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.
And the Egyptians pursued and came after them -- all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots and his horsemen, into the midst of the sea.
Pharaoh's army does not stop at the water's edge. It drives straight into the dry path God opened for Israel, chariots and all. So one question hangs over the verse: how can the same path save one people and bury another?
The Egyptians had just seen the sea open and Israel walk through. That did not slow them. One writer traces their advance to a confidence that saw nothing ahead of it:
Even that pillar of fire did not hold them back. They trusted their own strength, and that trust was worth nothing. They pressed on — straight to a sure and certain doom. The solemn lesson is this: to face the power of death in human confidence is certain destruction. Only the blood-bought people can pass through in safety. All others will be overwhelmed. And yet how many a soul dares to meet death and judgment in its own strength. Let the fate of Pharaoh and his army warn every such soul.
Israel and Egypt walked between the same two walls of water. What made the difference was not the road but who was on it:
The very same waters that formed a wall for God's redeemed formed a grave for Pharaoh. So it always is: those who walk by faith find a path to walk in, while all who merely try to copy them find a grave. Pharaoh was in open, declared hostility to God when he tried to pass through the Red Sea. That takes nothing away from this solemn truth: everyone who tries to imitate the actions of faith will come to shame.
Israel's safe crossing rested on an earlier night, when they put the lamb's blood on their doorposts. Egypt had no such night. One writer sees in that gap a picture of religion without a foundation:
How striking is the Holy Spirit's reference to the Egyptians who tried to cross the Red Sea and drowned. It matches a widespread form of unbelief in the Christian world. People have adopted the idea of salvation, and we may add of heaven. They strive to claim that hope without faith, without Christ, in their natural state — on a deathbed at least. We never read of a single Egyptian sprinkling his doorpost with a lamb's blood. People would like to be saved without confessing their sins, and without owning God's judgment of those sins in the cross of Christ. Yet that judgment is the only righteous ground of their forgiveness. There could have been no triumph for Israel across the Red Sea without the Passover that came first.
This chase pictures something larger. It shows what the human heart is, and where the enemy's hunger takes him:
Pharaoh's actions showed the state of the human heart, and the blindness that can come on people who set themselves in self-will against God and His will. His determined pursuit of God's people only led him and his armies into the place of judgment. They were utterly defeated and overwhelmed in the very place where they had hoped to lay hold of Israel. In the same way, Satan had led on his forces to bring about the death of the Son of God. He led on the powers of this world too, both religious and political. But the very thing they thought was their triumph over the meek and lowly Jesus overthrew Satan and his hosts instead. It also brought judgment on the world that had taken him as its prince.
Egypt's whole army marched in behind Israel. There was a purpose in that:
God let the full power of Satan come out against His people for one purpose: to demolish it for ever. And so He does. Pharaoh, his army and his chariots — all the flower of Egypt — stood drawn up, ready to devour the poor children of Israel.
The crossing was more than a rescue from an army. It pictures a deeper deliverance:
At the Red Sea, God acts in power according to the purposes of His love. So the enemy, hard on the heels of the people, is destroyed with no way out. As a moral picture, the Red Sea is plainly the death and resurrection of Jesus, and of His people in Him. God acted in it to bring them out of death — the death into which He had brought them in Christ. So they are beyond any possibility of the enemy reaching them.
- Pursuit. Pharaoh's army follows Israel into the seabed. Not even the pillar of fire stops them. Self-confidence presses on to certain doom.
- Path. The same water is a wall for the redeemed and a grave for the pursuer. Copying the actions of faith without faith ends in shame.
- Blood. No Egyptian ever sprinkled a doorpost. There is no triumph at the sea without the Passover first. And there is no forgiveness apart from God's judgment of sin at the cross.
- Trap. The enemy entered that place to seize his prey and met his own overthrow. So it was at the cross: Satan's apparent victory was his defeat.
- Distance. God let the enemy's full power gather, then destroyed it for ever. His people came through death, beyond the enemy's reach.
And it came to pass in the morning watch, that Jehovah looked upon the camp of the Egyptians, in the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and embarrassed the camp of the Egyptians.
The Egyptians have chased Israel into the seabed, and all night nothing stops them. Then, before dawn, God does one thing — He looks — and the whole army falls apart.
