GREAT SEA (הַיָּמ׃֙ הַגָּדֹ֔ל). A Biblical name for the sea that lies between the European and African continents; better known as the Mediterranean Sea.

It was sometimes called simply “the sea” by the Hebrews (Num 13:29; Josh 16:8; Jonah 1:4). It was referred to most often as “the Great Sea” (Num 34:7; Josh 9:1; Ezek 47:15) because of its size. It was also called the “western sea” (Deut 11:24; 34:2; Joel 2:20; Zech 14:8; “hinder,” “utmost,” or “uttermost,” KJV), because of its location in relation to the land of the Hebrews. Once it is called “sea, to Joppa,” RSV; “sea of Joppa,” KJV (Ezra 3:7), and once “sea of the Philistines” (Exod 23:31). In the NT the general term “seaside” (θάλασσα, G2498) is found (Acts 10:6, 32).

The Mediterranean is 2,196 m. in length from Gibraltar to the Lebanon coast and varies in width from c. 600 m. to 100 m. with a maximum depth of c. 2.7 m. It is the main existing fragment of a great ocean called by geologists Tethys that existed at least from the late Carboniferous period to early Tertiary times. Because it is largely an enclosed sea, its saline content is abnormally high. Its divisions include the Aegean, Ionian, Adriatic, Tyrrhenian, and Ligurian seas. Only a narrow strip along the Palestinian coast receives any appreciable amount of rainfall, and the rapid transition to arid desert country is quite pronounced in the E and on the S.

Many great Mediterranean civilizations of ancient times were maritime powers (Egyptians, Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans) but seafaring and sea-trading played almost no part at all in Israel’s history and economy. In spite of the long coastline, the sea exerted only a marginal influence on Israel. This fact may best be explained by the absence of good harbors along the Palestinian coastline. There have been a few harbors of relative importance along the coast, e.g., Ashkelon, Dor, Joppa, and Acco, but a large part of the shoreline, particularly in the S, is backed by a strip of shifting sand, sometimes several m. in width, that blocks the approach to the shore. By contrast, the coastline of Syria played an important part in the development of that area, for there are many excellent natural harbors along the Syro-Phoenician coast. Therefore, maritime trade was highly developed there even in the most ancient periods. Byblos was a noted maritime power in the third and second millennia and Canaanite Tyre and Sidon during the early centuries of the first millennium b.c.

Solomon built a fleet of ships at Eziongeber on the Red Sea and operated it with the assistance of the Phoenicians (1 Kings 9:26, 27). Jehoshaphat’s fleet was wrecked at Eziongeber (22:48). However, the Hebrews never did undertake a similar venture on the Mediterranean.

The cosmic sources of water that were conceived in mythological imagery to be dragons are absent in the Genesis account of Creation, so little was the influence of the sea on the Hebrews. Though tehom (deep) (Gen 1:2) may be related etymologically with tiamat (dragon), there is no direct derivation or association implied. Several scriptures make it clear that the Hebrews believed that God had absolute power over the seas (Ps 89:9; Isa 23:11; Jonah 1:4, 9).

In the early Christian era, the Mediterranean world was ruled by Rome. Her supremacy in the W was established by the defeat of Hannibal of Carthage in the battle of Zama in 202 b.c. In the E, conquest by Pompey in 63 b.c. made the Mediterranean (as the Romans liked to call it) “Our Sea.” Under the rule of Augustus (d. a.d. 14) and his successors, the Mediterranean world experienced for two centuries the Pax Romana, a period of peace which it had never had before or has enjoyed since.

Bibliography W. F. Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel (1942), 148, 149; J Finegan, Light from the Ancient Past (1946), 209, 210; H. G. Wells, The Outline of History (1949), see Index; T. Herdman, “Mediterranean Sea,” EBr, XV (1957), 209; M. Noth, The History of Israel (1960), 13; Y. Aharoni, The Land of the Bible (1967), 9, 16.