Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Exodus 14:19
And the angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them:
19, 20. The angel of God, and the pillar of cloud, instead of being: as hitherto, in front of the Israelites, now take their place behind them. ‘That here two accounts of the same thing have been placed side by side, is as clear as anywhere (e.g. Gen 21:1)’ (Di.). The parts relating to the ‘angel of God ’ (Gen 21:17; Gen 31:11) will belong naturally to E; those referring to the pillar of cloud, as in Exo 13:21 f., to J.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The angel of God – Compare the margin reference, and see Exo 3:2.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Exo 14:19-20
Between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel.
Lessons
1. God in Christ moveth Himself in His hand or work where the Church doth most need help. Before and behind Israel is He.
2. God by Christ the Angel of His Covenant hath given and doth give all help to His Church (Exo 14:19).
3. God sets His posture for help between cruel persecutors and His Church.
4. The very same means God makes to darken His enemies which enlighten His people. So the gospel.
5. This interposition of God keeps the wicked world from destroying His Church (Exo 14:20). (G. Hughes, B. D.)
The removal of Israels cloud to the rear
This passage leads me to speak of God our Rearward. It is God alone who can make the past a source of peace and comfort. We think much of the future; we desire greatly to have an assurance that all will be well with us in time to come. We accept with gratitude the promise, The Lord shall go before thee; but do we fully consider how important the concluding part of that passage is–and be thy rearward?
I. We often need to be deeply impressed with the memory of past blessings.
II. We need the pillar of cloud behind us for our protection from the evil consequences of the past. Wonderful sight! the angel of the Lord breaking camp and going to their rear! that beautiful meteor, the guiding cloud, sailing back over their six hundred thousand fighting men, powerless as their infants, while Egypt was pouring out its swarming myriads to swallow them up. So, my soul! thy sins and the hosts of hell are ready this day to destroy thee; but the angel of the covenant has not forsaken thee; faith can see Him, as plainly as Israel beheld Him going to their rear to stand between them and danger; are not His promises a pillar of cloud to you, and do they not stand between you and the past, saying, I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins?
III. This rearward angel and this pillar of cloud seem to bid me to say to believers, it shall be well with you. For these two things are true concerning all who believe in Jesus. First, you have not seen your best days; and, secondly, you never will. Never through eternity, will you arrive at that summit of bliss from which you will anticipate declension. Onward and upward is to be your way. (N. Adams, D. D.)
Different effects of the same events and dealings
1. A family is visited by dreadful calamity; is reduced from a state of ease and affluence to comparative want. The members of this family are of very different characters; some of them sincere believers, devout worshippers, faithful servants of God; ever considering their talents, as lent for Gods use. Other members of the family are the reverse of all this; sensual, worldly, regardless of spiritual things; caring for nothing, but that to-morrow may be as this day, and much more abundant. Observe, now, how differently these members of the same family will be affected by what has befallen them: how the calamity will wear a bright side to some, and a dark side to others. Trouble of another kind overtakes the same family; a friend, a relation, upon whom the comfort of their life depended, is suddenly removed by the stroke of death. Some acknowledge the providential hand of God, inflicting a wound, but supplying a gracious remedy; they are drawn the more closely to their sure, unchangeable Friend. But who are they, that are sitting down gloomy and disconsolate and refusing to be comforted? They are the godless members of this family, whose all is in the world, in the creature. And thus, while some are utterly discomfited by this loss, others can find it to be their gain.
2. This leads me to speak upon the different impressions made upon different persons by the means of grace, by the doctrines, and promises, and precepts of the gospel. The humble, faithful servant of God, derives light and life from every portion of Divine revelation. Very contrary to this are the views and feelings of the blinded sinner; nay, of the careless, lukewarm, outward believer. The same doctrines, which afford so much satisfaction and peace to the godly wear to him a different aspect; there is no beauty in them that he should desire them; no power derived from them even to affect, much less to change, the heart. The same promises also appeal to him without any encouraging, life-giving effect. And the same holy precepts, instead of being loved and honoured, are a trouble to his soul: conscience whispers, that he ought to obey them; and the law of God, instead of being his guide, stands in opposition to him, and fills him with fear. The light that is in him is darkness; that which is a light to others, and should be a light to him, is perverted into darkness; and then, how great is that darkness! (J. Slade, M. A.)