Israel strikes no blow in this verse. The One who acts does it from inside the cloud.
There is One who has made that cloud His dwelling place, and His look will overthrow all who plot harm against the camp. The finest of Egypt withers under it; Pharaoh's horses and chariots are drowned in the Red Sea before it.
Verse 19 calls Israel's guide an angel. This verse calls Him the LORD. Commentators read the two together and ask who this guide really is.
This passage, chapter 14, and others as well, clearly ascribe divine attributes to Him… Exodus 14 first speaks of Him as an angel, and then identifies Him with Jehovah (compare verse 24 with verse 19). That He is divine is therefore clear. The inference is justified — one drawn by godly students of the Word in every age — that in this angel we have none other than the Second Person of the Trinity, God the Son, Jehovah.
The cloud that had been shining on Israel all night is the very thing that now troubles Egypt. Nothing about it changed; only which side you stood on.
What gave light to the children of Israel was a cloud and darkness to their enemies. How secure they were, if only they had known it, behind this impenetrable shield of invincible power. No enemy could reach them without first meeting and overcoming God Himself. The blood of the Passover lamb had sheltered them; now divine power shielded them.
The verse fixes the hour: the last stretch of darkness before dawn. One writer puts a clock time on the look, and points to a psalm for what that night was like.
The Lord's look from the pillar of fire and cloud came at about two o'clock in the morning — about the middle of that stormy night (Psalm 77:17-18). Israel had reached the far shore. It was early morning, and God told Moses to stretch out his hand over the sea once more, and the sea returned to its strength.
Others read the timing itself. The look falls in the morning watch, and the sea closes as morning appears.
Notice that it is "in the morning watch" that the Lord looked on the army of the Egyptians and threw it into a panic. Notice this too: the sea came back to its strength when the morning appeared, and the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the middle of the sea. Christ is "raised from the dead by the glory of the Father." Here is the morning for us. God accepted His work. God accepted Him as the representative of His redeemed people, and in Him is now our standing.
One writer sets this beside the night of Jesus' arrest. Jesus steps between His disciples and the men sent to seize them.
On a similar occasion Jesus acts exactly as the cloud and the glory did on the banks of the Red Sea. He comes between the disciples and their pursuers. "If you seek me, let these men go." He defends them. Then, as long before on the edge of Egypt, He looks through the veil and troubles the enemy again. And all this with the same ease and the same authority as in the day of Pharaoh. He only, as it were, looked out again. He only showed Himself, saying, "I am he," and the Egyptians lie on the shore again.
The pillar of fire stood in Egypt's way, and Egypt went in anyway. One writer draws out what that means for anyone facing death.
That pillar of fire did not even hold them back. With empty confidence in their own strength, they pressed on — but to certain doom… They were now sure the fight was hopeless, and would gladly have fled; but it was all too late… The solemn lesson is this: to face the power of death in human confidence means certain destruction. Only the blood-bought people can pass through in safety. There is no escape apart from Christ, who alone has met and overcome death.
- The look. God fights by looking. The One dwelling in the cloud overthrows Egypt's finest without Israel lifting a hand.
- The Looker. Verse 19 calls Israel's guide an angel; verse 24 calls Him the LORD. Commentators identify Him as God the Son.
- The two sides. The same pillar lights Israel and troubles Egypt; to touch God's people, an enemy must first get past God.
- The hour. The look falls in the last watch of a stormy night. The sea closes at daybreak — a morning that speaks of Christ raised, and of our standing in Him.
- The warning. Egypt entered the sea trusting its own strength and never came out. Only the blood-bought pass through.
And he took off their chariot wheels, and caused them to drive with difficulty; and the Egyptians said, Let us flee before Israel, for Jehovah is fighting for them against the Egyptians!
Israel is walking through the sea on dry ground, and Egypt's army has driven in after them. This verse is the moment Egypt sees who it is really fighting, and the question is whether flight can still save them.
The change starts with a look. God looks out of the pillar, and the army feels it at once — in their courage, in their speed, and in what they admit.
In the morning watch the LORD looked at the army through the pillar of fire and cloud. He showed them where they were. He troubled the army, and its courage vanished. He checked their boasted speed by taking off their chariot wheels, so that they drove heavily. They said, "Let us flee from before Israel, for the LORD fights for them against the Egyptians." The pride of the army was broken. Israel had seen the protecting walls shining in the glory of the light of the pillar of fire. The Egyptians saw, when it was too late, that the path through death to life for Israel was to them the path into destruction.
