>there's a footnote at the beginning
>of Exodus 13:17 ("the departure
>of the Israelites) which reads:
>
>
>"the route taken by the exodus
>and the precise stages of
>the jouney are extremely difficult
>to determine. v. 17 notwithstanding*
>a certain number of names
>tend to indicate a northern
>route, that is to say,
>through 'the Philistines' territory' (which
>term, however, is an anachronism).
> there would seem to
>be traces of two literary
>traditions here, preserving the memory
>of two historic facts, the
>duplicate itineraries corresponding to the
>exodus of two distinct groups"
>
>
>
>*Exodus 13:17 reads: "When Pharaoh had
>let the people go, God
>did not let them take
>the road to the Philistines'
>territory, although that was the
>shortest 'in case', God thought,
>'the prospect of fighting makes
>the people a roundabout way
>through the desert of the
>Sea of Reeds."

Actually in my tanach, exodus 13: 14-17 states:

"And YHWH said unto Abraham after Lot(his brother) was separated from him, lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, Northward and Southward and eastward and westward, for all teh land which thou seeth to thee I will give it and to thy seeds forever. And I will make thy seeds as thy dust of the earth, so that if a man can number the dust of the earth then shall thy seeds also be numbered, arrive walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it for unto thee I will give it."

^this is what the tanach says about exodus 13: 14-17 so perhaps you got the verses mistaken with something else..

as well the sea that Moses parted was - the Red Sea-that begins in exodus 14 Exodus 15:4 talks about the Red Sea...and this is actualy stated in the hebrew as Edom eretz mayem...meaning red land water...interestingly enough this is southeast of egypt...