And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and Jehovah made the sea go [back] by a strong east wind all the night, and made the sea dry [land], and the waters were divided.
The night Israel spent trapped between Pharaoh's army and the water ended with a road where there had been no road. Commentators ask what opened the sea — a rod, a wind, or God Himself — and what that path pictures for us.
Two things act in this verse at once: Moses' outstretched hand and a wind God sends. One writer traces where the real authority lay.
God used the "strong east wind" as His instrument to split the Red Sea. The waters stood as "crystal walls" on either side and made a path through which His people could pass to the other side. Yet it was the rod stretched out by Moses that carried the power and authority of God. "He divided the sea and let them pass through it, and made the waters stand like a heap" (Ps. 78:13); "He rebuked the Red Sea, and it became dry" (Ps. 106:9).
God did not open the sea in an instant. He took the whole night over it, and the ground He gave them was dry, not mud.
The Lord caused the sea to divide by means of a strong east wind blowing all night. He could have done this more quickly, but He did not, for Israel needed the delay. The sea bottom did not remain muddy, but became dry land. The children of Israel did not stop to marvel at the wonder of this great miracle in front of their eyes. They marched forward between the two upright walls of water. The power of God alone had formed those walls.
The sea in front of them had looked like the end of them. It became the way out.
Israel came up to the Red Sea, trembling and pressed by Pharaoh, the prince of the world. In front of them lay death and judgment, or destruction. God acts for them, and death and judgment turn into deliverance, because Christ undergoes death and judgment. In that way He secures us and lets us get out free on the other side.
Commentators read both the rod and the wind as pointing forward. The wind is not a pleasant breeze in Scripture — it is the wind that withers.
This "way of the sea" is God's ordained way for His people — a way we pass by faith, to start our pilgrim path with God. The rod of Moses clears this dry path for them to pass through, and "a strong east wind all night" clears it just as truly. We ought to be able to interpret this without difficulty. The rod of Moses is the rod of power in the shepherd's hand: and has not our Shepherd split open for us a path through death? Then there is the strong east wind of adversity. Notice in Pharaoh's dream (Gen. 41:6) how the east wind blasts the ears of corn. That wind blew through all the terrible night of His distress. Was it not that wind which in fact cleared the way for us through those waters of death?
The same sea did two opposite things.
God used what stood for death itself to destroy Israel's foes and to deliver His people.
Israel did not make this path, and they were not the first to walk it.
So we may say that Jehovah did not only make the way through the sea. He went that way Himself. Israel went through because they took the way He had made. Here then we clearly have the second picture of the death of Christ given in Israel's history. The first, of course, was the lamb sacrificed on the Passover night. This one carries us a step further, since it pictures not only death but resurrection too.
Some have tried to explain the crossing as a natural event. One detail rules that out.
Critical scholars have tried to explain this miracle as a natural event. But they overlooked one thing: on their right and on their left the waters were a wall. It was a grave, so to speak, into which Israel passed, when God's power had made the way through it. It was faith which led them through. "By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned" (Hebrews 11:29).
- Rod — the wind was the tool. The authority lay in the rod Moses stretched out. The Psalms give God alone the credit for dividing the sea.
- Night — He could have opened it faster; the long night gave Israel dry ground instead of mud, and a delay they needed.
- Way — death and judgment stood in front of them. That became their road out, because Christ went through death and judgment first.
- Wind — the east wind blasts and withers. It blew all through the night of His distress, and it cleared the path.
- Wall — the water stood as a wall on both sides. Israel walked through this grave by faith. The same grave closed on their enemies.
And the children of Israel went through the midst of the sea on the dry [ground]; and the waters were a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.
An army closes in behind Israel; an ocean blocks the way ahead. The water that trapped them becomes the road out, and commentators read this moment both as history and as a picture of how God saves.
God did not remove the sea. He changed what it did.
The rod of judicial authority is stretched out, not over Israel, but for them, over the sea. Death becomes a pathway for the people instead of a gulf. They can cross it with dry feet. What a new pathway it was! What a solemn hour for Israel as a nation, when they passed between these walls of water on their right hand and on their left, raised by the action of "the east wind" — floods that, instead of swallowing them, proved to be their defence!
The same walls that fenced Israel in also fenced the enemy out.
No flanking move by the enemy was possible; the only course open was to follow behind the Israelites. Then Israel saw their enemies dead on the seashore. The returning waves had overwhelmed them. They were saved. The sea had not swallowed them, and their enemies had not destroyed them.
The text does not say they waded or swam. One writer counts how often the chapter repeats what they walked on.
The armies of Israel obey and step forward into what looked like death. The sea divides, crystal walls of salvation rise up on either side, and they march on dry ground. Dry ground is mentioned four times in this chapter. It is as if God wanted this picture to stress one thing: the death and resurrection of Christ provide the solid ground where faith plants its feet.
Egypt tried the same route. The ground held for one people and closed over the other.
The path is open to faith, and there is not a drop of water there. Death is gone, and judgment is gone. It is all over. It is dry ground, and God has made it so. But only the people of faith can walk it. What is dry ground to Israel is sea to everyone else. Let the Egyptians try to follow, and things take their natural course: death and judgment are there. The very thing the believer dreaded becomes his security. Christ is there in the deep. He sees the judgment of God in all its weight and power borne by Christ.
The path did not just appear for Israel. One writer notes who else went through the sea.
So we may say that Jehovah not only made the way through the sea. He also went that way Himself. Israel went through by taking up the way He had made. Here then we clearly have the second picture of the death of Christ given in Israel's history. The first, of course, was the lamb sacrificed on Passover night. This one carries us a step further, because it pictures not only death but resurrection too.
Another writer traces the same line to the cost of clearing that path:
By His death our Shepherd has made a dry path for us through death. The rod of Moses made just such a dry path for Israel through the sea. The "strong east wind" of adversity blew all through the terrible "night" of His distress. It split the way open for us through the waters of death.
They crossed at night, and the walls of water were not dark.
Behind the very last of them was the presence of the Almighty, like a searchlight of enormous power. It was not in their eyes to dazzle them. It was placed so that its light reflected off the glassy walls of water, and it must have lit up their whole way. All that night Israel walked in the light. The enemy, for all their swift chariots, were stumbling in the dark.
The Passover and the crossing are not two pictures of the same thing.
The Passover brought out the thought of the death of Christ FOR us. The crossing of the Red Sea brings out our IDENTIFICATION with that death. The children of Israel were baptised to Moses. Believers are baptised to the death of Christ. They are buried with Him by baptism, and are now free to walk in newness of life.
- Barrier. The sea they dreaded stood between them and freedom. God turned it from a gulf into a road, and the same water walled the enemy out.
- Path. Israel did not make the way. God opened it, and He went that way Himself before they walked it.
- Ground. The chapter repeats "dry ground". It was not a damp escape but firm footing — a picture of Christ's death and resurrection under a believer's feet.
- Faith. The same path was dry land to Israel and open sea to Egypt; only faith can walk where God has cleared the way.
- Baptism. Passover pictures the death of Christ for us; the crossing pictures our identification with that death. Believers are buried with Him and free to walk in newness of life.