Up to this point Israel had been the ones running. The ESV says God clogged the chariot wheels; older translations, which the writers quoted here follow, say He took them off. Either way the chariots stall.
In our chapter, the way God checks and overcomes the enemy is very interesting. Pharaoh gets a solemn warning as the pins of his wheels all fly out. Losing his chariot wheels checks him when he least expects it. The effect is electric… The tables are completely turned. It is not God's people fleeing now, but their enemies who fly.
The wheels came off before the waters came back. That gap gave Egypt time to heed the warning.
The enemy goes on. Then God gives him his first check: the wheels of his chariots come off (v. 25)… God gave Pharaoh his warning before he met his doom. When their chariot wheels came off, that was a warning from God to those who were pursuing His people that night. The Egyptians died with Pharaoh, because they ignored the warning God gave them.
What the Egyptians say is true. It is also the last thing Scripture ever reports them saying — and saying it did not rescue them.
Difficulties beset the Egyptians. Into the sea they went. Would they ever get out of it? To pursue further they now saw was hopeless. "Let us flee from before Israel, for the LORD fights for them against the Egyptians" (14:25). This was their last word that we have any record of. By it they confessed their defeat. But was there safety for them in flight?
Another writer notes the direction of their flight. They wanted to get away from the LORD, not to come to Him.
How serious those "last words" of God are to souls at times! Words like these had perhaps often been spoken to people who refused them. They never imagined they would not hear them again… While He was judging, Pharaoh tried to flee from the LORD (Ex. 14:25). It was now too late to flee to Him.
The Egyptians name the reason for their defeat: the LORD is fighting for Israel. The LORD had already said He would, and that left Israel with nothing to do but watch.
Israel might have thought, Someone will have to fight if we are to be saved. The LORD answered this with the words, "The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent." Not one word was required from Israel in this conflict. The fighting and the salvation were both to come from the God who had brought them out of Egypt. Israel were only to be witnesses of His mighty power. Once the salvation was secured, God let Israel join the song of praise led by Moses.
- The look. God looked at Egypt's army through the pillar of fire. Their courage vanished before a single wave fell.
- The check. God took their chariot wheels off before He destroyed them. That was a warning, and they ignored it.
- The confession. They admitted the truth: the LORD was fighting for Israel. But words said in panic are not the same as turning to Him.
- The flight. Pharaoh tried to flee from the LORD while judgment was falling; the time to flee to Him had already passed.
- The silence. Israel added nothing to the victory their enemies announced. They watched in silence, then sang.
And Jehovah said to Moses, Stretch out thy hand over the sea, that the waters may return upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and upon their horsemen.
Israel has already walked through on dry ground, and the Egyptian army is still in the seabed behind them. Now God speaks to Moses again. The hand that opened the path must now close it. How can one act of God rescue one crowd and ruin another?
Moses stretches out his hand, and the rod he carries began as a plain shepherd's staff.
So it was the instrument of judgment and of grace in Egypt. It was only a weak shepherd's rod at first. That weakness made it all the more fit to become God's rod. He always perfects His strength in our weakness, and chooses the weak things to confound the mighty.
The water is not neutral. What held back as a wall for Israel now comes down as judgment on their pursuers.
In one sense the Red Sea had closed the whole history, if you take it by itself as to Egypt. In another sense it begins the life. But it closed the history by redemption and judgment, for God judged the Egyptians. Death, which was salvation to Israel, was judgment to the Egyptians.
That double outcome was not chance. One writer weighs it against what God had already said in this chapter.
The waters that defended the people of God, and were the means of their deliverance, became the instrument God used to destroy the enemy and his power completely, "for there remained not so much as one of them"… How solemn these events appear in the light of Exodus 14:17-18. That light lifts them far above the shallow thoughts and ideas of men. It shows them to be the expression of the sovereignty of God in His judicial dealings with those who refuse to bend their wills, contend with Him, and try to thwart what He has purposed for the blessing of His people.
One writer can find only one event in all of Scripture to compare with it.
