in burrows. The Egyptians would then cruelly bring their own children into the Israelite houses, pinch them to make them cry, so that the Israelite babies would cry in response. Then, they would seize the Israelite infants and throw them into the Nile.

"Catch foxes for us, little foxes" (Song of Songs 2:15) is a verse about protecting vineyards, but here it takes on a horrifying new meaning. The Midrash interprets it to mean: "Foxes would catch us." They – the Egyptians – were watching, monitoring, waiting for their chance to throw the Israelite children into the Nile.

How many babies were lost? The text cites (Ezekiel 16:7), "[I rendered you] as numerous [revava] as the plants of the field." Revava, the Midrash tells us, can also mean ten thousand. Ten thousand babies, replaced by God's grace. According to Rabbi Levi, the number was even greater – six hundred thousand, a number he derives from Moses's words in (Numbers 11:21): "Six hundred thousand men on foot is the people in whose midst I am." Each man, Rabbi Levi suggests, may have lost a child to the Nile.

The cruelty was systematic, calculated. The Egyptians even used their own children, bringing them to the Israelite bathhouses to identify pregnant women. They would note the stage of the pregnancy and, once the baby was born, snatch it from its mother's arms and throw it into the river. Again, the verse "Catch foxes for us, little foxes" is invoked, this time emphasizing the "little foxes" – the Egyptian children used as tools of oppression. It wasn't just about killing; it was about psychological warfare, about breaking the spirit of the enslaved. The word used, "eḥezu" (catch), suggests constant surveillance, a relentless pressure.

This Midrash is unsettling. It's meant to be. It’s a stark reminder that freedom isn't just about miraculous escapes. It's about remembering the suffering that came before, about acknowledging the cost of liberation. It forces us to ask: How do we honor the memory of those who suffered? How do we ensure that such atrocities never happen again?

The Exodus story isn't just a historical event; it's a moral imperative. It calls on us to confront injustice, to stand up for the oppressed, and to remember that even in the darkest of times, hope – and ultimately, redemption – are always possible. It is a story we are commanded to tell, and retell, in every generation.

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Tikkunei Zohar 85:22Tikkunei Zohar

It's a blueprint for how we can navigate our own personal "seas," and maybe even find dry land on the other side.

The Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar, a central text of Kabbalah expanding upon the Zohar itself, offers a fascinating insight into this moment. It tells us that Moses, the great leader, "transfers Israel over it that they do not drown in it." This, the Tikkunei Zohar emphasizes, is why the Torah tells us, "And the Children of Israel walked upon dry land, in the midst of the sea..." (Exodus 14:29). But what does it all mean?

The Tikkunei Zohar draws a powerful distinction between the initial Exodus and the final redemption, the ultimate Messianic era. In the first Exodus, salvation came through the physical sea being split, a tangible miracle. But in the final redemption? Ah, that's where things get really interesting. According to the Tikkunei Zohar, the ultimate salvation will come "all in the sea of Torah." for a second. What is the "sea of Torah"? It’s the vast, deep, and sometimes turbulent ocean of Jewish wisdom, law, stories, and traditions. It's a place where we can immerse ourselves, explore, and, yes, sometimes feel a little lost. But it's also where we find the tools to navigate life's challenges.

What about Moses's staff, the instrument he used to split the sea? The Tikkunei Zohar presents a beautiful metaphor: it's the pen! The pen with which we write, with which we study, with which we unlock the secrets of the Torah. Because upon that pen, the Tikkunei Zohar says, is revealed “the arm of Y”Y.”

Now, “Y”Y” is a reference to God's name, specifically the first two letters of the Tetragrammaton, the four-letter name of God. The "arm of Y”Y" signifies divine power and intervention. This is linked to the verse in Isaiah (53:1): "...and the arm of Y”Y upon whom has it been revealed?"

So, what's the connection? The Tikkunei Zohar is suggesting that the power to overcome our own "seas" lies in connecting to the divine through the study and understanding of Torah. The pen, the act of writing and learning, becomes the conduit for divine power to be revealed in our lives.

It's a powerful image, isn’t it? The next time you feel overwhelmed, remember Moses, the sea, and the pen. Remember that the tools to find your own "dry land" might just be found in the depths of the Torah, waiting to be discovered.

What "seas" are you facing right now? And how might you use the wisdom of the Torah to navigate them?

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