The glory in the rear
God is always with those who are with Him. If we trust Him, He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. There is a special and familiar presence of God with those who walk uprightly, both in the night of their sorrow, and in the day of their joy. Yet we do not always in the same way perceive that presence so as to enjoy it. God never leaves us, but we sometimes think He has done so. The sun shines on, but we do not always bask in his beams; we sometimes mourn an absent God.
I. In considering the subject of the Lords abiding with His people, I shall first call attention to the Divine presence mysteriously removed. The angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed.
1. The symbol of Gods presence removed from where it had usually been. So has it been with us at times: we have walked day after day in the light of Gods countenance, we have enjoyed sweet fellowship with Jesus Christ our Lord, and on a sudden we have missed His glorious manifestation.
2. Moreover, they missed the light from where they hoped it would always be. Sometimes you also may imagine that Gods promise is failing you; even the word of God which you had laid hold upon may appear to you to be contradicted by your circumstances. Then your heart sinks to the depths, for if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?
3. The pillar of fire also removed from where it seemed more than ever to be needed. Even thus is it with you, who once walked in the light of Gods countenance; you perhaps have fallen into temporal trouble, and at the same moment the heavenly light has departed from your soul. Now, it is bad to be in the dark on the kings highway; but it is worse to be in the dark when you are out on the open common, and do not know your road. It is well to have a guide when the road is easy; but you must have one when you are coming upon precipitous and dangerous places. Then let him trust; but he will need all the faith of which he can be master. Oh, my Lord, if ever Thou dost leave me, forsake me not in the day of trouble.. Yet what have I said? It is a day of trouble when Thou art gone, whatever my condition may be.
4. Thus it did seem a mysterious thing that the Covenant Angel should no longer direct the marchings of the host of God, and I dare say that some of them began to account for it by a reason which their fears would suggest. I should not wonder that, if they had been asked why the blazing pillar was no longer in the van, they would have replied, Because of our murmurings against the Lord and His servant Moses. God will not go before us because of our sins. This, however, would have been a mistake. There was not a touch of the rod about this withdrawing of His presence from the van, not even a trace of anger; it was all done in lovingkindness. So you must not always conclude that the loss of conscious joy is necessarily a punishment for sin. Darkness of soul is not always the fruit of Divine anger, though it is often so. Sometimes it is sent for a test of faith, for the excitement of desire, and for the increase of our sympathy with others who walk in darkness. There are a thousand precious uses in this adversity. Yet it is a mysterious thing when the light of the future fades, and we seem to be without a guide.
II. Now all this while the Divine presence was graciously near.
1. The Angel of the Lord had removed, but it is added, He removed and went behind them, and He was just as close to them when He was in the rear, as when He led the van. He might not seem to be their guide, but He had all the more evidently become their guard. He might not for the moment be their Sun before, but then He had become their Shield behind. The glory of the Lord was their rereward. Oh, soul, the Lord may be very near thee, and yet He may be behind thee, so that thine outlook for the future may not be filled with the vision of His glory.
2. Note in the text that it is said the pillar went, and stood behind them. I like that, for it is a settled, permanent matter. The Lord had removed, but He was not removing still. Even thus the Lord remaineth with the dear child of God. Thou canst not see anything before thee to make thee glad, but the living God stands behind thee to ward off the adversary. He cannot forsake thee.
3. What is more, these people hart God so near that they could see Him if they did but look back. See how the Lord has helped you hitherto.
4. A thoughtful person would conclude the Lord to be all the more evidently near because of the change of His position. When a symbol of mercy comes to be usual and fixed, we may be tempted to think that it remains as a matter of routine. If the rainbow wore always visible it might not be so assuring a token of the covenant. Hence the Lord often changes His hand, and blesses His people in another way, to let them see that He is thinking of them.