God's work is always marked by thoroughness. God saved every soul of Israel in triumph, and every Egyptian lay dead on the shore, for we read, "there remained not so much as one of them." Has any army, before or since, been destroyed so completely? We doubt it; the only possible parallel is Sennacherib's army, recorded in 2 Kings 19:35.
Commentators read the returning waters as a figure of the death and judgment that Christ went through, so that they can never fall on those who trust Him.
Moses did so. The waters returned, and the sea swallowed up the whole host of the Egyptians. "There remained not so much as one of them." This is wonderful news for the believer, for the soul that has really turned to Jesus. He can look back and see the power of the enemy broken, his sins gone, the judgment past. The judgment fell on Jesus, and He is risen, having exhausted the judgment and destroyed the power of the enemy.
The freedom that follows is permanent, because the old masters are gone.
After the Passover and the Red Sea there was no going back for Israel to the slavery of Pharaoh; their taskmasters were overthrown and gone.
The Egyptians drowned in the very road God had opened. One writer turns that into a warning for anyone who hopes to meet death and judgment in his own strength.
All must pass through what lies on God's road to heaven. If we have come up to the Red Sea, we must pass through death and judgment. Where shall we be with all our Egyptian wisdom and learning, with all our chariots and horsemen, before death and judgment?… If we try to do this without God for us, and the question of death and judgment is not already and completely settled — as it was for Israel when by faith they passed through the Red Sea as on dry land — it must be our destruction.
- Same rod. A shepherd's weak staff carried both grace and judgment. The power was never in the wood, but in God, who chooses weak things.
- Same water. The sea that saved Israel became the grave of their pursuers. Death was salvation to one side and judgment to the other.
- Same thoroughness. Every Israelite came through and not one Egyptian survived. God never leaves His work half done.
- Same road, two travellers. The Egyptians drowned in the path God had opened. Anyone who faces death and judgment in his own strength meets destruction there.
- Same judgment, already borne. The believer looks back and sees sins gone, the enemy's power broken, judgment past. It fell on Jesus, and He is risen.
And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its strength toward the morning; and the Egyptians fled against it; and Jehovah overturned the Egyptians into the midst of the sea.
The walls of water crash back on the army that chased Israel into the seabed. Why does God time this for daybreak, and why does one sea rescue one people and drown another?
The waters came back as day broke. One writer gathers other mornings in Scripture, where victory arrives at daybreak.
The Old Testament refers to the morning many times. As we look into them, we cannot miss how much these pictures matter to us today. The night of Egypt's bondage ended "when the morning appeared" (Exodus 14:27). … The Assyrian army lay completely defeated "in the morning" (2 Kings 19:35). In John chapter 16 the Lord Jesus speaks wonderfully to His own of the joy that would be theirs on that resurrection morning. Their sorrow would become joy! So the joy of victory "comes in the morning."
Nothing here is an accident. Moses stretches out his hand, but the verse says the LORD threw the Egyptians into the sea. One writer reads it as God carrying out what He had already announced.
At God's command, "Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its normal course when the morning appeared." The same waters had protected God's people and carried them to safety. Now God used them to destroy the enemy and his power completely, "for there remained not so much as one of them." … How solemn these events look in the light of Exodus 14:17 and 18. They lift the story far above the shallow ideas of men. They show the sovereignty of God as He judges those who set their wills against Him and try to stop Him carrying out what He has purposed for the blessing of His people.
The Egyptians took the same route Israel had taken. The path did not decide their end. Who walked it did.
The close of our chapter shows us Israel triumphant on the shore of the Red Sea, and Pharaoh's armies sunk beneath its waves. Israel's fears and Pharaoh's boasting alike proved completely groundless. Jehovah's glorious work had wiped out both. The same waters which formed a wall for God's redeemed formed a grave for Pharaoh. So it always is: those who walk by faith find a path to walk in, while all who merely imitate them find a grave.
One writer marks two separate things here. The blood answered the charge of sin. The sea brought them out of Egypt.
Then you get a second thing — not the blood that meets the Judge, but the power that delivers. … It was death and judgment which really secured Israel. The sea that let Israel out swallowed up Pharaoh and all his armies. For believers that is in fact the judgment that came in Christ. Death and judgment are what has saved us; only Christ took it for us, of course. … It is redemption, which is a great deal more than forgiveness. The blood met the charge of sin against them. But it did not bring them out of Egypt. In fact they did not get out of Egypt until they passed through the Red Sea.
