EGYPT, BROOK OF. The SW border of the Promised Land (Num 34:5), of the tribe of Judah (Josh 15:4, 47), of Solomon’s kingdom (1 Kings 8:65; 2 Chron 7:8), and later Judaea (2 Kings 24:7).

The “brook” or watercourse (Heb. naḥal, Arab. wady) of Egypt is prob. the present-day Wady el-’Arish, reaching the Mediterranean at El-’Arish some ninety m. E of the Suez canal and almost fifty m. SW of Gaza. Local geography supports this identification—only scrub and desert W of El-’Arish, but cultivable terrain eastward therefrom, claimed by Judah (cf. Gardiner, JEA, VI [1920], 115; B. Rothenberg et al., God’s Wilderness [1961], 21 end, 32 [plate 9], 57). The Biblical evidence places it westward from Gaza (cf. Josh 15:47) and Kadesh-barnea (cf. Num 34:4, 5). Identical with Heb. naḥal-miṩrayim is Akkad. nahalmuşur mentioned by Sargon II of Assyria in 716 b.c. (ANET, 286; Tadmor, Journal of Cuneiform Studies, XII [1958], 77, 78). He settled people in its “city,” the Arza(ni) or Arsa which Esarhaddon’s texts place on the “brook of Egypt” (ANET, 290), the classical Rhinocorura, and phonetically comparable with modern (El-)’Arish. Hence, the “brook of Egypt” should prob. not be confused with Shihor (q.v.), the old Pelusiac and easternmost arm of the Nile (never a nahal). Further discussion, cf. NBD, 353, 354.