Stream of Egypt

The Stream of Egypt (Hebrew: nachal Mitsraim; also "the river of Egypt" or "brook of Egypt") is the Wady el-'Arish, a broad but usually dry desert wadi running northeast across the Sinai Peninsula to the Mediterranean coast, approximately fifty miles southwest of Gaza. It formed the recognized natural boundary between Canaan and Egypt (Num. 34:5; Josh. 15:4; 1 Kings 8:65) and marked the southwestern limit of the promised land in the covenant with Abraham (Gen. 15:18, where the "river" may refer to the Nile or to this wadi).

Isaiah uses the image in a promise of ingathering: "In that day the LORD will thresh from the flowing Euphrates to the Wadi of Egypt" (Isa. 27:12), with the two great rivers defining the full extent of the dispersed people's return. The distinction between this wadi and the Nile is important for geographic precision in the boundary descriptions of Numbers and Joshua.