Tattoo on my left thigh:
ים סוף
(The day I thought I would die, I was born again!)
Yam Sof
The Hebrew term Yam Sof has a double meaning and means 'sea of (the) end', respectively 'Red Sea' (more literally 'sea of reeds') if you vocalise it Yam Suf. Yam Sof, 'Sea of (the) End' symbolises the most brutal event of my life, as well as the most beautiful start of my existence. But before explaining the personal meaning of Yam Sof, here is the history and the meanings of the Hebrew term in a few sentences.
About one and a half millennia BC, Moses delivered the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt and brought them into the desert to a place called Yam Sof, the 'Sea of the End'. However, when Pharaoh saw all the slaves and their families leave, he regretted his decision and pursued Moses and his army to catch up with them at Yam Sof. So the people of Israel were at an impasse, with the sea in front of them and an army at their back. This was the end. It is important to know that at the time when the biblical text was written, Hebrew did not have vowels. It was simply written with consonants, and without spaces between words. Yam Sof, at this time, was written as YMSF (יםסף)*. This is like writing 'meat' with 'MT'. Now, 'MT' could also mean 'mat' (a pad) or 'meet' (to encounter), 'mate' (a buddy) or 'moat' (a trench). Can you see the problem? So in the eighth century BC, some consonants began to be used as vowels at the end of words. In the fourth century BC, consonants were also used as vowels in the middle of words. In our example, the consonant waw, besides being used as a consonant, could also represent two different vowels, namely 'o' or 'u'. At the age of Jesus, a time when a Jew in Israel spoke Aramaic and no longer knew Hebrew, Yam Sof could therefore be read as either 'Sea of Reeds' (if vowelled Yam Suf) or 'Sea of (the) end' (if read Yam Sof). This problem led Hebrew scholars to invent a system of vowels consisting of small dots and lines below, inside and above the Hebrew consonants, to vocalise the biblical text in Hebrew so that a reader could read the text faithfully to the oral tradition, without the need to add letters to the texts considered sacred. These scholars, called the Massorets, therefore found themselves faced with the difficulty of vocalising either Yam Sof (sea of the end) or Yam Suf (Red Sea). The biblical text in question had a double meaning which I believe was intended.
While everything in the text points to the ‘end’ (because the people were going to die), there is no hint of ‘reeds’ or any geographical indication whatsoever. The Massorets were Hebraists who knew the Hebrew Bible by heart. Their intention was to make the sacred texts comprehensible to Hebrew speakers who did not know them by heart. By writing a dot inside the Hebrew letter waw rather than above it, the Massorets chose to clarify what was obscure. In this way, they ensured that a person capable of reading Hebrew would grasp both dimensions (the one linked to fate (the end) and the one linked to geography (the reeds)). The translators of our French Bibles follow the Massorets here. They translate Yam Sof literally, i.e. as either ‘sea of reeds’ or ‘Red Sea’. From a linguistic point of view, this may be correct, but from a translational point of view it is wrong, because in so doing our Bibles obscure what is clear.
While everything in the text points to the ‘end’ (because the people were going to die), there is no hint of ‘reeds’ or any geographical indication whatsoever. The Massorets were Hebraists who knew the Hebrew Bible by heart. Their intention was to make the sacred texts comprehensible to Hebrew speakers who did not know them by heart. By writing a dot inside the Hebrew letter waw rather than above it, the Massorets chose to clarify what was obscure. In this way, they ensured that a person capable of reading Hebrew would grasp both dimensions (the one linked to fate (the end) and the one linked to geography (the reeds)). The translators of our French Bibles follow the Massorets here. They translate Yam Sof literally, i.e. as either ‘sea of reeds’ or ‘Red Sea’. From a linguistic point of view, this may be correct, but from a translational point of view it is wrong, because in so doing our Bibles obscure what is clear.
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Yam Souf with Massoretic vowels:
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יַם־סוּף
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That said, in both classical and modern Hebrew (which is normally written without Massoretic vowels) the most common meaning of סוף is still ‘end’. When reading it, no Hebrew speaker is going to think of ‘reeds’, unless the context suggests it.
So what happened on the day the Jewish people were to die? Moses cried out to God, who commanded him to raise the rod over the sea and part it. The story in Exodus 14 and 15 tells us that the sea opened up and the people of Israel were able to walk through the water as if on a road. When Pharaoh finally began to pursue the Hebrews across the road in the middle of the sea, Moses raised his staff again and the water covered the Egyptian army. For the Hebrews, the only thing that really ended was slavery. Thus began the journey to the Promised Land.
Personally, when I left my wife, finally drew a line under the evangelical movement and lost the support of my closest confidants, I wrote this term Yam Sof (without Masoretic vowels) in Hebrew on my two computers in the top right-hand corner.
ים סוף
I'll never get out of here alive without God!
A year later, when I was not only still alive but starting to live for the first time, I got it tattooed on my left thigh (in September 2022). So the sea of the end has become the beginning of a new life, the starting point for the promised land.
(In this photo, half of the tattoo is hidden)
*In Moses' time, Hebrew used a different script called “Palaeo-Hebrew”. The alphabet that we consider Hebrew today is actually of Phoenician origin.
By Chris Zürcher. Page updated on 10 July 2026