The next verse gives the count: not one Egyptian survived. One writer turns that count into ground for the believer's confidence.
Moses obeyed, the waters returned, and the sea swallowed the whole Egyptian army. "There remained not so much as one of them." Wonderful news for the believer, for the soul that has really turned to Jesus. He can look back and see the power of the enemy broken, his sins gone, the judgment past. The judgment fell on Jesus. He is risen, having exhausted the judgment and destroyed the power of the enemy.
The verse says the Egyptians fled into the sea. One writer sets their panic beside what the New Testament says about the crossing.
They were now convinced the fight was hopeless and would gladly have fled, but it was far too late. … "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). The solemn lesson is this: to face the power of death in human confidence means certain destruction. Only the blood-bought people can pass through safely. … There can be no escape apart from Christ.
- One sea. The same waters were a wall for Israel and a grave for Pharaoh. One path, two ends.
- One command. The sea came back at God's word and at God's hour, "when the morning appeared." God did what He had said He would do.
- One deliverance. The blood met their guilt. The sea broke the power that held them. Forgiveness and redemption — Christ's death gives both.
- One count. "There remained not so much as one of them." The believer looks back on an enemy destroyed, sins gone, judgment past.
- One warning. Egypt tried the road of faith without the blood. Face death in your own strength, and the place of salvation becomes the place of ruin.
And the waters returned, and covered the chariots and the horsemen of all the host of Pharaoh that had come into the sea after them; there remained not even one of them.
Israel reaches dry land. Behind them the water that had stood open falls back on Pharaoh's army. The same sea saves and destroys in one night, and the verse ends with a line the commentators keep returning to: not one of them remained.
The wording leaves no survivors on one side and no losses on the other. One writer looks for anything to match it in the rest of Scripture:
God's work is always marked by thoroughness. Every soul of Israel was saved in triumph. Every Egyptian lay dead on the shore, for we read, "not one of them remained." Has any army, before or since, been so completely destroyed? We doubt it. The only case that comes near it is Sennacherib's army, recorded in 2 Kings 19:35.
The water did not change. What changed was who walked into it, and that difference divides the whole story of the exodus:
In one sense the Red Sea closed the whole history, if you take it by itself as regards Egypt. In another sense it begins the life. But it closed the history by redemption and judgment, for the Egyptians were judged. Death, which was salvation to Israel, was judgment to the Egyptians.
Moses makes the same gesture twice in this chapter, and the second undoes the first:
Again at God's command Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The first time it was to open a way for Israel; this time it was to close up the way that had been opened. The sea returned to its strength when the morning appeared. That path through its depths was shut, never to be reopened... There they met their death; there, too, they were buried.
Earlier in the chapter God said what He intended to do. This verse is the outcome:
How solemn these events appear in the light of Exodus 14:17 and 18. Those verses lift them far above the shallow thoughts and ideas of men. They show them to be the expression of the sovereignty of God in His judicial dealings with those who set their wills against Him and try to thwart what He has purposed for the blessing of His people. "I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, and they will follow them; and I will glorify Myself in Pharaoh and in all his host, in his chariots and in his horsemen."
The Egyptians tried to copy a path they had no right to walk. Commentators read their end as a caution, not merely a piece of history:
The lesson is solemn: to face the power of death in human confidence is certain destruction. Only the blood-bought people can pass through in safety. All others will surely be overwhelmed; and yet how many a soul dares to meet death and judgment in its own strength. Let all such be warned by the fate of Pharaoh and his army. "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)
In the morning light Israel looked back at an empty shore. One writer turns that scene into news for the believer:
Moses did so, the waters returned, and the whole army of the Egyptians was swallowed up. "Not one of them remained." Blessed news for the believer, for the soul that has really turned to Jesus. He can look back and see the power of the enemy broken, his sins gone, the judgment past. The judgment fell on Jesus. He is risen, having exhausted the judgment and destroyed the power of the enemy.
The chapter calls Israel "saved" only after the sea closes. One writer builds a distinction on that:
"Thus the Lord saved Israel that day." We do not read of Israel being "saved" while they were still in Egypt, though God had sheltered them from judgment. Egypt pictured the world, and Pharaoh pictured Satan, the god and prince of the world. Israel is said to be saved only after full deliverance from both. In the same way, salvation in the New Testament means not only that we have been forgiven and justified. It also means we have been delivered from the authority of Satan and from the world-system he rules.
