
Less than one hundred and fifty years later, in 1695, Abraham Bar Yaakov, a Protestant priest from Germany who converted to Judaism and worked as an engraver in Amsterdam, created the map for the Amsterdam Haggadah. This is, in fact, not only a map of the Exodus, but a map of the entire Promised Land, of which only the right half is dedicated to the Exodus. The route of the exodus includes a number of small illustrations including the falling of the manna, Mount Sinai and the revelation, and the altar with the twelve precious stones east of Jericho. There is also a key listing the places where the Israelites stopped along the way.
In creating the map for the Amsterdam Haggadah, Abraham Bar Yaakkov was influenced by other contemporary maps made by Christians, and of course his own familiarity with Christianity and knowledge of Latin was useful. There is a striking similarity between his map and the map prepared by Hondius Jansson after the map by Christian van Adrichom from 1633. One can see that the route of the exodus from Egypt, the small illustrations, and even the storm tossed ship tossed on the sea and the figure of Jonah being thrown from it, all derive from that map.
However, Bar Yaakov also introduced important changes in his map. In the lower right corner is the figure of a nude woman on a crocodile, which in the Middle Ages and early modern period symbolized the continent of Africa. In medieval literature, the crocodile was used to symbolize Egypt. Bar Yaakov converted other Christian symbols into Jewish ones on his map: he changed the fleet of ships into the barges of King Hiram transporting the cedars of Lebanon for the building of the Temple, and at the lower left, the promised land is represented as the Land of Milk and Honey, with a herd of cows and next to it the Hebrew word for “milk” and beehives with the Hebrew word for “honey.”. The eagle nearby is accompanied by the verse “You have seen what I have done to Egypt and I will carry you on the wings of Eagles and bring you to me,” stressing the map’s main motif of the exodus from Egypt.