Naḥal Mitsrayim (Biblical border)

The Brook of Egypt (Hebrew: נַחַל מִצְרַיִם, romanized: naḥal mitzrayim, lit. 'wadi of Egypt') is a wadi identified in the Hebrew Bible as forming the southernmost border of the Land of Israel. A number of scholars have identified it with Wadi al-Arish, an ephemeral river flowing into the Mediterranean sea near the Egyptian city of Arish, while Israeli archaeologist Nadav Na'aman believes that the landform referenced in the Bible is the Besor Stream, just to the south of Gaza. Finally, another traditional Jewish interpretation is that the term refers to the Nile – a view that appears in ancient translations of the Jewish Bible, as preserved in the Neophiti and Vatican manuscripts. A related phrase is nahar mitzrayim ('river of Egypt'), used in Genesis 15:18.