A textual history of deuteronomy 11:4a and its place in traditions of the Reed Sea / crossing

The discovery of the biblical scrolls at Qumran has revolutionized scholars' understanding of the textual history of the Hebrew Bible. Many textual variants that were previously attested only in the ancient translations or relatively late Jewish literary sources are now known to have been present in Hebrew Vorlagen of the Second Temple period. As recent studies have demonstrated, even where an Ur-form of a given text may be plausibly posited, this fact in no way mitigates the importance of understanding the significance of a textual "variant's" (possible) meanings and it impact upon those communities preserving the reading. The present essay addresses one such variant. Specifically, it examines the active and personified nature of the Reed Sea, as reflected in the reading of Deut 11:4 preserved in several post-biblical sources, and addresses the relationship between this textual datum and other biblical and postbiblical traditions of the Reed Sea crossing.