And it was told the king of Egypt that the people had fled; and the heart of Pharaoh and of his bondmen was turned against the people, and they said, Why have we done this, that we have let Israel go from our service?
Israel has just walked out of Egypt. Judgment after judgment has fallen, and every household there is in mourning. Yet within days the king who begged them to leave wants them back. The verse turns on one word: serving. Pharaoh's regret is not that he lost a nation, but that he lost a workforce.
The plagues had bent Pharaoh, but they had not changed him.
What a revelation of the possibilities of the human heart is seen in the case of Pharaoh! The Lord had shown His power in judgment after judgment. At last He had drawn a cry of anguish from every household in the land of Egypt. Yet we still find the king and his servants recovering from the blow that had overwhelmed them with sorrow for a moment. They regret the release of Israel, and dare to follow after them to bring them back to their old servitude.
Note who turns: the king and his servants together.
Pharaoh's words expose what the whole struggle has been about. He does not say "let Israel go"; he says "let Israel go from serving us." God's demand had always named a different master.
In the early chapters of Exodus God sends a message to Pharaoh five times over — "Let my people go." The first time reveals the highest motive behind His command. He speaks of Israel as His "son," and adds, "that he may serve me."
Pharaoh's turn looks like a fit of temper. Commentators point past it to a hand Pharaoh could not see, and to a mind no longer able to weigh evidence.
Pharaoh seems to have brought himself to a state where he could no longer reason clearly. He had been so devastated that he demanded Israel be sent out. Then his mind changed, and he counted it a mistake to let them go. Yet God was behind this hardening of Pharaoh's heart, to display His own superior power.
Panic had made him release Israel, but panic changes no one.
Panic-stricken, he had let the people go, but he was just the same Pharaoh. His heart was quite unchanged, and the hour had now come for his destruction. When God hardens a man's heart, his doom is fixed, and God would be honoured in the judgment of him and his hosts.
Commentators read Pharaoh here as a picture of Satan holding on to a prisoner.
Whenever Satan's power becomes narrowed to a point, his rage increases. So it is here. The hand of redeeming love is about to put out the furnace. But first it blazes out with greater fierceness and heat. The devil does not like to let go anyone he has had in his terrible grasp.
The pressure comes after the first step of faith, not before it.
Satan will of course not let any soul go easily; he will try to hold it back if he can. So in our chapter Pharaoh comes out with all his forces after Israel, and the people are terrified. People learn the evil of their own hearts after they are converted. It happens after they have made the first start and turned round to serve the Lord, wanting to be for Him. And it is then that Satan puts pressure on them, to keep them from being for the Lord completely.
God set the trap: sea ahead, army behind. That changes who does the fighting.
Notice that God permitted and ordered all this. He had marked out their position: before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, opposite Baal-zephon. What is more, He allowed Pharaoh to come upon them. And why? Simply to display Himself in the salvation of His people and the total overthrow of their enemies.
Israel's lowest moment came just before their rescue.
When Israel went out, the rage of Satan knew no bounds. Pharaoh made ready all the chariots of Egypt, his horsemen and his army, and pursued after them. Never had Israel been so downcast as on the eve of their new deliverance. But now that sin in their case was settled, it was a question solely between God and the enemy.
- Regret. Pharaoh's sorrow under judgment was never repentance. Once the blow passed, he wanted his slaves back. That is what the human heart can do.
- Ownership. His words give the real issue away: he grieves the loss of service. God's claim was the same and opposite — let My son go, that he may serve Me.
- Hardening. Pharaoh could no longer reason. God's hand was behind the change, to display His power and to seal Pharaoh's doom.
- Rage. The enemy's grip tightens hardest just before it breaks. Pressure after conversion is not proof of failure but of a power about to lose.
- Freedom. God arranged the trap so He could show Himself in it. With their sin already settled, the fight was no longer Israel's. It lay between God and the enemy alone.
