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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 159. The Red Sea
Subjects in this Topic:
VI
The Red Sea
Literature
Bell, C. D., The Roll-Call of Faith (1886), 245.
Brown, R. H., The Land of Goshen (1912), 59.
Chadwick, G. A., The Book of Exodus (Expositor's Bible) (1890), 195.
Driver, S. R., The Book of Exodus (Cambridge Bible) (1911), 111.
Drysdale, A. H., Early Bible Songs (1890), 103.
Duncan, J. G., The Exploration of Egypt and the Old Testament (1908), 80.
Foakes-Jackson, F. J., The Biblical History of the Hebrews (1903), 69.
Gibson, J. M., The Mosaic Era (1881), 61.
Knight, G. H., In the Cloudy and Dark Day (1910), 113.
Maclaren, A., Expositions: Exodus, etc. (1906), 52.
Matheson, G., Leaves for Quiet Hours (1904), 108.
Meyer, F. B., Moses the Servant of God, 75.
Meyer, F. B., Exodus, i. (1911) 216.
Montefiore, C. G., The Bible for Home Reading, i. (1896) 66.
Ottley, R. L., Aspects of the Old Testament (1897), 137.
Pearse, M. G., Moses: His Life and its Lessons (1894), 117.
Petrie, W. M. F., Researches in Sinai (1906), 203.
Petrie, W. M. F., Egypt and Israel (1911), 37.
Stanley, A. P., Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church, i. (1889) 119.
Strong, A. H., One Hundred Chapel-Talks to Theological Students (1913), 104.
Talbot, E., Sermons Preached in the Leeds Parish Church (1896), 117.
Wright, G. F., Scientific Confirmations of Old Testament History (1907), 83.
Biblical World, xxix. (1907) 541 (K. Fullerton).
Homiletic Review, liv. (1907) 58 (Emperor William II.).
1. Never probably in the history of the world was there a scene more tragic and more wonderful than this of Israel's deliverance. What a night it is when in every little hut and hovel of the Hebrews each family waits expectant for the coming of the God of Israel-their souls stirred by the strange ceremony in which they have taken part; the blood sprinkled on the door-posts, and themselves standing ready for a journey, waiting for the moment of their freedom. A nation is to be born in a day. Night has settled upon Egypt, upon its palaces, upon the stately houses of its nobles, upon the lowly homes of its toilers in all the land. Now comes the dread moment when the Angel of the Lord goes forth on his errand, whose shadow is the shadow of death. Swift is his flight, and as he passes, lo! the firstborn is dead in every house. Then bursts upon the still night from every side a cry, the like of which had never been heard-“The firstborn is dead! dead!” And all the nation spring forth, as if delay meant further death, and thrust upon the Israelites their jewels of silver and their jewels of gold, and urge them to be gone. And forth marches Israel, a people for whom their God has wrought such great wonders-they and their little ones, their flocks and their herds. Not a disorderly mob is it, but like the host of God, marshalled and “harnessed,” or, as it is rendered in the margin, by five in a rank, step by step, each tribe under the leadership of the head-man. And over them rise the wondrous tokens of God's presence-the pillar of cloud casting upon them its kindly shade, and by night the pillar of fire to give them light.
A marvellous parallel this story presents to the experience of the individual soul in passing from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God. When God comes to deal with a man in order to effect his salvation He finds him dead in trespasses and sins. He finds that he has forgotten his origin as one made in the image of God, his destiny as one meant to live in the favour of God. He finds him serving and content to serve the devil. So God's first work with a man is to awaken him to the shame and misery of his position as a sinner. And this is done just as the awakening of Israel was done. The path of sin is made bitter; the service that once seemed pleasant is made intolerable; and, as the desire for deliverance awakens, in the preaching of the gospel it is offered to the soul. So the soul awakens, and, like Israel, often finds the moment of awaking a moment of agony, in which it is tempted to curse those by whom the bitter sense of sin has been aroused. But after awakening comes the time of struggle. The soul at first seeks to free itself. By fast and prayer, by reading of the Bible and scrupulous carefulness of life, the man strives to plague the Pharaoh within him and escape from his hand. But he is not delivered until he comes, as Israel came, to the place of blood-shedding; it is at the foot of the Cross that the grip of sin loosens. It is there that its power is broken. Until a man comes to the Cross the hope of deliverance is vain. But when the blood is sprinkled on the soul the old master is forsaken. We become dead to sin by the Body of Christ, and enter on the new life, and then we lust for this new life. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” New ambitions are ours, we no longer live to ourselves but to Christ; new motives are ours, the love of Christ constrains us, the spirit of Christ empowers us, and for this new life there are the new laws. We pass under the perfect law of liberty, the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus.1 [Note: G. H. C. Macgregor, Messages of the Old Testament, 25.]
