Escape from the Red Sea
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Escape Through The Red Sea
Exodus 14: 10-20
10 As Pharaoh drew near, the Israelites looked back, and there were the Egyptians advancing on them. In great fear the Israelites cried out to the LORD. 11They said to Moses, Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, bringing us out of Egypt? 12Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, “Let us alone and let us serve the Egyptians? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness. 13But Moses said to the people, Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the LORD will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again. 14The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.
15 Then the LORD said to Moses, Why do you cry out to me? Tell the Israelites to go forward. 16But you lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the Israelites may go into the sea on dry ground. 17Then I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them; and so I will gain glory for myself over Pharaoh and all his army, his chariots, and his chariot drivers. 18And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I have gained glory for myself over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his chariot drivers. 19The angel of God who was going before the Israelite army moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and took its place behind them. 20It came between the army of Egypt and the army of Israel. And so the cloud was there with the darkness, and it lit up the night; one did not come near the other all night.
The second book of the Pentateuch is called Exodus from the Greek word for “departure,” because the central event narrated in it is the departure of the Israelites from Egypt. It continues the history of the chosen people from the point where the book of Genesis leaves off. It recounts the oppression by the Egyptians of the ever-increasing descendants of Jacob and their miraculous deliverance by God through Moses, who led them across the Red Sea to Mount Sinai where they entered into a special covenant with the Lord.
Historical Background
To escape a famine in what is now Israel, Jacob moves his family to Egypt. They stay about 400 years. Sometime during their extended visit, Jacobs descendants grow so numerous that the Egyptians fear the Hebrews might take over (Cole 107-109).
The period of oppression followed; the Pharaoh ordered the Jews to build the cities of Pithom and Ramesses. To avoid a population explosion among the Hebrews, Pharaoh ordered each newborn son to be thrown into the river. Moses was nevertheless preserved by his mother for the first three months of his life before she finally decided to put him in a rush basket on the rivers edge. The Pharaohs daughter discovered him, rescued him and gave him to a nurse, none other than his own mother. This was because Mosess sister had watched to see who would find the baby, had pretended not to recognize him and then recommended to the Princess a nurse who was really the childs mother. He was treated as one of the Pharaohs sons and given the name Moses.
God ordered Moses to go and find the Pharaoh and lead his brothers out of Egypt. Aaron, Mosess brother, helped him in this task. This is why Moses, once he had returned to Egypt, went with his brother to visit the Pharaoh who was the successor of the king under whose reign he had long ago been born.
The Pharaoh refused to allow the Jews in Mosess group to leave Egypt. God revealed Himself to Moses once again and ordered him to repeat his request to Pharaoh. According to the Bible, Moses was eighty years old at this time. Through magic, Moses showed the Pharaoh that he had supernatural powers. This was not enough however. God sent the famous plagues down upon Egypt. The rivers were changed into blood, there were invasions of frogs, gnats and swarms of flies, the cattle died, boils appeared on men and animals, there was hail and plagues of locusts, darkness and the death of the first-born. Nevertheless, the Pharaoh still did not allow the Hebrews to leave.
They therefore broke out of the city of Rameses, 600,000 of them “besides women and children” (Exodus 12, 37). At this point Pharaoh “made ready his chariot and took his army. With him, and took six hundred picked charioteers and all the other chariots of Egypt with officers over all of them . . . Pharaoh, king of Egypt, pursued the people of Israel as they went forth defiantly.” (Exodus 14, 6 and 8). The Egyptians caught up with Mosess party beside the sea. Moses raised his staff, the sea parted before him and his followers walked across it without wetting their feet. “The Egyptians pursued and went in after them into the midst of the sea, all Pharaohs horses, his chariots, and his horsemen.” (Exodus 14, 23) “The waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen and all
The host of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea; not so much as one of them remained. 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.” (Exodus 14, 28-29).
The text of Exodus is quite clear: Pharaoh was at the head of the pursuers. He perished because the text of Exodus notes that “not so much as one of them remained.” The Bible repeats this detail moreover in the Psalms: Psalm 106, verse 11 and Psalm 136 verses 13 and 15 which are an act of thanks to God “Who divided the sea of Rushes in sunder . . . and made Israel pass through the midst of it . . . but overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the sea of Rushes.” There can be no doubt therefore, that according to the Bible, the Pharaoh of the Exodus perished in the sea. The Bible does not record what became of his body.
AUTHORSHIP
Ancient Jewish and Christian writers, such as Ecclesiasticus, Josephus, Philo, and Origen were essentially in full agreement that the