- One sea. The same water carried Israel through and buried Egypt. Death was salvation to Israel and judgment to the Egyptians.
- One hand, twice raised. The first stretch opened a road; the second closed it for good, and the sea returned to its strength.
- One purpose. God had said He would glorify Himself in Pharaoh and his host. The sea carried out His judgment; nothing here was an accident.
- One warning. To face death in your own strength is certain destruction. The Egyptians took the path of faith without faith, and drowned.
- One result. Nothing remained to chase them. The rescued people look back on a broken enemy, and only then does Scripture call them saved.
And the children of Israel walked on dry [ground] through the midst of the sea; and the waters were a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.
Israel stood trapped between Pharaoh's army and the sea. Two questions follow: how did the barrier become a road, and why did the same water save Israel and drown Egypt?
One writer sets the plain record beside the song Israel sang afterwards:
"The waters were a wall to them on their right hand and on their left" — so runs the historical record. "At the blast of Your nostrils the waters piled up; the floods stood up in a heap; the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea" (15:8). So sang Moses and Israel, describing in poetic language the passage made through the waters. It was a passage of dry land, while the waters on each side were piled up.
What looked like the end of the road became their defence:
Israel marched forward in the pathway through the mighty waters. The depths were concealed in the heart of the sea. The light of God's glory-cloud lit up the crystal walls on either side of the pathway through death. The sea had lost its strength, and the powers of nature were both suspended and used for the salvation of Israel. Death, as it were, became a wall of defence to Israel on right hand and left as they passed through the sea.
The verse says only that they walked. Everything else was God's doing:
Their first experience of God's power on leaving Egypt was the sea turned into dry ground before them. Pharaoh's host drowned in the very waters which had been to them a protecting wall on the right hand and on the left. There was but one way through the sea, lit by the glory in the cloud. They had only to walk in it and enjoy the deliverance God had worked, in which they had had no hand whatever.
It is at this point, and not earlier, that the Bible starts calling it salvation:
God was for them; but that was not all, He was against the Egyptians. And so when the Israelites had passed over, the Red Sea closes upon their enemies and all are dead. Then Israel was saved. Here, for the first time, God uses the term salvation — and that is remarkable. He does not say salvation on the night of the Passover lamb, but when they have passed through the sea. Salvation is a great deal more than being kept safe. Salvation means complete clearance from all our foes. It means bringing us out of the house of bondage, and setting us free and clean before God. Israel's foes were completely judged, and they were so saved that they never came under that dread again.
The same water did two opposite jobs:
Condemnation and judgment are entirely over, as a question of the soul's acceptance. The dreadful ordeal has been gone through — but by Another. So it becomes my deliverance from it, according to the righteousness of God. The floods which destroyed the Egyptians were a wall to Israel on the right hand and on the left, the path of safety out of Egypt. The salvation of God was there.
Commentators read the crossing as a picture of what Christ has done:
So God opened a way through death for His people. On the one hand He shielded them from Satan's power; on the other, He used death itself to deliver them from death. This is what the Red Sea pictures — death, and also resurrection — because God brought the people through to the other side… They "went into the midst of the sea on dry ground." Why? Because — we mean the picture it gives — Christ had gone down into death and exhausted its power.
Another writer ties that pathway to the resurrection of Christ:
The believer is saved according to God's perfect salvation. God "raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification" (Rom. 4:24-25)… Christ's own blood has answered for our offences. He Himself, raised from the dead, is the Witness that our sins have been atoned for. Christ risen has made for His people by His resurrection the pathway through death.
The path through the sea was not open to everyone:
As they went through the Red Sea the waters were a wall on the right hand and on the left. Who could go in there? Nothing but faith. Nature might try it, and did, but only to meet judgment. It is a very serious thing to try the path of faith in the power of nature.
- Barrier. The sea that looked like a trap became their defence. They walked on dry ground with the water piled up on both sides.
- Gift. They had no hand in it; there was one lit path, and their whole part was to walk in it.
