Exodus 13:17 – 14:31
As the Israelites finally left Egyptian territory on the start of their journey to Caanan, God advised Moses to lead them south into the wilderness toward Succoth, rather than paralleling the shoreline bordering the Mediterranean Sea. This latter route, although shorter, would have brought the ill-prepared Hebrews into direct contact with the warring Philistines, and they might have become immediately disheartened and returned to Egypt. Moses also carried Joseph’s bones with him, fulfilling the oath that earlier generations had made to the dying patriarch (cf. Gen. 50:25) to ultimately bury him in the land of Caanan. All through this time, the Lord was physically present with Israel, guiding them as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.
At the start of chapter 14, God instructs Moses to have the Israelites reverse course and travel north back through the wilderness to camp at Baal-zephon, on the shore of the sea, where the Egyptians will think they are hemmed in on all sides. God then tells Moses that Pharaoh’s heart will be hardened, he will pursue the fleeing Israelites, and “I will win glory for myself at the expense of Pharaoh and all his army.”
Back in Egypt, when the king and his courtiers heard that their Hebrew slaves had slipped away, he gathered his troops, including his hand-picked chariot corps, and set off after the Israelites, overtaking them at their encampment at Baal-zephon.
(The first four verses of chapter 14 are from the P writer, who has God harden Pharaoh’s heart as the reason for the king’s pursuit of the Hebrews. The next three verses [5-7] are an older insertion from the E writer, where Pharaoh changes his mind about letting the Israelites go after earlier agreeing to their departure.)
The Israelites, seeing the Egyptian army bearing down on them, turned on Moses in terror: “Were there no graves in Egypt, that you should have brought us here to die in the wilderness?” (vs. 11) Thus begins the first of Moses’ problems with the Hebrew people: a constant series of complaints that will plague him throughout his, and their, forty years together in the wilderness. Moses reassures the Israelites that they will never see the Egyptians again, because “the Lord will fight for you; so hold your peace.” (vs. 14)
The next fifteen verses tell one of the most famous stories in all of the Old Testament: the parting of the sea* and the deliverance of Israel from the Egyptian army.
Verses 15-20 give the P writer’s version, where God tells Moses to raise his staff over the sea “and cleave it in two, so that the Israelites can pass through the sea on dry land.” When the pursuing Egyptians come after them, Pharaoh and his army “will know that I am Lord.” God had his cloud-angel move to the rear of the Israelite camp, so that it stood between Israel and Egypt, bringing on early darkness and a loss of contact between the two sides. Mixed into the next five verses (21-25) are the J writer’s version of this event, which is more colorful and dramatic. Here the waters are “torn apart,” and the Israelites walk through the sea safely “while the waters made a wall for them to right and to left.” As for the hapless Egyptians, in the P writer’s version, the Lord panicked them, clogging their chariot wheels, so that they said, “It is the Lord fighting for Israel against Egypt; let us flee.” God then instructed Moses to stretch out his hand and return to sea to its proper place, catching all of Pharaoh’s army halfway across and drowning them. The J writer, in verse 27, has the demoralized Egyptian army actually fleeing into the waters of the returning sea. In either case, “not one man was left alive.”
The Israelites, seeing this miracle of deliverance from bondage and certain death, “put their faith in [the Lord] and in Moses his servant.” Thus, Moses and the Hebrew community, in 1441 BCE (the date most scholars agree on), started on their long journey to the land that God had promised would be their home: Caanan.
*Although most Bible stories identify this “sea” as the Red Sea, scholars are agreed that it was actually the Reed Sea, a marshy area at the southeastern tip of the Nile Delta. This entire area has been changed since the digging of the Suez Canal, and the topography of the ancient Reed or Papyrus Sea has been radically altered. (Unger’s Bible Dictionary, p. 331)
[Note: Because of a lengthy side discussion, the group actually stopped at chapter 14:26. However, the story was too interesting to leave the Israelites and the Egyptians in the middle of the sea, so it was decided to include the last five verses of the chapter in this blog.]
Submitted by Karilyn Jaap
