With six hundred of his swiftest chariots he at once sets out after them, leaving orders, doubtless, for other chariots as well as foot soldiers to follow as soon as possible.
The Israelites were in the greatest alarm; there was no visible means of escape. They could go no further south, for the mountains were in front of them; they could not turn to the right for the same reason; the Egyptians were in their rear, and the Red Sea was before them. They were in a trap. This is what Pharaoh expected. The strategy on which he had reckoned (ver. 3) had worked admirably.
THE PRESENT HELP IN TROUBLE.
"And the angel of G.o.d, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them:
"And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel: and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these: so that the one came not near the other all the night."
It is singular that this blind king should so soon forget that there was a G.o.d in Israel, and that he was to come into collision again with that Being who had so often foiled, and finally, in the death of the first-born, had utterly crushed him.
But none are so blind or so heedless as the obstinate and the unbelieving. It will be seen that the battle that is soon to follow will end as before--in the defeat of Pharaoh, and, as some think, his death.
We have in this "angel of G.o.d" the same being that we have met so often before, who talked familiarly with Abraham and Jacob. He is the one who afterward came in the form of the flesh, and is called Christ.
This time His symbol was a cloud, and at night a pillar of fire. In such a large host as that of the children of Israel were at this time, it would be necessary that there be some elevated central object, so that those of the people scattered widely, in caring for the flocks and other like services, should not lose the location of the camp.
Some such arrangement was early found important in caravans crossing the deserts, so that it was customary to carry a round grate with fire, held aloft on a pole. The ancient Persians and some other nations carried a sacred fire in silver altars before their armies.
At night this cloud over the camp of the Israelites was illumined by some strong internal fire, so that the host dwelt amid the darkness of the desert as in a city brightly lighted. It was a marvelous miracle.
This cloud now changed its position as the Egyptians came near to the Israelites. It stood between the two hosts. Over the Egyptians it was a dense fog that cut off all their vision so that they could not tell what the Israelites were doing, while to the latter it was as though it had caught and held the rays of the setting sun, and poured a brilliant glory all over and through their encampment. The Egyptians, thinking that the rising sun will disperse the fog, wait for morning.
THE ISRAELITES ENTER THE RED SEA.
"And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.
"And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon dry ground: and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left."
While the Egyptians were thus waiting, the Israelites were busy; they were making the best use of their time. They were making their escape by the way last of all thought possible--even the bottom of the sea!
The crossing was made in the neighborhood of what are now called the Bitter Lakes. This was then most probably the head of the Red Sea.
It was at a time of the year when the tide would help the action of the wind. If there were shoals or flats at the place where the crossing is supposed to have occurred, as there are now at Suez, the wind and the tide clearing a pa.s.sage there would leave deep water on both sides of the pa.s.sage-way, and this most probably is the meaning of the expression that the waters were a wall to them on either side.
"They were a defense; not necessarily perpendicular cliffs, as they were often pictured. G.o.d could make the water stand in precipices if He should so choose, and such a conception is more impressive to the imagination, but it is certain that the language of the text may mean simply that the water was a protection on the right and on the left flanks of the host. Thus, in Nahum 3:8, No (Thebes) is said to have the sea (the broad Nile) for the rampart and a wall--that is, a defense, a protection against enemies. It is true that in poetical pa.s.sages the waters are said to have stood "as a heap" (Exod. 15:8; Psa. 78:13); but so they are also, in the same style, said to have been "congealed in the heart of the sea," and the peaks of the trembling h.o.r.eb are said to have "skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs" (Psa. 114:4). Of course these expressions are not to be literally and prosaically interpreted."
[Ill.u.s.tration]
The wind thus prevailed all night, to keep the pa.s.sage open until all the Israelites had crossed and the pursuing Egyptians had got well into the sea.
THE ENEMY FOLLOW CLOSELY.
"And the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them to the midst of the sea, even all Pharaoh"s horses, his chariots and his hors.e.m.e.n.
"And it came to pa.s.s that in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians.
"And took off their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily; so that the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel; for the Lord fighteth for them against the Egyptians."
