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Exodus 15
It insured their safety. Suppose that they had not in the first instance been pursued, and that consequently this judgment had not befallen the Egyptians. It would have been possible at any time for the king of Egypt to have pursued them; and the dread of his doing so, during their long sojourn in the wilderness, must for many years have troubled their minds, and prevented them from enjoying the confidence of safety, unless they looked with more assurance to the certainty of the Divine protection than they were disposed to do. But now this source of apprehension was quieted forever. The death of the king, and the destruction of his forces, must have greatly crippled the resources of his successor, and may well have prevented him, had he been so inclined, from pursuing an object which had brought so much disgrace and ruin upon the nation. But the probability is that he had no inclination to follow the policy which had been maintained chiefly by the personal obstinacy of the late king. Indeed, it is not unlikely that the frequent talk of the Israelites, subsequently, of returning to Egypt, may have arisen from the conviction that the state of affairs was so materially altered in that country by this great event, that they might do so without danger of the old oppression being renewed; and they may possibly have even thought that in this weakening and confusion to Egypt, they might stand a fair chance of gaining the upper hand in that country, as the Shepherd Kings had done before.
Another result of the overthrow would be that they acquired possession of great and valuable spoil, especially in weapons and armor, which they greatly needed. The flower of Pharaoh’s army, the chivalry of Egypt, lay dead upon the shore of the Red Sea; and offered to the Israelites a most valuable and easily acquired booty—such as has rarely fallen to the lot of any people. This must have formed a very material contribution to the wealth which the Hebrews are known to have possessed in the wilderness.
This signal display of the Divine power for their protection, had also a most important effect upon the future history of the nation, and this by the result produced upon their own minds, and upon the minds of the neighboring nations. As to themselves we cannot question that this marvellous interposition must have had a material effect in impressing them with a conviction of the Lord’s goodness and power. Their tendency to distrust and unbelief must have been greatly checked by it; and although that tendency now and then broke out in acts of discontent and rebellion, nothing can more clearly show that a strong and salutary impression was produced, than the prominent manner in which this event is set forth, and the pointed way in which it is referred to in all the subsequent literature of the people, and especially in the Psalms of David. Every nation has some one prominent point of history which it regards with more habitual attention, and allusions to which occur more frequently than to any other in the songs of the poets and the glowing words of orators; and to the Hebrews the passage of the Red Sea, and the overthrow of Pharaoh and his splendid host, was this one point of fixed regard, which it would not have been, but through the impression originally produced on the national mind. Later ages cannot create any enthusiasm with regard to a past event, which was not experienced at the time when it was a new and living fact.
No less conspicuous was the effect produced upon the neighboring nations; and it had much influence in protecting the Israelites from hostilities, and in facilitating their future progress, by inspiring a salutary dread of the God by whom they were so manifestly protected. It is clear that they, at least who had the best opportunities of knowing the facts, never in the least doubted that this event was a most stupendous miracle; and it is only as such that it could have produced upon them the effect which is recorded. Forty years after, kings trembled on their thrones when they thought of it; and it had even more remarkably taken a distinct place in the minds of the common people—of those who had no concern with public affairs. Thus does Rahab, a woman of the small town of Jericho, speak at the same date to the Hebrew spies—“I know that the Lord hath given you the land, and that your terror is fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the waters of the Red Sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt. And as soon as we had heard these things, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man because of you.”—Jos_2:9-11. Even three hundred years after the miracle, when the ark of God was brought into the camp of Israel, the Philistines were terrified by the recollection of this then ancient event, and cried, “Woe unto us! for who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty Gods, that smote the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness?”—1Sa_4:8. An impression thus strong and durable could not but contribute very materially to the safety of the Israelites in the wilderness, and to their ultimate conquest of the Promised Land.
A recent writer Note: Sacred Annals, by George Smith, F.S.A., ii. 67. has forcibly directed attention to the manner in which the people rejoiced at their deliverance, as not only illustrating the orderly state of the multitude, but evincing their intellectual and moral culture, and we may avail ourselves of some of his remarks. It is to be noted that they had escaped from evils as weighty in aggravated affliction, as humiliating and debasing in their effects, as had ever pressed upon any people. Yet how did these men manifest their joy, after having suddenly obtained a great accession of wealth, seen their tyrant foes destroyed, and felt themselves restored to perfect freedom? Much as is implied in the statement, it may be safely answered that they did it in a manner worthy of the great occasion. Moses composed a thanksgiving ode, which the ten thousands of Israel, both men and women, united in singing, as they exulted in their new-born freedom on the shores of the Red Sea. In this noble piece of poetry, full of sublime thoughts, breathing deeply pious and grateful feeling, and replete with enlarged views of the consequences that might be expected to result from this glorious deliverance, we have an expression of the mind of the Hebrew public on this great occasion. As the ode was adapted for alternate recitation, not only did the men of Israel shout forth their joy in sacred strains, but the women also, led on by Miriam, and accompanying their voices with the sound of the timbrel and the motions of the dance, swelled the chorus of thanksgiving, and re-echoed to the skies the bold refrain—“Sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he cast into the sea.” “Where, in all history, do we find a great national deliverance so appropriately acknowledged? Let this public action be tested by her highest standard in regard to elevated religious devotion, striking intellectual dignity, eloquent and cultivated, and then let those who speak of these Hebrews as a horde of semi-savages, tell us what great public act, in the best ages of Greece and Rome, will bear comparison with this grateful conduct of the redeemed Israelites.”
Our readers are no doubt aware that there is a dispute as to the place where the passage of the Red Sea took place. We have not here entered into the question. No certainty can be obtained on this subject; but we have always entertained the impression that they came out at or near the place called Ain Mûsa (Fountain of Moses). The sea is here about eight miles across; and the station is about twelve miles from the extremity of the gulf at Suez. A few shrubs and stunted palms are here nourished by the brackish waters of six or eight shallow pools, which appear to be scooped out in the dark hard earth deposited from the waters itself, and which, in the course of three or four thousand years, has acquired considerable elevation, so that the waters are above the level of the grounds around. Some of the shallow wells are evidently recent, others are more ancient. From none of them does the water run freely; but the ground around is kept moist, and the scanty vegetation affords some relief and contrast to the neighboring desolation.
Why do these fountains, it may be asked, bear the name of Moses? Were they digged by him? Did the hosts of Israel assemble around them after the passage of the Red Sea—or have they merely attracted the great lawgiver’s name, which tradition has connected with almost every prominent point between Egypt and Sinai? It is not at all probable that the present pits were dug by Moses; but from the nature of the ground in which they are sunk, it is likely that they mark an important watering station for the Bedouins from time immemorial. It is also evident that they once occupied a lower level, which has been raised by constant deposition from the waters. This gradual elevation has diminished the quantity of water, and rendered it more brackish. It is reasonable, therefore, to conclude that anciently the waters were abundant and sweet. And if the conclusion be correct, that the Israelites emerged from the bed of the Red Sea at no great distance southward from these wells, and that nearly a month afterwards they had advanced scarcely fifty miles towards Sinai, we may infer that they rested for some time in the neighborhood of the miraculous passage. Yet we do not hear of their wanting any water until they had commenced their marches in the wilderness of Shur; having proceeded for three days without finding any, they began to complain; and as there is no indication of water in this vicinity, except at these wells and at the fountain of Naba, half an hour to the north, there is much probability that they remained for some time encamped around them.