Mediterranean Sea

The water that bounds the Promised Land on the west is named in scripture chiefly as "the great sea" — and, by direction or by neighbor, as "the hinder sea," "the western sea," "the sea of the Philistines," or simply "the sea." It is the named western limit of the land-grant from Moses through Joshua to Ezekiel; the highway of cedar-floats from Lebanon to Joppa; the deep over which the navy of Tarshish sailed for Solomon; the route Jonah took to flee Yahweh; and the comparative standard for the abundance of fish.

The Many Names of the Sea

Several Hebrew names converge on the same body of water. Where the western limit of Canaan is being marked, it is "the great sea": the western border that Moses assigns the congregation is "the great sea and the neighboring area" (Num 34:6), and the same land's northern border is reckoned "from the great sea" to mount Hor (Num 34:7). Joshua repeats the formula — "to the great sea toward the going down of the sun, will be your⁺ border" (Jos 1:4); Judah's western coast-line is "to the great sea, and the border [of it]" (Jos 15:12); and Joshua's allotment-speech closes the gift "from the Jordan... even to the great sea toward the going down of the sun" (Jos 23:4).

Where the perspective is the Philistine coastland directly inland, the same water is "the sea of the Philistines": "I will set your border from the Red Sea even to the sea of the Philistines" (Exod 23:31). Where the directional axis is east-versus-west, it becomes "the hinder sea" or "the western sea": "from the river, the river Euphrates, even to the hinder sea, will be your⁺ border" (Deut 11:24); "half of them toward the eastern sea, and half of them toward the western sea" (Zec 14:8); the locust-army's "hinder part into the western sea" (Joel 2:20). Where the port is in view, the water is "the sea, to Joppa" (Ezr 3:7).

The Western Border of the Land

The dominant function of the great sea in the land-grant texts is geographic — it is the named end of the land on the sundown side. Moses' assignment opens with "you⁺ will have the great sea and the neighboring area: this will be your⁺ west border" (Num 34:6), and the corresponding north border begins "from the great sea" running inland to mount Hor (Num 34:7). The conquest-narratives carry the same border forward. Joshua's commission stretches the territory "from the wilderness, and this Lebanon, even to the great river, the river Euphrates... and to the great sea toward the going down of the sun" (Jos 1:4). The hostile coalition is itself defined by its proximity to the same coast: the kings "on all the shore of the great sea in front of Lebanon, the Hittite, and the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite" (Jos 9:1) heard of the conquest and assembled.

Within the tribal allotments, the great sea closes the western circuit. Judah's "west border was to the great sea, and the border [of it]" (Jos 15:12), and the Judahite Philistine-coast district — "Ashdod, its towns and its villages; Gaza, its towns and its villages; to the brook of Egypt, and the great sea" (Jos 15:47) — terminates at the same water. Asher's territory on the northern coast runs from "the fortified city of Tyre" until "the goings out of it were at the sea" (Jos 19:29), and the southern Danite line "across from Joppa" (Jos 19:46) marks the central sea-coast. Joshua's farewell repeats the western-edge formula: "from the Jordan... even to the great sea toward the going down of the sun" (Jos 23:4).

The Mosaic land-promise outside the conquest narrative is the same: "Every place on which the sole of your⁺ foot will tread will be yours⁺ from the wilderness. And Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even to the hinder sea, will be your⁺ border" (Deut 11:24). The visionary land-grant in Ezekiel restates the western boundary in the same vocabulary: "On the north side, from the great sea, by the way of Hethlon, to the entrance of Zedad" (Eze 47:15); "And the west side will be the great sea, from the border as far as opposite the entrance of Hamath. This is the west side" (Eze 47:20); and Gad's southern frontier closes "from Tamar, the waters of Meribath-kadesh, to the brook [of Egypt], to the great sea" (Eze 48:28).

The Sea as Standard of Abundance

The same Ezekiel vision that fixes the great sea as the western border also supplies the only place where the Mediterranean's marine population is measured directly. The temple-river that flows from Jerusalem heals the Dead Sea, and "fishers will stand by it: from En-gedi even to En-eglaim will be a place for the spreading of nets; their fish will be after their kinds, as the fish of the great sea, exceedingly many" (Eze 47:10). The great sea here functions as the comparative scale: the formerly saline Dead Sea, now healed, supports a fishery to be benchmarked against the Mediterranean's known fish-abundance.

Cedar by Sea: The Joppa Route

The closest coastal port for Jerusalem is Joppa, and the great sea's most-named non-border function is the timber-route from Phoenicia. Hiram's offer to Solomon promises wood "in floats by sea to Joppa" (2Ch 2:16), and the second-temple builders repeat the arrangement under Cyrus: "to those of Sidon, and to those of Tyre, to bring cedar-trees from Lebanon to the sea, to Joppa" (Ezr 3:7). When Simon Maccabeus secures the coast, he "took Joppa for a harbor, and made an entrance to the islands of the sea" (1Ma 14:5), and "fortified Joppa, which lies by the sea" (1Ma 14:34). The coast of Tyre is itself bounded out at the sea (Jos 19:29), and the prophet's burden against Tyre is sounded to the same Mediterranean traffic: "Howl, you⁺ ships of Tarshish; for it is laid waste, so that there is no house, no access: from the land of Kittim it is revealed to them" (Isa 23:1).