And he yoked his chariot, and took his people with him.
Egypt's king had let Israel go. Now he harnesses his own chariot and takes his army to fetch them back. One verse turns Israel's departure into a chase. It also raises the question of who is really driving that chase.
Why did he let them go at all, and why did the chase not start at once? One writer finds the answer in Egypt's funerals.
But why had he let them escape at all? Numbers 33:4 tells us. The Egyptians were too busy burying their dead at first to pursue them. But now, in all haste, and confident of taking his revenge on what he thought was a defenceless people, he set his well-trained army in motion.
Once the shock wore off, the man underneath was unchanged. Harnessing the chariot shows what judgment alone can never do to a heart.
What a revelation of the possibilities of the human heart we see in Pharaoh! The Lord had made bare His arm in judgment after judgment. At last He had drawn a cry of anguish from every household in the land of Egypt. Yet we still find the king and his servants recovering from the blow that had overwhelmed them with sorrow for the moment. They regretted the release of Israel, and dared to follow after them to bring them back to their former slavery.
Some translations read the second half of the verse as "he took his people with him." Behind the chariot came Egypt's trained regiments, marching under banners that carried the names of its gods.
The regiments wore their own colours and carried the weapons of the service, using the best military knowledge of the time… Each battalion had its own standard, bearing the names or emblems of different deities. The spirit of triumph filled the army. It was certain of its prey. The magician-priests had failed, and the hidden arts had been overcome. Now arrow and javelin, battle-axe, sword and spear would prevail.
One writer sets that whole force beside what God did with it.
The whole power of the enemy is in action to stop their escape. But God broke every single bit of that power at the moment He delivered His beloved people.
God had picked Israel's route, and it looked like a blunder. That is what drew Pharaoh out.
First, we are shown beyond doubt that everything that comes, comes from God's hand, and by the design of His goodness toward them. Egypt is not yet humbled as it needs to be. God leads the people in a way that looks to Pharaoh like human blundering, not divine wisdom. It would naturally look that way to him. In this way he is hardened to his own destruction.
God set the trap with Israel inside it, and He had a reason.
Here was a deeply trying scene — one in which human effort could achieve nothing. Trying to free themselves by anything they could do was like pushing back the ocean's mighty tide with a straw. The sea was in front of them, Pharaoh's armies behind them, and the mountains around them. And all this, notice, was permitted and ordered by God… And why? Simply to display Himself in the salvation of His people and the total overthrow of their enemies.
One writer names what Pharaoh's army stands for in our own experience.
Pharaoh mustered an impressive army with which he meant to recapture Israel and bring them back into slavery. Sin, the bitter enemy of our souls, is determined to stop us from being set free to serve the living God. The world is sin's army, and it seems too strong for us to face. Just as Israel had no organised army, so we have in ourselves no protection against the terrible power of sin. Such protection can come only from the living God.
Israel had never felt lower than on this day. Yet the fight in front of them had changed hands.
When Israel went out, the rage of Satan knew no bounds. Pharaoh made ready all the chariots of Egypt, and his horsemen and his army, and pursued after them. Israel had never been so downcast as they were on the eve of their new deliverance. But now that sin in their case was settled, it was a question solely between God and the enemy.
- Unchanged. Judgment emptied Pharaoh's house but left his heart untouched. The harnessed chariot is the proof.
- Everything. He does not send a squadron — he empties Egypt's arsenal. When God acts, He breaks every part of it.
- Ordered. The route that looked like blundering was God's design. It drew Pharaoh on to his destruction and gave God the stage to display Himself.
- Repeated. Commentators read the pursuing army as the power of sin, chasing anyone who breaks for freedom. We have no defence of our own against it.
- Transferred. With the question of sin already settled, the fight behind them is God's, not theirs.
And he took six hundred chosen chariots, and all the chariots of Egypt, and captains over every one of them.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And Jehovah hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he pursued after the children of Israel; and the children of Israel had gone out with a high hand.