III. The Divine presence wisely revealed. That the symbol of Gods presence should be withdrawn from the front and become visible behind, was a wise thing.
1. Observe, there was no fiery pillar of cloud before them, and that was wise; for the going down into the Red Sea was intended to be an act of lofty faith. The more of the visible the less is faith visible.
2. Moreover, let us mark that the cloudy pillar was taken away from the front because the Lord meant them simply to accept His word as their best guidance.
3. Moreover, God was teaching them another lesson, namely, that He may be near His people when He does not give them the usual tokens of His presence.
4. The host of Israel did not require any guide in front when they came to the sea. How is that? say you. There were no two ways to choose from: they could not miss the way, for they must needs march through the sea. So when men come into deep trouble, and cannot get out of it, they scarcely need a guide; for their own plain path is submission and patience.
5. What they did want was the pillar of cloud behind them, and that is where they had it. What was that cloud behind them for? Well, it was there for several reasons: the first was to shut out the sight of their enemies from them. The cloudy pillar went behind for another reason, namely, that the Egyptians might not see them. Their enemies were made to stumble, and were compelled to come to a dead stand. Be calm, O child of God; for the Covenant Angel is dealing with your adversaries, and His time is generally the night.
IV. That the Divine presence will one day be more gloriously revealed. The Lord will go before you; and the God of Israel will be your rereward. This is the condition into which the Lord brings His people when they depart from Babylon, and are no more conformed to this present evil world.
V. This Divine presence has a twofold aspect: that same glory which lit up the canvas city, and made it bright as the day, darkened all the camps of Egypt. They could see nothing, for the dark side of God was turned to them. Oh, is it not a dreadful thing that to some men the most terrible thing in the world would be God? If you could get away from God, how happy you would be! One of these days Jesus will tell you to depart. Keep on as you were, says He, you were always departing from God; keep on departing. Depart from Me ye cursed! That will be the consummation of your life. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Lessons
I. The sureness of Gods interposition when He is needed, in the way His wisdom chooses (Exo 14:19). When we are called to difficult duty, God will keep His promise to be with us, and always His help will be found stationed at the exposed point.
II. The revelation of a twofold character in Gods dealings with men (Exo 14:20; see Luk 2:34; 2Co 2:16; Rev 11:5; Mat 21:42-44; Joh 9:39).
III. The practical bearing of a courageous faith (Exo 14:21). We may never be put before an actual ocean tossing with billows under difficult stress of demand like this; but we shall often be placed where mere obedience is commanded, and where Gods covenant is all that ensures success. Doing duty belongs to us; achieving deliverance belongs to God. Then it is that an unbroken faith laughs at impossibility, and says, It shall be done!
IV. The perfect safety of a believers exposure, upon a promise of the living God (Exo 14:22). One of Aristotles sayings may well be quoted here. He says: Every how rests upon a that. That is, if God has declared that a difficult duty is to be done, He may be trusted to show how it is to be done. He will never ask us into straits of obedience without providing for our preservation. And when once a path of service is lying out before us, it does not matter at all how dangerous it appears; we shall go through it without harm. So our safety is in the exposure when God is our companion. His love will hold the sea-walls steady, and the seawalls will keep back Pharaoh. Some solicitous friends once warned Whitefield to spare himself in such extraordinary efforts; he only answered with words that long ago went into history I am immortal till my work is done!
V. The forgetfulness and incorrigibleness of a daring unbelief (Exo 14:23).
VI. The mercy of God, exhibited in the fact that the way of the transgressor is hard (Exo 14:24). Up to the last moment there was a chance for that pursuing army to retreat by the way they came. So it was a manifest benevolence to them on the part of God to hinder them as much as possible. Chrysostom calls attention to the familiar fact that God always warns before He waits, and waits before He strikes, and strikes before He crushes, so as to give space for repentance. He threatens plagues so that we may avoid plagues; and indeed, remarks the golden-tongued orator, it is doubtful whether the prospect of hell has not availed as much as the promise of heaven in hindering the blasphemies of open sin. We may safely assert now that many a man has had occasion to thank God that his chariot-wheels drave heavily, so that he recognized the hindering hand of his Maker (Exo 14:25).
