Pihahiroth
Pi-hahi'roth (Heb. Pi-hachiroth', פַּי הִחֹירֹת, understood by some to be of Hebrew etymology, and rendered mouth of the gorges; Sept. ἡ ἔπαυλις, τὸ στόμα Εἰρώθ, Εἰρώθ; Vulg. Phihihiroth), a place before or at which the Israelites encamped, at the close of the third march from Rameses, when they went out of Egypt. Pi-hahiroth was before Migdol, and on either hand were Baal-zephon and the sea (Ex 14:2,9; Nu 33:7-8). The name is probably that of a natural locality, from the unlikelihood that there should have been a town or village in both parts of the country where it is placed in addition to Migdol and Baal-zephon, which seem to have been, if not towns, at least military stations, and its name is susceptible of an Egyptian etymology giving a sense apposite to this idea. The first part of the word is apparently treated by its punctuation as a separate prefix (Nu 33:8), and it would therefore appear to be the masculine definite article Pe, Pa, or Pi. Jablonsky proposed the Coptic pi-Achirot, "the place where sedge grows," and this, or a similar name, the late M. Fulgence Fresnel recognised in the modern Ghuweybet el-bus, "the bed of reeds," near Ras Atakah. There is another Ghuweybet el-bus near Suez, and such a name would of course depend for its permanence upon the continuance of a vegetation subject to change. Migdol appears to have been a common name for a frontier watch-tower. SEE MIGDOT. Baal- zephon we take to have had a similar meaning to that of Migdol. SEE BAAL-ZEPHON. We should expect, therefore, that the encampment would have been in a depression, partly marshy, havilig on either hand an elevation marked by a watch-tower (Smith). It is evident that so vague a circumstance as the presence of reeds, which are common in any moist place near Suez, cannot serve to determine the locality. This must be fixed by the more definite notices of the narrative, which appear to us to point to the opening of the plain el-Bfedeah, between Jebel Atakah and Jebel Abu- Deraj. SEE EXODE; SEE RED SEA, CROSSING OF.