- Name. Scripture calls it salvation here for the first time. It is far more than being kept safe: it is complete clearance from every foe.
- Verdict. The same floods that walled Israel in safety drowned the Egyptians. One event, two endings.
- Christ. The dry ground is a way opened through death itself. Christ made that pathway by His resurrection, and only faith walks it — nature that tries it meets judgment.
Thus Jehovah saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the sea-shore.
The night before, Israel was trapped between the sea and Pharaoh's army. By morning the same water that terrified them had become their rescue and their enemy's grave. The verse records two things: what the Lord did, and what Israel saw. Commentators find in both a pattern of how a person comes to know they are saved.
Scripture starts using the language of salvation here. One writer notes that nothing God did for Israel before this day carries that name.
Along with this God adds a second picture to complete it — the Red Sea. There the best of Egypt found a grave. God brought the Israelites through what looked to them like certain death. In truth it pictured everlasting life, and it was their best security. That is just where the believer finds the death and resurrection of Christ. Then for the first time God chooses to speak of salvation in relation to His people (Ex. 14:13, 30; Ex. 15:2). He never speaks of anything, however glorious, done before this as "salvation." It does great harm to souls to call a partial, immature knowledge of God salvation. Scripture keeps that word for the soul God has brought into conscious liberty — set free now, through the gospel, from every enemy by His power in Christ.
Israel was already safe under the blood on the doorposts in Egypt. One writer presses the difference between that safety and this deliverance.
The blood on the doorposts shielded them from judgment. It kept Him out, and He did not come into their houses to destroy. Had He come in, it must have been in judgment. At the Red Sea it was another thing — God coming in strength as their salvation. The Passover delivered them from His judgment; the Red Sea from their enemies. They dreaded that sea, and it seemed to throw them into Pharaoh's hands. Instead it becomes the means of their salvation. So through death God delivered them from death.
One verse holds both facts: Israel saved, Egypt dead. The chapter draws a line with nobody standing on it.
It is the contrast emphasised between the salvation of Israel and the destruction of the Egyptians. There are only two classes. There could be no other — the lost (the Egyptians) and the saved (the Israelites). Death and judgment swallowed up the first group. God brought the second through in safety, because the value of the blood of the Lamb covered them. We then read that "the LORD saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians." He had before sheltered them from judgment, but now He saved them from the foe.
Israel contributed nothing to the crossing. One writer turns that into a question about assurance.
I meet a great many people today who are hoping, trying, and longing to be saved. But I do not meet many who are bold enough to say, "Thank God, I am saved, for He has saved me." Is it presumption to say so? No, it is not presumption to boast in what God does. It would be great presumption if it were something you and I had a hand in. But notice here that the people of Israel stand still and the Lord does everything. When He has done everything, what do they do? They turn and praise Him and give Him glory.
Israel did not just hear that their enemies had fallen. They looked at them lying dead. That sight has a practical parallel for the believer's struggle with self.
They were now looking at these great enemies of their souls as dead on the seashore, set aside for ever by the judicial hand of the living God. And so, believing what God says, that "our old self was crucified with Him," Scripture tells us to consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in our Lord Jesus Christ. Suppose a believer keeps thinking about old self and its desires, watching against it and guarding against it. Then he is counting the old self alive and not dead. Fear, distress, weakness and failure of many kinds come out as a result.
The timing of Israel's first praise is the point.
Look at Israel's history in the first fifteen chapters of Exodus. They did not raise a single note of praise until they had passed through the Red Sea. We hear the cry of deep distress under the cruel whip of Pharaoh's slave-drivers, and amid the crushing labour of Egypt's brick-kilns. And we hear the cry of terror when they stood "between Migdol and the sea." All this we hear. But there is not one note of praise, not a single sound of triumph, until the waters of the Red Sea rolled between them and the land of death and darkness. Only then did they see all the power of the enemy broken and gone.
- Sheltered — the blood in Egypt kept judgment out. That was real safety, but Scripture does not yet call it salvation.
- Saved — at the sea God comes in as their deliverer, and Scripture uses the word "salvation" for the first time.
- Separated — the chapter leaves only two classes, the lost and the saved, divided by the value of the blood of the Lamb.
- Seen — Israel looks at dead enemies. The believer likewise learns to count the old self dead instead of fighting it as living.
