Exodus 14. Crossing the Red Sea

Crossing the Red Sea

Then the Lord said to Moses, ² “Tell the people of Israel to turn back and encamp in front of Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, in front of Baal-zephon; you shall encamp facing it, by the sea. ³ For Pharaoh will say of the people of Israel, ‘They are wandering in the land; the wilderness has shut them in.’ ⁴ And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.” And they did so.

• God sets the stage for the final showdown with Pharaoh – He will make it look like the Israelites are confused and lost, and put them in position by the Red Sea
• “Red Sea” is not the literal Hebrew name used in Exodus. The Hebrew is יַם־סוּף (Yam Suf), “Sea of Reeds.” Greek made it Eρυθρὰ Θάλασσα Erythra Thalassa “Red Sea”
  • Exodus 2:3 says Moses’ mother placed his basket: “among the reeds by the river bank.”
  • Bible project says “Some scholars think it became the “red” sea because each of the cardinal directions (north, south, east, and west) was associated with a color (Black Sea is north, Red Sea is south, etc.)” from https://bibleproject.com/classroom/exodus-overview-carmen-imes/sessions/11

⁵ When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, the mind of Pharaoh and his servants was changed toward the people, and they said, “What is this we have done, that we have let Israel go from serving us?” 

• Does he have amnesia?

⁶ So he made ready his chariot and took his army with him, ⁷ and took six hundred chosen chariots and all the other chariots of Egypt with officers over all of them. ⁸ And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he pursued the people of Israel while the people of Israel were going out defiantly. ⁹ The Egyptians pursued them, all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and his horsemen and his army, and overtook them encamped at the sea, by Pi-hahiroth, in front of Baal-zephon.

¹⁰ When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they feared greatly. And the people of Israel cried out to the Lord.

• We aren’t told how many Egyptians came after the Israelites but we can guess it was thousands if not tens of thousands.

 ¹¹ They said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? ¹² Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.” 

• Here we see the beginnings of Israel’s tug-of-war with their faith in God’s plans. They are only a few days out of 430 years of slavery, and they’re already asking to go back.

¹³ And Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. ¹⁴ The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”

The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”

Exodus 14:14

¹⁵ The Lord said to Moses, “Why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward. 

“There is a time for praying, but there is also a time for holy activity. Prayer is adapted for almost every season, yet not prayer alone, for there comes, every now and then, a time when even prayer must take a secondary place.” -Charles Spurgeon

Spurgeon, Charles Haddon The New Park Street Pulpit, Volumes 1-6 and The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volumes 7-63 (Pasadena, Texas: Pilgrim Publications, 1990)

¹⁶ Lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the people of Israel may go through the sea on dry ground. ¹⁷ And I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they shall go in after them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, his chariots, and his horsemen. ¹⁸ And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I have gotten glory over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen.”

¹⁹ Then the angel of God who was going before the host of Israel moved and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them, ²⁰ coming between the host of Egypt and the host of Israel. And there was the cloud and the darkness. And it lit up the night without one coming near the other all night.

• Before, the pillar led Israel, but now it stands between them and Egypt.
• It seems that the pillar had two sides, with one side (of fire) giving light to Israel.

²¹ Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. 

• See my post on Exodus 10 for commentary on “east wind”

²² And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. ²³ The Egyptians pursued and went in after them into the midst of the sea, all Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots, and his horsemen. 

• In what world did the Egyptians think it was safe to go into the Red Sea
• At this point, everyone is in the Red Sea, but the pillar is protecting Israel from Egypt.

²⁴ And in the morning watch the Lord in the pillar of fire and of cloud looked down on the Egyptian forces and threw the Egyptian forces into a panic, ²⁵ clogging their chariot wheels so that they drove heavily. And the Egyptians said, “Let us flee from before Israel, for the Lord fights for them against the Egyptians.”

• Did they not know that from before ???

²⁶ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen.” ²⁷ So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its normal course when the morning appeared. And as the Egyptians fled into it, the Lord threw the Egyptians into the midst of the sea. 

• Exodus 14:27 “And the LORD threw Egypt into the midst of the sea.” The word used is וַיְנַעֵר (vaynaʿēr) meaning to shake off, throw, hurl. I wonder what that looked like!
• Some have tried to say that this was the northern part tip of the overall Red Sea where there were more reeds and shallow waters, making it walkable. However this doesn’t account for the mass killing of the Egyptians as well as God saying they will walk on completely dry land.

²⁸ The waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen; of all the host of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea, not one of them remained. 

• I wonder how Egypt found out about this, and what they had to do to rebuild.

²⁹ But the people of Israel walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.

³⁰ Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. ³¹ Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.

• I wondered about Egyptian accounts of all of this:
  • The Ipuwer Papyrus, also known as The Admonitions of Ipuwer, is an ancient Egyptian text that describes a time of disaster.
  • Some of its lines include “The river is blood” , “The land is without light” ,“Gold and lapis lazuli are strung on the necks of servant girls”, “No more children… where is the seed of men?”
  • Howeverrrr, Egyptologists caution that there is no connection to the Exodus story. Interestinggg
• What was Egypt like after losing Pharaoh and their entire army? How did they restart? Did they not document this because it was such an insult to their deities?