In Ex 2:3,5; Isa 19:6, it is the rendering of the Hebrew suph, a word which occurs frequently in connection with yam; as yam suph, to denote the "Red Sea" (q.v.) or the sea of weeds (as this word is rendered, Jonah 2:5). It denotes some kind of sedge or reed which grows in marshy places. (See Paper, Reed.)
Ex 2:3. Cuwph Hebrew, the Egyptian tufi or sufi. An undesigned coincidence that so many Egyptian words should occur in Exodus, just what we should expect if it be, as it professes, Moses' record; but no Hebrew reared in Palestine long after the Exodus would have had the knowledge of the Egyptian tongue which the many plainly Hebraized Egyptian words in Exodus indicate that its author possessed; nor would the author have used these words with out explanation of their meaning, had he not known that his readers were equally familiar with them. This flag is a species of papyrus, distinct from and less than that commonly used in Egypt to construct light boats, namely, the "Bulrush papyrus (from whence comes our paper), of which Moses' ark was made. (See BULRUSH.)
The cuwph or "secondary papyrus" is again used in the case of Egypt, Isa 19:6. Also "the Red Sea," the sea of suph (Ex 10:19). Gesenius explains "seaweed" or "rush"; a seaweed like wool is thrown in quantities on its shores. Jon 2:5-6 uses it of "the seaweeds wrapped about his head," for He was not swallowed by the fish at once, but sank to the bottom, where the seaweed was his grave-napkin; thence the fish swallowed him. Another Hebrew word, 'achu, is translated "flag", Job 8:11; in Ge 41:2 "a meadow." Jerome on Isa 19:7 says the Egyptians told him it meant "everything green growing in marshes"; the sedge, rank reed grass by the river's side. An Egyptian word, akh-akh, "green," occurs in a very old papyrus.
1. achu, a soft reed that can only grow in moist ground: it is eaten by cattle. Job 8:11.
There are two Hebrew words rendered "flag" in our Bible:
1. A word of Egyptian origin, and denoting "any green and course herbage, such as rushes and reeds, which grows in marshy places."
(here translated meadow). It is perhaps the Cyperus esculentus.
2. A word which appears to be used in a very wide sense to denote "weeds of any kind."
FLAG, ???, occurs Ge 41:2,18; Job 8:11; and ????, weeds, Ex 2:3,5; Isa 19:6; Joh 2:5. The word achu in the first two instances is translated "meadows," and in the latter, "flag." It probably denotes the sedge, or long grass, which grows in the meadows of the Nile, very grateful to the cattle. It is retained in the Septuagint in Genesis, ?? ?? ????; and is used by the son of Sirach, Ecclesiasticus 40:16, ??? and ????; for the copies vary.
We have no radix, says the learned Chapelow, "for ???, unless we derive it, as Schultens does, from the Arabic achi, 'to bind or join together.'" Thus, Parkhurst defines it "a species of plant, sedge, or reed, so called from its fitness for making ropes, or the like, to connect or join things together; as the Latin juncus, a 'bulrush,' a jungendo, from 'joining,' for the same reason;" and he supposes that it is the plant, or reed, growing near the Nile, which Hasselquist describes as having numerous narrow leaves, and growing about eleven feet high, of the leaves of which the Egyptians make ropes.
The word ???? is called by Eben Ezra, "a reed growing on the borders of the river." Bochart, Fuller, Rivetus, Ludolphus, and Junius and Tremellius, render it by juncus, carex, or alga; and Celsius thinks it the fucus or alga, "sea weed." Dr. Geddes says there is little doubt of its being the sedge called sari, which, as we learn from Theophrastus and Pliny, grows on the marshy banks of the Nile, and rises to the height of almost two cubits. This, indeed, agrees very well with Ex 2:3,5, and the thickets of arundinaceous plants, at some small distances from the Red Sea, observed by Dr. Shaw; but the place in Jonah seems to require some submarine plant.