- Sung — no praise came from the brick-kilns or the panic on the shore. The song waits until the enemy's power lies broken.
And Israel saw the great power [with] which Jehovah had wrought against the Egyptians; and the people feared Jehovah, and believed in Jehovah, and in Moses his bondman.
The verse closes the Red Sea account with what the crossing did inside the people. They looked at the shore, and their hearts changed. What fear did that produce? What faith? And did it last?
Up to this point God had sheltered Israel from His judgment on Egypt. On the far shore they see something further. One commentator marks the difference between shelter and salvation.
He had before sheltered them from judgment, but now He saved them from the foe. Satan's power was brought to nothing, and they were delivered... it is here for the first time that the word "saved" acquires its full significance.
The same writer weighs the phrase "the people feared the LORD." This fear differs from the fear they had known in Egypt.
Such a display of power — destructive on the one hand, and redemptive on the other — had bowed their hearts and produced reverent fear in their souls. In Egypt they had no doubt feared the Lord in the sense of dread — dreading Him as a holy Judge. But now it was a fear of another kind. It came from seeing His wonder-working power, and it led them to look on Him as their Lord. It was the fear of a close relationship — a fear that wants to please, and dreads above all things to offend.
Under the blood in Egypt, Israel had God's word for their safety. Here they have more than a promise: they have the evidence of their own eyes, and a writer draws out what that added.
They are now a people saved in type, not merely as so recently in Egypt, sheltered by the Passover blood, but brought out of Egypt for God, and the power of Egypt broken under their foot! Under the shelter of the blood God had pledged His word for their safety against judgment, but now they were saved indeed, and they knew it!
Israel did not believe their way through the sea. Scripture records their faith once they were already across. Replying to someone who quoted this verse, a writer sets out the order of events.
When God delivered them, He did not act on the ground of their faith. He acted on the ground of His promise and grace, which He fulfilled to them despite their being evil. What is more, the words you quote from Ex. 14:31 speak of what came after the passage through the Red Sea. They describe the state of the people that followed from what they saw in that crossing and just after it — not their state before that "baptism" took place.
Their trust has two objects: the LORD, and the man He sent. One commentator explains what being tied to Moses meant, and what matches it today.
God had delivered them out of Egypt. The cloud covered them and the sea divided, for their salvation and for the judgment on the Egyptian armies. The Lord had made them free to serve Him, and it is written, "they believed in the LORD and in His servant Moses." In this sense they were baptized, or set apart, to Moses as his disciples. And the person who accepts and professes Christianity is set apart to Christ.
One writer traces Israel's history and finds that praise waited for this exact moment.
We hear the cry of deep distress, under the cruel whip of Pharaoh's taskmasters, and in the hard toil of Egypt's brick kilns. And we hear the cry of terror when they stood "between Migdol and the sea." All this we hear. But we hear no note of praise, no sound of triumph. That waited until the waters of the Red Sea rolled between them and the land of death and darkness, and they saw all the power of the enemy broken and gone.
Scripture itself later looks back on this faith. One commentator points to the sobering line that follows the singing.
You would have thought, as you read the next verse — "Then they believed His words; they sang His praise" (Ps. 106:12) — that they were sure to go on brightly, joyously, and happily. When you were converted, you thought the same. Is it not striking, the next thing you read? "But they soon forgot His works; they did not wait for His counsel" (Ps. 106:13).
God worked for Israel at the sea, and He worked in their hearts on the shore. Edward Dennett puts the two side by side, and shows what happens when they are joined.
There was both a work done for them and in them — and both alike came from the power and grace of God... Salvation is never entered into or enjoyed until these two things are united. The work that lets God save sinners was finished long ago. But the sinner is not saved until he believes.
- Seen — their faith answers something already finished. The verse describes Israel after the crossing, not a condition God set before rescuing them.
- Saved — sheltered from judgment before, they are now saved from the enemy. Here the word "saved" first carries its full weight, where God's work for them meets His work in them.
- Feared — this fear bows the heart and wants to please Him. It is not the dread of a Judge they had felt in Egypt.
- Believed — they trust God, and the servant God sent. One commentator calls this being set apart to Moses, as a Christian is set apart to Christ.
- Sang — praise begins only on the far shore. Yet Psalm 106 shows how soon those same singers forgot His works.