Two things happen at once in this verse: God's hand on a king's heart, and Israel marching out with a high hand. The same act that sets a redeemed people free also sets their old master on the road to his own destruction.
The order of events matters. God does not speak these words over a neutral man. He speaks them over a man who had already thrown His claim back in His face.
Note that this is not said of Pharaoh until after he had contemptuously rejected the claims of the Lord. He had said, "Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and moreover, I will not let Israel go." He rejected the word of the Lord. He set himself in open opposition to Him and His people. And now God hardens his heart in judgment. And God still acts on the same principle.
The hardening never cancels the man's own guilt. It is God giving a man over to what he has already chosen.
God never made any man bad. But He may — and in certain cases does — give people up to the consequences of their own folly and evil. That is, He hardens in judgment those who make light of His grace and reject it… Sin destroys the capacity, not the responsibility, of obeying God.
Losing his firstborn changed Pharaoh's policy for a night. It did not change him.
Panic-stricken, he had let the people go, but he was just the same Pharaoh. His heart was quite unchanged, and the hour had now come for his destruction. When God hardens a man's heart, that man's doom is settled, and God will gain honour in judging him and his armies.
Pharaoh's chase raises a question about the human heart.
The case of Pharaoh shows what the human heart is capable of! The Lord had bared His arm in judgment after judgment. At last He had wrung a cry of anguish out of every household in the land of Egypt. Yet the king and his servants recover from the blow that had overwhelmed them with sorrow for a moment. They regret the release of Israel, and dare to follow after Israel to bring them back into their old slavery.
Shelter under the blood was one thing. Deliverance out of Egypt was another.
Israel was not redeemed — though perfectly safe under the shelter of the blood — as long as they were in Egypt. So the second part, the completion of their redemption, came when God brought them out of the land of Egypt through the Red Sea with a high hand and an outstretched arm. There He destroyed Pharaoh and all his army in its mighty waters. On the basis of the shed blood, God — having been satisfied as Judge — can now act for His people as their Deliverer.
Writers differ on how Israel left. One points to the report in verse 5 that the people had fled:
In Exodus 12 they were like a crowd of timid, frightened creatures, running from an angry enemy… They were not walking out calmly and with dignity. They went out for what I may call dear life… In a coming day it will not be in haste. By then they will have learned that the question is not between themselves and Pharaoh, but between God and Pharaoh, as to whom they belong.
One writer applies the scene to the believer: sheltered, on the road, and still hunted.
They knew they had been delivered from the judgment of God that fell on the firstborn. The blood of the lamb had met that judgment and sheltered them from it. Yet they were still in conflict with Pharaoh… Leaving the world, they forsake Egypt, the place where they had been slaves. And Pharaoh, the prince of this world, pursues after them. Then comes dread and dismay. Until we know that the death of Christ has set us free from Satan's country, we never know full rest of soul.
God's own instructions had placed Israel where escape was impossible. That was the point.
The case seemed completely hopeless; and hopeless it was, as far as they were concerned. They were utterly powerless, and they were being made to realize it, and this is a very painful process to go through; but it is very wholesome and valuable, indeed absolutely necessary for all. We must all, one way or another, learn the force, meaning and depth of that phrase, "without strength"!
- Refusal first. Pharaoh said he did not know the Lord long before we read that the Lord hardened him. Hardening in judgment follows a rejection already made.
- Responsibility stays. God never makes a man bad. Sin destroys the ability to obey, not the duty to obey.
- Unchanged heart. The plagues changed Pharaoh's policy, not his heart. When God hardens a man, that man's doom is settled and God gains honour in the judgment.
- Redeemed, not just sheltered. The blood kept Israel safe in Egypt. The high hand brought them out. Shelter and deliverance are two works resting on one foundation.
- Pursuit follows. The prince of this world chases the people who have just left Egypt. Full rest of soul comes only when we know Christ's death has set us free from his country.