VII. Our last lesson is concerning the sure judgments of Almighty wrath when once the cup of iniquity is full (Exo 14:26). (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
A double aspect
It makes a good deal of difference which side of a barrier you are on, in your estimate of the actual worth of that barrier. To the burglar, a strongly barred door is a great annoyance. It is a real comfort to those who can lie down to sleep behind it at night. A garden wall is a pleasant protection to those who can walk freely within its enclosure. It frowns gloomily on those whom it shuts out from a share of the joys within. Anothers wrong-doing which separates him from us, may be a source of light to us and of only despair to him. Even a cause of misunderstanding with others may be a source of advantage to us and of worry to them. The cloud of trouble which they and we faced together for a while, now that it has been put behind us, and before them, may shed light on our path by the lessons it teaches us, while it confuses them just as much as ever. The knowledge of the Scriptures, and the commandments of the moral law, only make plainer the course of the child of God; but they are a cause of continued trial and discomfort to him who is unwilling to walk in the way God has pointed out. (H. C. Trumbull.)
The dividing pillar
A tradition current in the west of Scotland tells that when one of the Covenanting preachers and his little band of hearers had been surprised on a hill-side by the military, the minister cried out, Lord, throw Thy mantle over us, and protect us. And immediately out of the clear sky there fell a mist, which sundered and protected the pursued from the pursuers. And a Netherland tradition tells how a little army of Protestants was once saved from the king of Spains troops by the flashing lights and noise as of an army sent by the Lord to throw confusion into the camp of the enemy. The teacher will recollect the story of the Christian woman, who calmly awaiting in her home the approach of the enemy, was, in answer to her prayer, saved from them by a circling wall of snow. The dividing pillar is a reality yet. (S. S. Times.)
Different aspects of the same thing
There are many scenes in life which are either sad or beautiful, cheerless or refreshing, according to the direction from which we approach them. If, on a morning in spring, we behold the ridges of a fresh-turned ploughed field from their northern side, our eyes, catching only the shadowed slopes of the successive furrows, see an expanse of white, the unmelted remains of the nights hailstorm, or the hoar-frost of the dawn. We make a circuit, or we cross over, and look behind us, and on the very same ground there is nothing to be seen but the rich brown soil, swelling in the sunshine, warm with promise, and chequered perhaps here and there with a green blade bursting through the surface. (J. A. Froude.)
Verses 21-25 Made the sea dry land.—
The sea-path
I. The deed of valour. Moses walking down the gravelly beach into the sea; Israel following. A lesson to us to come with boldness.
II. The miraculous way. We walk in new and unseen ways.
III. The overthrow of the enemy.
1. His wrath.
2. His foolhardiness; forgetting the plagues. All sin is irrational.
3. His sudden destruction. Death surprises the impenitent.
IV. The same instruments both defending and destroying.
1. The cloud.
2. The water.
3. The gospel.
V. What Israel found in the sea-path.
1. Rebuke for the murmuring.
2. Filial fear.
3. Trust in God.
4. Trust in Moses.
5. Nationality; before, they were all slaves, then free men, now a nation.
Learn:
1. All people must struggle and dare.
2. Our characters come from soul-struggles where self is abandoned, and trust is put in God.
3. Mans extremity is Gods opportunity.
4. God will, out of every temptation, make a way of escape. (Dr. Fowler.)
A treacherous element
An easy conquest! said the eagle, attracted by the glittering scales of a large fish, which shone through the clear, deep waters of the lake. An easy conquest! As he dashed into the water, it was as if lightning had smitten the cliff and a fragment of it had fallen into the lake. There was a struggle; the fish dived, and drew the eagle with it. Ah! exclaimed the drowning king of birds, had I been in the air, who would have dared to measure strength with me? But in this strange and treacherous element, I am overcome by one whom elsewhere I should have despised. (Great Thoughts.)
