Exodus 14

Chap. XIV. Ver. 1—18. The Egyptians pursue Israel, who become alarmed and murmur.—The children of Israel are commanded to encamp before Pi-hahiroth, (the mouth or bay of Hiroth,) for the express purpose of displaying the divine glory in their passage through the Red sea; for here they are between two Egyptian forts or fastnesses, with the sea before them, and Pharaoh and his hosts behind. The haughty monarch no sooner hears of their departure, than, as if forgetting every thing he had suffered, he prepares to follow them with all his forces. And here we have another instance, how the Lord may harden the heart without communicating any evil propensity, merely by placing a man in circumstances which may excite his evil passions, as the sun innocently draws forth an evil odour from the dung-heap.

The same circumstances operate in another way upon the Israelites, by tempting them to murmur and rebellion: and here it may be necessary to remark, that, as St. Paul says, they were “not all Israel that were of Israel.” ((Romans 9:6).) In the first place, there was a mixed multitude (“a great mixture,” as the margin expresses it) which went up with them; some, perhaps, attracted by personal attachment, or connexions by marriage (for even Moses married an Egyptian;) others, probably, by great expectations; hearing they were going to inhabit “a land flowing with milk and honey,” and wishing to share it with them, without any calculation of difficulties or disasters. Besides all these, even among the children of Abraham, there were many who were such only “according to the flesh,”

and not partakers of Abraham’s faith. We need not wonder, therefore, to hear of murmurings and mutinies. And if we know ourselves, we shall be willing to admit, that even the best of them, who were “Israelites indeed,” would be too prone to join with those who rebelled against God and against Moses. We need not wonder, therefore, that when difficulties arose on account of the way, or oppositions from their enemies, that we hear of repinings, and even insurrections. The first instance of this occurs in the very outset of their journey, and this very instance shows the vanity of character already mentioned. No sooner are the Egyptians seen behind them, than “the children of Israel cried unto the Lord; and they,”

that is, some among them, (but not those, we may conclude, who cried unto the Lord,) murmured against Moses and against God, and repented leaving Egypt. It appears, also, by their own confession, that these were the same people who had before murmured and repined. ‘Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians?’ There are certainly persons so debased in spirit, and degraded in principle, as to love their chains, and to despise all the blessings of civil and religious liberty. Such will prefer a “grave in Egypt,” to all the blessings of “the land of promise,” when there are obstacles in the way. And is it not so to the present day? Are there not many who prefer to sit down and perish in their sins, rather than to arise and fight the battles of the Lord? Moses, however, and God by him, accommodates his mes-

Notes on the verses

Chap. XIV. Ver. 2. Pi-hahiroth.—Pi-hahiroth, “the mouth of Chiroth,” as it is rendered by the LXX. Dr. Shazo is of opinion that Chiroth denotes the valley which extends from the wilderness of Etham to the Red sea. “This valley,” he observes, “ends at the sea in a small bay made by the eastern extremities of the mountains (of Gewoubee and Attackah, between which the valley lies) which I have been describing, and is called T’iah-beni-Israel, i.e. the road of the Israelites, by a tradition that is still kept up by the Arabs, of their having passed through it; so it is also called Raideah, from the new and unheard of miracle that was wrought near it, by dividing the Red sea, and destroying therein Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen.—Between Migdol and the sea.—Migdol, signifies a tower, and hence some have supposed that it was a fortress which served to defend the bay.

But the LXX. renders it Magdolus, which is mentioned by Herodotus, Hecateus, and others, and is expressly said by some to be a “city of Egypt.” This Bochart conjectures to have been the same as Migdol.—Bagster.—Baal-zephon might serve the double purpose of a watch-tower and a temple of Baal.—[This was probably the name of a town or city, as Ezekiel the Opener expressly calls it, in which Baal was worshipped; and probably called zephon, from being situated on the north point of the Red sea, near the present Suez.]—Bagster. Ver. 16, Over the sea.—[Red sea.—The upper part is divided into two gulfs on every side.] Ver. 19-31. Israel passes through the Red sea, and the Egyptians are drowned.—“The word which commands the progress (says Dr.

Hunter) also prepares the way. The powerful rod is once more stretched out. The east wind blows. The sea retires, and a safe and easy passage is opened for Israel through the channel of the deep.” The waters were divided, and they went through on dry land. But we must not ascribe this miracle to Moses, or to his rod, as though he had wrought it by his own power. There was another agent. “The angel of God” and of the covenant, “who had gone before Israel in the pillar of the cloud;” but who now stopped behind, while they went forward: and while this pillar was a cloud of light to direct Israel in their passage, which was by night, it was a cloud of impenetrable darkness to the Egyptians, so that they could not proceed till Israel had arrived safe on the other side the channel.

“And it came to pass, that in the morning watch (that is, at dawn of day) Jehovah (the divine angel, or agent, just mentioned) goes forth through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the Egyptians,” while they were essaying to follow Israel through the deep. He loosened their chariot wheels, and “made them to go heavily;” and at the same time he frowned upon them in an angry tempest. So the Psalmist tells us, “‘The clouds poured out water, and the skies sent out a sound: thine arrows also went abroad. The voice of thy thunder was in the heavens; the lightnings lightened the world; the earth trembled and shook. Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and thy footsteps are not known.”

((Psalms 77:17-19).) In terror and alarm, they confess that “Jehovah fighteth for them that to the East called the Elanitic, from the city Elana at the northern extremity, and that to the west, the Heroopolitic, from the city of Heroopolis. The former is called by the Arabians, Bahr el Akaba, the sea of Akaba; and the latter Bahr el Kolzum, the sea of destruction, or Clysme; which was that which the Israelites passed.” —Bagster. Ver. 21. The waters were divided.—Great pains have been taken, by Deistical writers, to represent this passage as accidental, rather than miraculous. But Niebuhr, the celebrated traveller, in his “Description of Arabia,” says, “People are very much deceived, if they imagine that the passage of so great a caravan could have taken place by natural means.

No caravan from Cairo to Mount Sinai takes this road, though they would gain a great deal if they could do so. But some thousand years ago it was still less possible, naturally speaking, for the children of Israel to pass. The water at that time was probably much broader, extending farther to the north, and much deeper.” Ver. 22. Waters were a wall.—[This verse demonstrates, that this event was] “When Egypt’s king, God’s chosen tribes pursued, In crystal walls the admiring waters stood: When through the desert, wild, they took their way, The rocks relented and poured forth a sea: What limits can Almighty goodness know, When seas can harden, and when rocks can flow?” Thus ended this memorable contest between Jehovah and the Egyptians, as, indeed, all contests between God and man must sooner or later end, in the triumph of the former and destruction of the latter; for “‘who can harden himself against him and prosper?’ On the other hand, as it respects the children of Israel, those who cried for deliverance, are now preparing a song of praise, which we shall read in the next chapter; and those who feared and murmured have buried both their fears and murmurings in the same watery grave with Pharaoh and his armies.

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