2. An essential question in any consideration of the Exodus is that of the numbers of the people. A very serious difficulty has been felt by every one who has considered the statements of numbers; and the solutions have been either to declare the numbers wholly fictitious, or to make some purely arbitrary reduction. Before desperately cutting the knot in either of these ways, it is our business to try to untie it, by tracing any possible source for the statements, or any likely corruption which they may have undergone.
The number of men is stated at 600,000, besides children and a mixed multitude (Exo_12:37), or 603,550 besides Levi (Num_2:32). It has always been a difficult matter to understand how so vast a multitude could have been supported either in the land of Goshen or in the Sinaitic Peninsula; or could have been brought out of Egypt in the time and manner related. But Professor Petrie has propounded a solution which is possibly right. The solution depends on the fact that alâf, which means “thousands,” has also a second meaning, namely, “groups” or “families.” And Professor Petrie shows, in his Researches in Sinai, good reasons for believing that the alâf of the census of Num_1:1-54; Num_26:1-65 has been wrongly given the meaning of “thousands” instead of “families.” For instance, the statement in words-“thirty alâf, two hundred people,” has been taken to mean “thirty thousand two hundred people” instead of “30 families, 200 people”-the 200 people being the number of individuals in the 30 families. Professor Sayce states that this view is supported by Assyrian, in which he believes the originals of the Hebrew text of the Pentateuch were written. Interpreted in this way, the first census of Num_1:1-54 gives a population of 5550, and the second census-that of Num_26:1-65 - 5730, figures which appear from several lines of reasoning to be very probable ones. If these conclusions are accepted, the difficulty of imagining the Exodus and the wanderings in the desert of so vast a multitude is, if not removed, at any rate lessened. The numbers, even so modified, are sufficient to leave the Exodus and desert wanderings a marvel.
3. The exodus of a whole race with all its belongings is, one might say, nothing unusual in the history of Egypt. The Israelites themselves in the early days of their sojourn there must have witnessed the exodus of the Hyksos people from Avaris, very likely by the same route as they themselves followed, through the Wady Tumilat to the Sinaitic Peninsula and thence into Canaan, where tradition credits the Hyksos with having founded the city of Jerusalem. The question has been raised why they did not join the Hyksos and leave Egypt at that time; but the period of their oppression had not then begun, and favourable conditions were still granted them by the conquerors of the Hyksos.
Dr. Sayce relates an exodus of quite recent date from the Wady Tumilat itself. Mohammed Ali had it planted with mulberry trees, and induced many interested in the manufacture of silk to come from Syria and elsewhere and settle there. As long as he lived they enjoyed immunity from taxation and military service; but when he died and his successor determined to impose these burdens upon them in spite of their protest, they packed up their belongings and departed suddenly in a night, leaving their houses open and the valley deserted, and returned to their former homes.1 [Note: J. G. Duncan, The Exploration of Egypt and the Old Testament, 81.]