The Tarshish Trade

Across the great sea westward lies Tarshish — named consistently as the long-voyage destination. The Solomonic fleet ran "a navy of Tarshish with the navy of Hiram: once every three years the navy of Tarshish came, bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks" (1Ki 10:22; the Chronicler restates it at 2Ch 9:21). When Jehoshaphat later "joined himself with him to make ships to go to Tarshish" — built at Ezion-geber on the Red Sea rather than the Mediterranean — they did not sail (2Ch 20:36; 1Ki 22:48). Hiram's Tyrian seamen — "shipmen who had knowledge of the sea" (1Ki 9:27) — and Huram's "slaves who had knowledge of the sea" (2Ch 8:18) crew these long-voyage ventures.

The Tarshish-trade horizon also surfaces in poetic and prophetic registers. The royal psalm enrolls "The kings of Tarshish and of the isles" as one of the four tribute-corners owed to the king (Psa 72:10). The coming day-of-Yahweh sweep includes "all the ships of Tarshish, and... all pleasant imagery" (Isa 2:16) among the high-and-proud objects to be brought low. The new-song prophecy reverses the tribute-flow: "Surely the isles will wait for my [Speech], and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring your sons from far, their silver and their gold with them" (Isa 60:9). Jeremiah names Tarshish as the metal-source for idol-construction — "silver beaten into plates, which is brought from Tarshish" (Jer 10:9). Ezekiel's lament over Tyre catalogs the Mediterranean trade-network: "Tarshish was your merchant by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded for your wares" (Eze 27:12), and the Gog-oracle adds "the merchants of Tarshish, with all its young lions" to the trader-coalition addressing the invader (Eze 38:13).

Ships and Mariners

The maritime workforce on this sea is its own scriptural class. The pilots of Tyre stand at the head: "all who handle the oar, the mariners, [and] all the pilots of the sea, will come down from their ships; they will stand on the land" (Eze 27:29). The psalmist names a class of seafarers — "Those who go down to the sea in ships, Who do business in great waters" (Psa 107:23) — who witness Yahweh's wonders in the deep. The new-song prophecy summons the same constituency: "you⁺ who go down to the sea, and all that is in it, the isles, and its inhabitants" (Isa 42:10). Balaam's oracle anticipates a coastward power: "Those who go out from the coast of Kittim... will afflict Asshur, and will afflict Eber" (Num 24:24).

By the Hellenistic period, the sea is contested by armed fleets. Egypt enters Maccabean territory "with chariots and elephants, and horsemen, and a great number of ships" (1Ma 1:17); the king of Egypt later "gathered together an army, like the sand that lies on the seashore, and many ships" (1Ma 11:1). Simon's monument at Modin sets up "by the arms ships carved, which might be seen by all who sailed on the sea" (1Ma 13:29). Antiochus' messenger reports a fleet built up by his father: "I have chosen a great army, and have built ships of war" (1Ma 15:3); the siege of Dor pushes from both sides — "the ships drew near by sea: and they pressed the city by land and by sea" (1Ma 15:14); Tryphon escapes "by ship to Orthosia" (1Ma 15:37).

Jonah's Sea

The most concentrated Mediterranean sea-narrative is Jonah's flight. Commissioned eastward to Nineveh, the prophet "rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of Yahweh; and he went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish" (Jon 1:3) — boarding at the same Joppa harbor that served the cedar-route, bound for the same far-western destination of the Solomonic navy. The sea itself becomes the instrument of his pursuit: "Yahweh sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship was likely to be broken" (Jon 1:4).

The sailors are the ordinary professional class of this sea: "Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man to his god; and they cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it to them" (Jon 1:5). Jonah's confession identifies the sea's owner: "I am a Hebrew; and I fear Yahweh, the God of heaven, who has made the sea and the dry land" (Jon 1:9). The crew's question — "What shall we do to you, that the sea may be calm to us? For the sea grew more and more tempestuous" (Jon 1:11) — receives Jonah's answer: "Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so the sea will be calm to you⁺: for I know that for my sake this great tempest is on you⁺" (Jon 1:12). Their attempt to row back fails — "the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them" (Jon 1:13) — until they cast him out and "the sea ceased from its raging" (Jon 1:15). Yahweh then "prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah" (Jon 1:17).

The prayer from inside the fish describes the sea from below — and uses the same depth-vocabulary scripture elsewhere applies to the great sea's deeps: "you had cast me into the depth, in the heart of the seas, And the flood was round about me; All your waves and your billows passed over me" (Jon 2:3); "The waters surrounded me, even to the soul; The deep was round about me; The weeds were wrapped about my head" (Jon 2:5); "I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; The earth with its bars [closed] on me forever: Yet you have brought up my life from the pit, O Yahweh my God" (Jon 2:6). The sea that is the western border of the land in the Pentateuch is, in Jonah, the means by which Yahweh overtakes a westward-fleeing prophet — and from which Yahweh recovers him.