Surrounded by darkness and enveloped by the fog, the Egyptians did not know that they were rushing into the midst of the sea. It is not said that Pharaoh went in, and yet as the post of the king is usually represented on the ancient monuments as leading his soldiers--marching at their head--it may be, as some think, that his chariot led those six hundred chariots, and that he perished with them.
"The chariots of Egypt were very famous. According to Diodorus Siculus, Rameses II had twenty-seven thousand in his army.
The processes of manufacture of chariots and harness are fully ill.u.s.trated by existing sculptures, in which also are represented the chariots used by neighboring nations."--_Rev. H. W. Phillot._
At this point the movements of the Egyptians are very much impeded.
Shortly after midnight, the fog changed into a storm cloud, blazing with lightning and growling with thunder. This was terrifying to the Egyptians in the extreme, as they were not accustomed to thunderstorms, and scarcely ever saw rain.
"Showers of rain also came down from the sky, and dreadful thunder and lightning, with flashes of fire. Thunderbolts also were darted upon them; nor was there anything which G.o.d sends upon men as indications of His wrath which did not happen at this time."--_Josephus._
Psalms 77:15-20 refers to this storm. Although the Israelites went through dry-shod, the pursuing chariots sank in the mire, were buried in the sand, and in some cases the wheels were wrenched off, so that the superst.i.tious Egyptians recognized the fact that the G.o.d of Israel was fighting against them. They therefore began to retreat. In the meantime the children of Israel had an abundance of time to make good their escape.
"Before the captivity, the night (between sunset and sunrise) was divided by the Israelites into three watches--the first watch, the middle watch and the morning watch. It appears that the Israelites had the s.p.a.ce of two watches, at least (or eight hours), for effecting their pa.s.sage."--_Murphy._
THE OVERTHROW OF PHARAOH"S HOST.
"And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and upon their hors.e.m.e.n.
"And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to his strength when the morning appeared; and the Egyptians fled against it, and the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea.
"And the waters returned, and covered the chariots, and the hors.e.m.e.n, and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one of them."
After the fugitives had safely gained the farther sh.o.r.e, and while the Egyptians were still struggling in the middle of the pa.s.sage, through the gray of the dawn they saw the majestic form of Moses rise upon the opposite bank. They saw him stretch forth that terrible rod--that rod which had left so many deep scars upon the fair land of Egypt--and immediately the wind ceased, its strong pressure was relaxed, the sudden swell of the tide caught the waters, and they, as if impatient of restraint, leaped again to their wonted channel, burying the hopeless and helpless enemy.
"A sudden cessation of the wind at sunrise, coinciding with a spring tide (it was full moon), would immediately convert the low, flat sand-banks, first into a quicksand, and then into a ma.s.s of waters, in a time far less than would suffice for the escape of a single chariot or horseman loaded with heavy corselet."--_Canon Cook._
The destruction was as complete as it was sudden. Not one escaped. The disaster was overwhelming, crushing. The Egyptians never again disturbed the Israelites during all their after wanderings.
THIS WAS THE LORD"S DOINGS.
"But the children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea; and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand and on their left.
"Thus the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the seash.o.r.e.
"And Israel saw that great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians; and the people feared the Lord, and believed the Lord, and his servant Moses."
There was only one explanation of this event, and that was the Lord wrought it. There could be no room in the mind of any of the children of Israel to doubt that G.o.d was with them. Repeatedly had they seen their enemies baffled and discomfited; now they saw them destroyed. What folly to contend with such a G.o.d! Would it be possible for these people thus delivered ever to doubt G.o.d? ever to distrust Him? ever to disobey Him?
It would seem not.
They had every reason to believe Him, to be grateful to Him, to love and serve Him devotedly. Without lifting a finger, they, an unarmed people, with not a soldier in all their ranks, nor a weapon worthy the name, had triumphed over a chosen detachment of the finest army in the world at that time, led, too, by a king who was familiar with battles and accustomed to victories.
Josephus says that, after the pa.s.sage of the sea by the Israelites, a west wind set in, which (a.s.sisted by the current) drove the bodies of the drowned Egyptians to the eastern side of the gulf, where many of them were cast up upon the sh.o.r.e. In this way, Moses, according to him, obtained weapons and armor for a considerable number of Israelites.