And the Egyptians pursued after them, -- all the horses and chariots of Pharaoh, and his horsemen, and his army, and overtook them where they had encamped by the sea, beside Pi-hahiroth, opposite to Baal-Zephon.
Israel camps by the sea, on the exact spot God named. Then the full weight of Egypt's army catches up with them there. Was this a disaster, or was it the plan?
God chose the spot Himself, and He had two outcomes in view.
The first thing the Lord did was to shut His people up, as far as man was concerned, in a completely hopeless position. He camped them by the sea, with the wilderness all around. If Pharaoh followed after them — as He intended he should — there would be no human way of escape at all. This was done to lure Pharaoh to his destruction, and to reduce the children of Israel to complete dependence on Himself.
God chose the campsite. He also let the army come. One writer asks why.
Here was a deeply trying scene — one in which human effort could achieve nothing. They might as well have tried to push back the ocean's mighty tide with a straw. Nothing they could do would rescue them. The sea was in front of them, Pharaoh's armies behind them, and the mountains around them. And notice, all of this was permitted and ordered by God. He had marked out their position before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, opposite Baal-zephon. What is more, He allowed Pharaoh to come upon them. And why? Simply to display Himself in the salvation of His people, and in the total overthrow of their enemies.
Pharaoh had let Israel go after the death of the firstborn. So why is he chasing them now?
God knew exactly what Pharaoh's reaction to this move would be. He had let the people go in panic, but he was the same Pharaoh. His heart was completely unchanged, and the hour had now come for his destruction. When God hardens a man's heart, his doom is fixed, and God would be honoured in the judgment of him and his hosts.
Both sides looked at the same scene and read it the same way.
The Egyptians marched on in full confidence of an easy victory. For what could rescue a nation of fugitives, burdened with women and children, from their grip? It seemed the same way to the unbelieving children of Israel. They were sheltered by the blood. They were guided by the pillar of cloud. They surely might have said, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" But sight was stronger than faith. To the natural eye, escape was impossible, and captivity or death certain.
God named the camp Himself. One writer reads that name as a call to face the enemy's anger rather than dodge it.
He tells Moses to command the children of Israel to camp before Pi-hahiroth. This means "the mouth of wrath kindlings." They are not simply to avoid the anger of the enemy: they are to face it. The enemy of our souls wants to put us in fear. If we are afraid, it is no use pretending we are not.
Israel is sheltered by the blood, yet terrified of Pharaoh. One writer explains why.
After the children of Israel had seen the blood on the doorposts, we find them trembling before the power of Pharaoh. They were on the road, but they were not out of Egypt. They were still in Pharaoh's territory. They knew they had been delivered from the judgment of God that fell on the firstborn. They knew the blood of the lamb had met that judgment and sheltered them from it. Yet they were still in conflict with Pharaoh. They leave the world. They forsake Egypt, the place where they had been slaves. And Pharaoh, the prince of the world, pursues them. Then comes dread and dismay. Until we know that the death of Christ has set us free from the country of Satan, we never know full rest of soul. Satan can make some claim on us until we can tell him that we are dead and risen with Christ. Pharaoh was stronger than Israel; but God was stronger than Pharaoh.
- Shut in on purpose. God placed Israel where no escape was possible. That drew Pharaoh to his ruin and brought His people to depend on Him alone.
- Shut in, then shown. God closed every exit so He could display Himself — saving His people, destroying their enemies.
- Shut in, still pursued. The blood sheltered them, but they were still in Pharaoh's land. Full rest comes only when we know Christ's death has set us free from Satan's country.
- Shut in, and afraid. They had the blood and the pillar of cloud, but sight was stronger than faith when the chariots appeared.
- Shut in — and Pharaoh doomed. He let Israel go in panic, but his heart never changed. When God hardens a man's heart, his doom is fixed — and God is honoured in the judgment.