Claude.ai provided the response below. The LXX translators in Exodus translated Yam Suf as Red Sea but in 1 Kings they translated the Hebrew as roughly “on the shore of the farthest sea,” not “Red Sea.” probably reflecting a geographical sense of the Gulf of Aqaba where Ezion-geber and Eloth were. See also the post at this site about the alternate spellings of Yam Suf.
Prompt – In 1 Kings 9:26 it says “And King Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion-geber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom.” what is the Hebrew words used for the Red Sea and compare that to the usage in the LXX?
Hebrew (MT)
The phrase is יַם־סוּף (yam-sûp), which the ASV renders “the Red Sea” in 1 Kings 9:26. Literally it means “Sea of Sûp.” The word sûp is usually connected to Egyptian ṯwf(y), “papyrus/reeds,” and to the Hebrew sûp in Exod 2:3, 5 and Isa 19:6, where it means reeds or rushes. That is why many scholars prefer “Sea of Reeds” (see Batto, “The Reed Sea: Requiescat in Pace,” JBL 102 [1983]). Here the term clearly refers to the Gulf of Aqaba, since Ezion-geber and Eloth sit at its head. This is one of the places showing that yam-sûp is not limited to the Gulf of Suez or to the Exodus crossing.
The LXX
Here I’m relying on memory of the critical text, so check it against Rahlfs or the Göttingen edition. In the standard Greek text of 3 Reigns (= 1 Kings) 9:26, I recall the phrase as ἐπὶ τοῦ χείλους τῆς ἐσχάτης θαλάσσης, “on the shore of the farthest/last sea.” The place names are also transliterated differently: Γασιων Γαβερ (Ezion-geber) and Αιλαθ (Eloth).
If that reading is right, the translator did not use the usual rendering. Elsewhere the LXX consistently renders yam-sûp as ἡ ἐρυθρὰ θάλασσα (“the Red Sea”), for example in:
- Exod 13:18; 15:4, 22
- Num 33:10-11
- Deut 11:4
- Josh 2:10
- Ps 106:7, 9, 22 (LXX 105)
This is the source of the English “Red Sea” tradition. The New Testament follows it in Acts 7:36 and Heb 11:29.
Possible explanations for ἐσχάτης
- A pun on sôp (“end”). The consonants סוף can also be read as sôp, “end.” The translator may have read the phrase as “the sea of the end,” meaning the far southern sea at the edge of the known world.
- Textual variation. Some Greek manuscripts and later recensions read ἐρυθρᾶς here, which looks like harmonization toward the standard rendering. The reading ἐσχάτης may therefore be the older one, with ἐρυθρᾶς a later correction.
- Geographic perspective. For a Greek-speaking Egyptian audience, the Gulf of Aqaba was a remote extremity, which fits “farthest sea.”
Takeaway
The Hebrew is the same yam-sûp as in the Exodus narratives. The LXX translators handled it inconsistently: ἐρυθρά is the default, but this verse appears to preserve a different interpretation. I’d confirm the exact wording and manuscript attestation in the apparatus of the Göttingen Septuaginta or Brooke–McLean before building an argument on it.
