The Final Blow - Exodus 14:23-31

14:23-31 - In the movie the Ten Commandments, the part where the Israelites are going through the Red Sea on dry ground is pretty dramatic. The Egyptians are being held back by a pillar of fire, the Israelites are trudging through the spilt ocean, then suddenly the pilar of fire disappears and sends the Egyptians into the path before the Hebrews had even cleared it. I always thought, “why would God not make the Egyptian’s wait until after the Hebrews had already gotten through, why would He scare them like that?” Of course, what I didn’t understand was that this was theater and not historically accurate and God most likely didn’t let the Hebrews get chased through the miraculously opened sea and be terrorized. In fact, we don’t really have any explanation as far as what happened except “the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them to the midst of the sea.” There’s a whole thing about God binding up the wheels of the Egyptians, then they get scared and try to flee because they recognize “the Lord fighteth for them.”

It always amazes me when we are studying the scriptures and people are so focused on the wrong things that they will look a miracle straight in the face, knowing full well that this is something that is completely impossible and that is so unusual they should stop and think, but instead of taking 3 minutes to ask themselves, “am I more powerful than whatever is going on here?” They steamroll right onto their own destruction because they aren’t paying attention. They are so hell-bent on doing what they want to do, that they just end their own lives ‘kicking against the pricks.” And that’s what happens with the Egyptians right here, they see this great body of water split open miraculously, something impossible that they’ve never seen before, and charge head first into it so that they can murder some slaves that are running away, so God has Moses “Stretch out thine hadn’t over the sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen.”

That’s exactly what happens when Moses stretches out his hand, the waters come rushing back into where they were and the Egyptians and all their equipment are destroyed and “there remained not so much as one of them... This the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore. And Israel saw the great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians: and the people feared the Lord, and believed the Lord, and his servant Moses.” I really feel like the Egyptians did this to themselves because running into the sea after the Israelites was just stupid, even if we don’t consider the almost year long sequence of miraculous and catastrophic events that preceded that in which they should have recognized that the Hebrews were protected by a God far more powerful than anything they had. So they brought this on themselves.

I guess it’s not that black and white though, having been in the army myself, there almost certainly would have been a significant number of men there who knew that they would have been executed if they didn’t follow the orders to run in after them, so I guess it was death either way, maybe this way they spared their families any retribution if that was a consideration. But if that was the case, then why did God let them drown too? It’s not fair that these men, the Egyptian army private equivalents, would have been killed either by Pharaoh for disobedience or by God for pursuing the Hebrews into the water. That’s not an equal or justice existence, but so much of everyone’s lives isn’t. This life is though, so I just have to trust that it will all be worked out on the back end.

Additionally, it wasn’t just a “consequences of your stupid choice on this day, right now,” there were other reasons why God had to destroy the entirety of the Egyptian army. The IM suggests that there are “at least two reasons for taking Israel through the Red Sea,” and then destroying the Egyptians afterward, “First, the action displayed His awesome and great protective power. He was the only warrior in this battle against one of the most formidable armies in the world. Therefore, this event was the prelude and proof of His demand henceforth for trust and obedience.” This goal was satisfied as we see that when the Israelites were safely on the other side of the Red Sea and all the Egyptian soldiers were dead on the sea shore, the people “feared” and believed in God and his promises, but more than that, they also believed and trusted Moses at least for a while.

A second reason that the Lord destroyed the Egyptian army, was “when that battle was over, the power of the Egyptians army was destroyed. The time necessary for rebuilding Egypt’s power left Israel unmanaged until she became established in the promised land. Paul taught that the passage through the Red Sea and the overshadowing of the cloud and pillar of fire were clearly types or symbols of the baptism of water and fire (see 1 Corinthians 10:1-4).” Egypt had just been decimated over the last several months through these plagues, they lost tons of livestock, tons of grain and food, they were overrun with the dead bodies of frogs, locusts, cattle, and the firstborn males. They had lost through exodus 25% of their population, a ton of people through the deaths of the first born, they were staring starvation in the face because so many of their crops and animals were destroyed, it was going to take a significant amount of time for them to return to their full strength again, if they ever could. All of this was done because of the stubbornness of one man, the Pharaoh. He was so hard hearted that he allowed almost his entire country to be destroyed rather than give up some people.

TB asks, “Did Pharaoh die here, along with his troops? We’re not told. Many thing he did, and there is some evidence in Egyptian historical documents that during the supposed time period of the Exodus, the Pharaoh died and Egypt also went into a terrible decline that lasted for decades. It is not explained as to just WHY this PHaraoh’s death and the sudden collapse of Egypt were tied together. But, if indeed this were referring to the Pharaoh of the Exodus it would explain a lot. Egypt, now without its leader, the rightful heir to the throne having died during Passover night, and 1/4 of the population leaving all at once, would have collapsed.” If this one man singlehandedly destroyed his own country out of stubbornness, then even once the Hebrews were gone, he would have pursued them relentlessly, and whoever his successor was would have as well. The controlled the desert, a huge amount of land around them, Israel would have been harassed on every side. This was the final death blow to Egypt and this Pharaoh who was so obstinate, God completely dominated them while still showing mercy to most of those who weren’t involved. He could have killed them all but that wasn’t the goal, mercy and justice.