Exodus 14 - Into the Sea
God controls all things for one primary purpose: that you may know that He is the Lord.
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Exodus 14 (ESV)
1 Then the Lord said to Moses,
2 “Tell the people of Israel to turn back and encamp
in front of Pi-hahiroth,
between Migdol and the sea,
in front of Baal-zephon;
you shall encamp facing it, by the sea.
3 For Pharaoh will say of the people of Israel,
‘They are wandering in the land;
the wilderness has shut them in.’
4 And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart,
and he will pursue them,
and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host,
and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.”
And they did so.
5 When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled,
the mind of Pharaoh and his servants was changed toward the people, and they said,
“What is this we have done,
that we have let Israel go from serving us?”
6 So he
made ready his chariot
and took his army with him,
7 and took
six hundred chosen chariots
and all the other chariots of Egypt
with officers over all of them.
8 And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt,
and
he pursued the people of Israel
while the people of Israel were going out defiantly.
9 The Egyptians pursued them,
all Pharaoh’s horses
and chariots
and his horsemen
and his army,
and overtook them encamped at the sea,
by Pi-hahiroth,
in front of Baal-zephon.
10 When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes,
and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them,
and they feared greatly.
And the people of Israel cried out to the Lord.
11 They said to Moses,
“Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness?
What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt?
12 Is not this what we said to you in Egypt:
‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’?
For it would have been better
for us to serve the Egyptians
than to die in the wilderness.”
13 And Moses said to the people,
“Fear not,
stand firm,
and see
the salvation of the Lord,
which he will work for you today.
For the Egyptians
whom you see today,
you shall never see again.
14 The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”
15 The Lord said to Moses,
“Why do you cry to me?
Tell the people of Israel to go forward.
16 Lift up your staff,
and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it,
that the people of Israel
may go through the sea
on dry ground.
17 And I will
harden the hearts of the Egyptians
so that they shall go in after them,
and I will get glory over
Pharaoh
and all his host,
his chariots,
and his horsemen.
18 And the Egyptians
shall know that I am the Lord,
when I have gotten glory over
Pharaoh,
his chariots,
and his horsemen.”
19 Then the angel of God
who was going before the host of Israel
moved
and went behind them,
and the pillar of cloud
moved from before them
and stood behind them,
20 coming between
the host of Egypt
and the host of Israel.
And there was the cloud and the darkness.
And it
lit up the night
without one coming near the other all night.
21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea,
and the Lord
drove the sea back
by a strong east wind
all night
and made the sea dry land,
and the waters were divided.
22 And the people of Israel went into
the midst of the sea
on dry ground,
the waters being a wall to them
on their right hand
and on their left.
23 The Egyptians pursued
and went
in after them
into the midst of the sea,
all Pharaoh’s
horses,
his chariots,
and his horsemen.
24 And in the morning watch the Lord
in the pillar of fire and of cloud
looked down on the Egyptian forces
and threw the Egyptian forces into a panic,
25 clogging their chariot wheels
so that they drove heavily.
And the Egyptians said,
“Let us flee from before Israel,
for the Lord fights
for them
against the Egyptians.”
26 Then the Lord said to Moses,
“Stretch out your hand over the sea,
that the water may come back
upon the Egyptians,
upon their chariots,
and upon their horsemen.”
27 So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea,
and the sea returned to its normal course when the morning appeared.
And
as the Egyptians fled into it,
the Lord
threw the Egyptians
into the midst of the sea.
28 The waters returned and covered
the chariots
and the horsemen;
of all the host of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea,
not one of them remained.
29 But the people of Israel
walked on dry ground through the sea,
the waters being a wall to them
on their right hand
and on their left.
30 Thus the Lord saved Israel that day
from the hand of the Egyptians,
and Israel
saw the Egyptians
dead on the seashore.
31 Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians,
so the people feared the Lord,
and they believed
in the Lord
and in his servant Moses.
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Exodus 14 Summary
The Lord's first command to His newly freed people is to wander around in circles in order to bait Pharaoh, whose heart God will once again harden, to chase after them. Pharaoh falls for it, gathers up a massive posse, and takes out to get His free labor back again.
The Israelites, who had just seen with their own eyes the ten plagues God had sent upon Egypt, instantly forget about God's power when they get pinned in between the Egyptian army and the sea, reasoning that they would have been better off as slaves. Moses will be hearing lots of this whining over the next 40 years.
But God hemmed them into their tight spot on purpose, and in one of the most audacious displays of His power in all of history, He opens the sea for His people to pass through and then instantly obliterates the most powerful army on earth at the time.
Dig Deeper
There were lots of more logical routes that God could have used to bring Israel up out of Egypt and into Canaan, but God wasn't interested in efficiency at this point. He makes His game plan clear to Moses right away in v4:
the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.
Ironically, the Israelites quickly forget this key fact when it seems to them that they're trapped. Setting a pattern they'll follow time after time, they complain to Moses that they'd rather go back into slavery than to walk the narrow, difficult road that leads to salvation.
Had God led Israel out the easy way, this episode would have been long forgotten about, even if it was recorded in scripture. Instead, God showed the world His character in a way that would never be forgotten: He is fully just, and fully merciful. He was just in punishing Egypt for their sin, and merciful in saving the incredulous Israelites.
Verse 14 is worth memorizing:
The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.
AAA Prayer:
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our omnipotent Father, who fights for us;
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray that you will trust Him, even when all else seems lost.
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
