How the Red Sea Parts: Seeing the Sources of Exodus 14

It’s easy to tell J from P in Richard Elliott Friedman’s The Bible with Sources Revealed (HarperSanFrancisco). That’s because they appear in different colors. In the passage below, based on Friedman’s book, J appears in green, E in red and P in blue. The color-coding makes it easy to read each source individually, from start to finish. As Friedman notes in the accompanying article, each source makes perfectly good sense when read alone.

¹And YHWH spoke to Moses, saying, ²”Speak to the children of Israel that they should go back and camp in front of Pi-Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, in front of Baal-Zephon. You shall camp facing it, by the sea. ³And Pharaoh will say about the children of Israel: ‘They’re muddled in the land! The wilderness has closed them in.’ ⁴And I’ll strengthen Pharaoh’s heart, and he’ll pursue them, and I’ll be glorified against Pharaoh and against all of his army, and Egypt will know that I am YHWH.” And they did so.