Safe in the danger of duty
The waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left. It is amazing what a blessing the things that we dreaded most become to us, when we go straight toward them at the call of God! The sea of business troubles, which looked as if it never could be crossed, but which we had no choice but to enter, how it opened right and left as we came to it, and then became to us a wall against competitors on either side, because we had ventured into its very depths when it was our clear duty to do that and nothing else! That desert life of danger which we entered with fear and trembling, at the call of our country, or of some loved one of our family, or of some dear friend, how its very exposures and trying experiences toughened us and trained us, and made us stronger and manlier and happier, so that its results to-day–its physical and mental and moral results-are as a wall of protection to us on our right hand and on our left! There is no place in all the world so safe for us as the place of danger, when danger is a duty. The best way of caring for ourselves is not to care for ourselves. If we want to walk dry shod, with a wall shielding us on either hand, the better way is to plunge right overboard into a sea of work or of trial or of peril, when God says Go forward. (H. C. Trumbull.)
Overthrew the Egyptians.
The destruction of the Egyptians
Consider this destruction of Pharaoh and his host as–
I. A judgment. It was–
1. Sudden in its execution. No warning given.
2. Terrible in its nature. Involving the destruction of a whole army, the picked men of the most powerful nation in the world.
3. Well merited by the subjects of it. Repeated warnings were conveyed in the plagues, yet all were now disregarded.
II. A deliverance. Israel delivered from Pharaoh–
1. Out of a perilous situation.
2. Notwithstanding their want of faith.
3. By a glorious miracle.
III. A lesson to–
1. The sinner. Beware lest your end be like Pharaohs; heed the warnings given to you.
2. The Christian. Learn to know the greatness of your deliverance from the host of Satan. (H. Barnard, B. A.)
It is not always safe to follow those who are in the path of duty
A place that is the safest in the world for one man may be the most dangerous in the world for the next man. The portcullis which comes down to shut in the endangered refugee, may crush to death his close pursuer. Because another man actually saves his life and acquires new strength by exposing himself in some sea of battle, or pestilence, or perils of search for a lost one, it is no reason why you should venture in that same line. II God told him to go there, the very waves of danger were a shield to him; but if you have no call there, those waves may overwhelm you. His risks in business prove his safety, because he made them in faith, when God commanded them. They would be your ruin if you presumed on them without a command from God, The question for you is not, Is that other man safe in that sea? but, Do I belong there? The call of God settles the question of your place of duty and your place of safety. God gives the walls of protection to His children when they are where He tells them to be. God throws down those very walls on those who have no business to be there. (H. C. Trumbull. )
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 19. The angel of God] It has been thought by some that the angel, i.e., messenger, of the Lord, and the pillar of cloud, mean here the same thing. An angel might assume the appearance of a cloud; and even a material cloud thus particularly appointed might be called an angel or messenger of the Lord, for such is the literal import of the word malach, an angel. It is however most probable that the Angel of the covenant, the Lord Jesus, appeared on this occasion in behalf of the people; for as this deliverance was to be an illustrious type of the deliverance of man from the power and guilt of sin by his incarnation and death, it might have been deemed necessary, in the judgment of Divine wisdom, that he should appear chief agent in this most important and momentous crisis. On the word angel, and Angel of the covenant, See Clarke on Ge 16:7; “Ge 18:13“; and “Ex 3:2“.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Not changing his place, for he was the omnipresent God, Exo 14:15; but his operation, from leading the Israelites forward in their way, to the protecting of them from their pursuers.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
19. the angel of Godthat is,the pillar of cloud [see on Ex13:21]. The slow and silent movement of that majestic columnthrough the air, and occupying a position behind them must haveexcited the astonishment of the Israelites (Isa58:8). It was an effectual barrier between them and theirpursuers, not only protecting them, but concealing their movements.Thus, the same cloud produced light (a symbol of favor) to the peopleof God, and darkness (a symbol of wrath) to their enemies (compare2Co 2:16).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And the Angel of God which went before the camp of Israel,…. The Jews say y this was Michael, the great prince, who became a wall of fire between Israel and the Egyptians; and if they understood by him the uncreated angel, the eternal Word, the Son of God, who is always in Scripture meant by Michael, they are right: for certainly this Angel of the Lord is the same with Jehovah, who is said to go before them in a pillar of cloud and fire, Ex 13:21:
removed, and went behind them; but because removing from place to place, and going forwards or backwards, cannot be properly said of a divine Person, who is omnipresent, and fills every place and space; this is to be understood of the emblem of him, the pillar of cloud, as the next clause explains it:
and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them; the Targum of Jonathan adds,
“because of the Egyptians, who cast arrows and stones, and the cloud received them;”
and so Jarchi; whereby the Israelites were protected and preserved from receiving any hurt by them: so Christ is the protection of his people from all their enemies, sin, Satan, and the world, that sin cannot damn them, nor Satan destroy them, nor the world overcome them; for his salvation is as walls and bulwarks to them, and he is indeed a wall of fire about them.
