Suph
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible [1]
SUPH . A place-name in Deuteronomy 1:1 ‘In the Arabah over against Suph’; AV [Note: Authorized Version.] reads ‘over against the Red Sea,’ in which case it has been assumed that the word for ‘Sea’ had fallen out in the received Hebrew text. Suph means ‘weeds,’ and the ‘Sea of Weeds’ was the Hebrew name of the Red Sea. The AV [Note: Authorized Version.] is almost certainly correct; the expression was so understood also by LXX [Note: Septuagint.] and Vulgate. It is evident that by the ‘Red Sea’ the Gulf of ‘Akabah is meant, as in Numbers 21:4 and elsewhere.
J. F. McCurdy.
Easton's Bible Dictionary [2]
Deuteronomy 1:1 Numbers 21:14 Joshua 15:3 1 Samuel 9:5
Holman Bible Dictionary [3]
Deuteronomy 1:1
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia [4]
sōōf ( סוּף , ṣūph ; πλησίον τῆς ἐρυθρᾶς ( θαλάσσης ), plēsı́on tḗs eruthrás ( thalássēs ); the King James Version Red Sea ): As the verse stands, the place where Moses addressed the children of Israel is indicated as "beyond the Jordan in the wilderness, in the Arabah over against Suph" ( Deuteronomy 1:1 ). the King James Version, following Septuagint, takes the name as a contraction of yām sūph (see Red Sea ). The abbreviation is not found elsewhere. The name of the sea was not derived from that of a city; so we need not look in that direction. Knobel suggested Naḳb eṣ - Ṣafā , a pass about 25 miles West-Southwest of the Dead Sea. But it is "unsuitably situated; nor does the name agree phonetically" (Driver, "Deuteronomy," ICC , 4). No identification is possible.
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature [5]
( סַוּ , a Sea-Weed, (See Flag), Jon. 2, 6) is the characteristic epithet of the Red Sea' (q.v.), which abounds in sedge ( Exodus 10:19, and often). In one passage ( Deuteronomy 1:1) it has been supposed by some to designate a place, but no locality of that name has been discovered, and most interpreters (with the Sept. and Vulg.) understand it there to stand for the Red Sea (by the omission of יִם , Sea ). So in Numbers 21:14, סוּפָה , Suphah (Sept. Ζωόβ ; Vulg. Mare Rubrum), some think a place (perhaps the same) to be indicated, but others with better reason render, the word as an appellative, storm, i.e. violence (as in Job 21:18, and elsewhere).
