Wadi of Egypt

This phrase is used by the NIV & NRS to translate nachal mitzrayim, a Hebrew expression found 7x in the OT; most other translations use "Brook of Egypt."

"Nachal" in Hebrew refers to a wadi, a dry river bed or ravine that becomes a raging torrent during the rainy season. Most scholars identify "the Wadi of Egypt" with the Wadi el-Arish that drains into the Mediterranean Sea about 80km south of the present-day Egypt-Gaza border. In ancient times it seemed to have served as the boundary between Egypt and Canaan. Another school identifies it with the Shihor, the eastern-most (Pelusaic) branch of the Nile in the Delta. Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen concludes, "The subject is not closed, but Wadi el-'Arish is more likely to be the 'River (Wadi) of Egypt than is the E Nile on present evidence" (Illustrated Bible Dictionary, 1:431). Whichever view is taken, the expression cannot have referred to the main River Nile itself; it has never been a nachal.

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Nachal mitzrayim, the "Wadi of Egypt," is mentioned in Jos 15:4, 47; 1 Ki 8:65; 2 Ki 24:7; 2 Chron 7:8 & Isa 27:12. Both NIV and NRS use the expression on two other occasions, Eze 47:19 & 48:28, to translate "the wadi to the Great Sea (i.e., Mediterranean)." Though the identification is probably correct, the translation can be misleading.