y Pirke Eliezer, c. 42.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Verses 19-22:
The text indicates that the Egyptians overtook Israel at evening.
The fleeing Israelites were cut off on one side of the Egyptians, and on the other side by the sea. The pursuers camped for the night, confident that there was no escape for Israel.
The “Angel of God” or the “presence of Elohe” intervened between the Egyptians and Israel. The cloud interposed between the camps; it was darkness to the Egyptians, but light to Israel.
God sent a strong east wind, which blew all night. This caused a passageway to open through the waters, and dried out the seabed. The text implies that Israel marched by night, through the sea: The path was completely dry; not one Israeli arrived on the other side with muddied feet!
A wall of water was on either side, the cloud hovered over them,
they were completely submerged. In this way they were “baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1Co 10:2), in acknowledgment of Moses’ authority and leadership.
This is a type of baptism. The believer is baptized “unto Christ,” in acknowledgment of His authority, and as a sign of his deliverance from sin’s bondage, and acceptance of Him as their leader and Master.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
19. And the angel of God. A sudden change which occurred to prevent a battle is here described; for the angel:, who used to go before the Israelites to show the way: turned to the other side, that he might be interposed between the two camps; and this, in two respects, because the pillar of fire shone upon the Israelites to dissipate the darkness of the night, whilst thick darkness held the Egyptians as it were in captivity, so that they were unable to proceed further. Thus did God both prevent them from advancing, and also held out a torch for His people all night to light them on their way. He, who has been called “Jehovah” hitherto, is now designated by Moses “the Angel;” not only because the angels who represent God often borrow His name, but because this Leader of the people was God’s only-begotten Son, who afterwards was manifested in the flesh, as I have shown upon the authority of Paul. (1Co 10:4.) It may be remarked, also, that he is said to have moved here and there, as He showed some token of His power and assistance. Most clearly, too, does it appear, that the glory of God, whilst it enlightens the faithful, overshadows the unbelievers, on the other hand, with darkness. No wonder, then, if now-a-days the brightness of the Gospel should blind the reprobate. But we should ask of God to make us able to behold His glory.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Exo. 14:19-22
THE DIVINE PRESENCE IN ITS RELATION TO THE LIFE OF THE GOOD
The angel of God went before the camp of Israel. Who was this angel? It was no created messenger. It was none other than the Son of God (Exo. 14:24). The same appeared to Moses in the burning bush. The same wrestled with Jacob. All who set themselves against the good are in reality in conflict with the Son of God. They are engaged in a hopeless task, as we shall presently see.
I. That the Divine presence is not always straight before the inner eye of the Christian, and its apparent absence may occasion a momentary perplexity. And the angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them. So far on the journey the pillar of cloud had remained in front of the Israelites, so that all could easily see and derive comfort from it. And so the presence of God is generally before the eye of the pure soul, that it can be closely followed; and if it remove from this position anxiety is awakened. When life is an uneventful march in the desert, the Divine presence is ahead; but when the march becomes eventful, then the movements of God are adapted thereto. Christ adapts the manifestation of Himself to the circumstances of the Christian life. He is interested in the welfare of the people He guides. Why is He absent from the eye of the soul? has sorrow come between? has sin grieved Him? or has He only removed for our good? He is lovingly near, even though we see Him not.
