Great Sea

Biblical Text

In the New Korean Revised Version, the Great Sea appears mainly in passages that define the boundaries of the land.

• In Numbers 34:6, God sets the Great Sea as the western boundary of the land of Canaan that Israel is to possess.
• Joshua 1:4 describes the Promised Land as reaching from the wilderness and Lebanon to the river Euphrates, and westward "unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun." The Great Sea also appears as the western boundary in the records of the tribal allotments, as in Joshua 15:12.
• In the temple vision of Ezekiel 47, the water flowing out from the temple brings the dead sea to life, so that its fish become "as the fish of the great sea, exceeding many" (Ezekiel 47:10). The passage then sets the Great Sea as the western boundary of the restored land (Ezekiel 47:15–20).

The same sea is called the "western sea" in Deuteronomy 11:24 (KJV "uttermost sea") and "the sea of the Philistines" in Exodus 23:31. When an "east sea" and a "western sea" appear together, as in Joel 2:20, the east sea is understood to be the Dead Sea (the Salt Sea) and the western sea the Mediterranean.

Background

The Hebrew term is yam haggadol, which literally means "the great sea." The word rendered "western sea" originally means "the sea behind." This expression is explained as arising from the ancient Near Eastern sense of direction, in which east was regarded as the front.

The Philistines held the southern part of the coast, while Phoenician port cities such as Tyre and Sidon occupied the north. Phoenicia was renowned for its maritime trade. Israel, by contrast, is commonly said never to have become a seafaring people, because its coastline had few natural harbors and the coastal plain was long controlled by other peoples.

Biblical narratives set on the sea include the following:

• Solomon received cedars of Lebanon from Hiram king of Tyre; the timber was bound into rafts and carried by sea (1 Kings 5:9).
• Jonah boarded a ship bound for Tarshish at Joppa (Jonah 1:3).

Significance Across Scripture

The name "Great Sea" does not appear in the New Testament, yet the sea remains an important setting there. Paul's missionary journeys, his voyage to Rome, and his shipwreck on the island of Melita (Malta) (Acts 27–28) all took place on the Mediterranean. Port cities such as Joppa and Caesarea also appear frequently in Acts. The sea that the Old Testament mentions as a boundary of the land thus became, in the New Testament, a route by which the gospel spread into the Gentile world.

Interpretive Questions

• Interpreters differ on whether the "great sea" from which the four beasts rise in Daniel 7:2 is the literal Mediterranean or a symbol of chaos and the nations. Some also read the sea symbolically, connecting it with the beast rising out of the sea in Revelation 13:1 or with "and there was no more sea" in Revelation 21:1.
• Views also differ on how to understand the Promised Land bounded on the west by the Great Sea. Dispensationalists often regard it as a promise to be fulfilled literally for Israel in the future, while covenant theology tends to read it as a promise fulfilled in Christ.
• The New Korean Revised Version renders the term "Great Sea," but some modern translations render it "Mediterranean Sea" to make it clearer to readers.