Pi-hahiroth

Pi-hahiroth is a location named in Exodus 14:2 and 14:9 and in Numbers 33:7-8 as the site of Israel's final encampment before the crossing of the sea. The text places the camp "between Migdol and the sea, opposite Baal-Zephon", and Numbers 33 records the Israelites departing from it and passing through the midst of the sea. The name is not attested outside Scripture, and no site has been identified with it.

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Location and Debate

Because Pi-hahiroth is fixed in the text only by its relation to two other places, its position depends entirely on where those are located, and the proposed Exodus routes disagree. A northern reading places the encampment on the Mediterranean coast of the Sinai Peninsula, following the identification of Baal-Zephon with Ras Qasrun near Lake Sirbonis; on that reading Pi-hahiroth lies near the coastal lagoon system east of the delta. A southern reading places it near the northern end of the Gulf of Suez, and the route reconstructions that follow the Gulf of Suez tradition treat it as the departure point for the march into the Sinai interior.

Both readings are held by scholars working within a historical Exodus, and this entity does not choose between them. The disagreement is not about Pi-hahiroth itself, for which there is no independent evidence, but about the crossing point and the route that follows from it.