One of these slave-races in Egypt rose at last in revolt. Noticeably it did not rise against oppression as such, or directly in consequence of oppression. We hear of no massacre of slave-drivers, no burning of towns or villages, none of the usual accompaniments of peasant insurrections. If Egypt was plagued, it was not by mutinous mobs or incendiaries. Half a million men simply rose up and declared that they could endure no longer the mendacity, the hypocrisy, the vile and incredible rubbish which was offered to them in the sacred name of religion. “Let us go,” they said, “into the wilderness, go out of these soft water-meadows and corn-fields, forsake our leeks and our fleshpots, and take in exchange a life of hardship and wandering, “that we may worship the God of our fathers.” Their leader had been trained in the wisdom of the Egyptians, and among the rocks of Sinai had learnt that it was wind and vanity. The half-obscured traditions of his ancestors awoke to life again, and were rekindled by him in his people. They would bear with lies no longer. They shook the dust of Egypt from their feet, and the prate and falsehood of it from their souls, and they withdrew, with all belonging to them, into the Arabian desert, that they might no longer serve cats and dogs and bulls and beetles, but the Eternal Spirit who had been pleased to make His existence known to them. They sung no pæans of liberty. They were delivered from the house of bondage, but it was the bondage of mendacity, and they left it only to assume another service. The Eternal had taken pity on them. In revealing His true nature to them, He had taken them for His children.2 [Note: J. A. Froude, Short Studies on Great Subjects, ii. 24.]
4. Regarding the route of the Exodus there have been three views: (a) the northern line by Qantara, proposed by Brugsch, and now abandoned; (b) the line via Suez, and across the Sinai Peninsula to Aqabah,-this was supposed to be needful to reach the Midianites, but there is no proof that Midianites may not have been in Sinai at the time; (c) the traditional route by the Gulf of Suez, which in the judgment of Flinders Petrie agrees with all the indications, and which he describes in this way: “The Israelites are represented as having concentrated at Rameses, and immediately after the Passover marched to Succoth. This was a general name for the district of Bedawy booths in the Wady Tumilat, the Thuku of the Egyptians. Thence they went to Etham in the edge of the wilderness, which would be about the modern Nefisheh. Thence they are said to turn and encamp before Pi-hahiroth, that is in Egyptian Pa-qaheret, where there was a shrine of Osiris, the Serapeum of later times; they turned from the eastern direction southward to this. There was a Migdol tower behind them, and Baal-zephon opposite to them. Here they were ‘entangled in the land, the wilderness had shut them in,' as they had not rounded the north of the lakes. Formerly the Gulf of Suez extended up through the lakes past Ismailiyeh to Ero, otherwise Pithom. They were thus, ‘encamping by the sea, beside Pi-hahiroth.' This is the highest ground between Ismailiyeh and Suez at present, and must have been the shallowest part of the former gulf. Here ‘a strong east wind all that night made the sea dry, and the waters were divided,' so that it was possible to cross the gulf and reach Baal-zephon on the eastern shore.
“After crossing they ‘went three days' journey in the wilderness of Etham, and pitched in Marah' (Num_33:8). This is the road of three days' journey, which is defined as such by the absence of any water, and which was the avowed objective named to the Egyptians (Exo_5:3). It is the marked feature of the Sinai road, and differs entirely from the seven days' journey without water to Aqabah. At Marah the bitter water identifies it with the present bitter spring of the Wady Hawara. Two hours further on is the Wady Gharandel, where there is an excellent running stream and palm trees, agreeing to the well-watered Elim. From thence they encamped by the Red Sea, again agreeing to this route. Thence they went into the Wilderness of Sin between Elim and Sinai; they passed Dophkah and Alush, not now identified, and came to Rephidim, where the main battle took place with the Amalekites for possession of the only fertile strip in the peninsula, the present Wady Feiran. It is obvious that this route was well known to the writers of the itineraries in Exodus and Numbers, and there is no discrepancy or question left in the matter.”1 [Note: W. M. F. Petrie, Egypt and Israel, 39.]
We must dismiss from our minds, when we use the words “desert” or “wilderness,” the idea of desolate wastes of sand. The Pentateuch has very few references to sand. The fact is that sand is the exception in the desert or wilderness which Israel traversed for forty years. It will be remembered that the Psalmist sings of “the pastures of the wilderness.” We must, therefore, imagine a tract of country in which, though there are no cornfields or vineyards, yet there would be abundance of pasture for nomad tribes wandering with their flocks, and sometimes the broad open wastes, like our downs or commons, widen out into scenes of splendid luxuriance and beauty.2 [Note: F. B. Meyer, Exodus, i. 217.]