II. That though the Divine presence be removed from before the eye of the Christian, yet it is somewhere near him, exercising a beneficent ministry toward his life. And stood behind them. Thus, though the Divine presence had removed from before the eye of the Israelites, it had not forsaken them. Christ never leaves His people while they are in the wilderness: He knows that they cannot do without Him. Sorrow may come. All may be dark. Christ may be unseen. We may be sure He is somewhere near us. If we look in the rear we shall find Him. He does not always sustain the same position to our life. He thus educates His people to seek for Him. All His movements are for the good of the life He leads. He goes to the rear to hide our enemies from view.
III. That loving adaptations of the Divine presence to the need of the Christian life is the comfort, protection, and illumination of all pilgrim souls. But it gave light by night to these: so that the one came not near the other all the night. Thus the movements of the Divine presence are adapted to the need of the Christian life. The Egyptians were following Israel. God came between His people and their foes. So He does now. He comes between us and our sins and difficulties, or they would overtake and ruin us. See His mercy. See His power. We know not what blessings we receive through the movement of the Divine presence to the rear of us. We get light in the night of sorrow. We get comfort in the hour of trial. We get protection in the time of danger. The presence of Christ is always found where His people most need it. Few earthly friends come between us and our troubles; Christ our best friend.
IV. That the Divine presence presents a different aspect to the good from what it does to the ungodly multitude. It was a cloud and darkness to them. Thus, to the good, the Divine presence is always as a beauteous, refreshing, and guiding light; but to the unholy crowd it is ever as gloomy and mysterious as a dark cloud. We cannot wonder that the men of the world call religion a thing of sadness: they do not get a right vision of God. Religion is a joy. It lights up the darkest night of the soul. We see God from the standpoint of our own character. To the sinful He is as a cloud; to the pure He is as a light. Truth has a dual aspect. The cross has a dual aspect,to some foolishness, to others wisdom. The Gospel is to some the savour of life, to others the savour of death. All the great objects of the moral universe are seen as lights or clouds. Our state of heart will determine the vision. Only a pure heart can see God. LESSONS:
1. That the Divine presence is near to each one of us.
2. That the Divine presence is especially the comfort of the good.
3. That the Divine presence is adapted to the need of the soul.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Exo. 14:19-20. The movements of Christ:
1. Adapted to the need of the Church.
2. Discomforting to enemies.
3. A signal for victory.
The interposition of God keeps the wicked world from destroying the Church.
The same means God makes to darken His enemies which lighten His people.
Exo. 14:21-22 Gods instruments must be obedient to doing signs for working salvation when God commands.
Jehovah assists the signal obedience of His servants to give them salvation.
All miracles of raising winds and cleaving seas must be attributed to Jehovah.
The drowning waters are made walls to Gods people at His word; so all afflictions are good by promise.
Waters may be made walls; dangers may be made by the grace of God into safeguards.
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
REV. WM. ADAMSON
Divine Interposition! Exo. 14:20. The pillar symbolised the Bible. As the pillar interposed divinely between Israel and their foes, so the Bible steps in, and protects Gods people. At the battle of Frederichsburg, a soldier carried a Bible in his pocket. During the engagement a ball pierced the book through the whole of the Old Testament, and stopped at the Gospel of St. Matthew. His life was thus spared; as but for the interposition of the Bible, the bullet would have penetrated his heart. The presence of Christ in the Word, makes it to the righteous a light to their feet and a lamp to their path. How dark to the unbelieving Pharaoh and his host of mail-clad charioteers! On what a scene that night did the light from the fire-pillar shinedid the darkness from the cloud-pillar shadow! Safely the little feet of Hebrew children trod the coral-strewn depths, where never before a living foot had left its impress. Not so Pharaohs host in the gloom, deep and intense, that brooded over them. Ignorant of Godenveloped in darkness, they did not know that the waters had been riven, and that the ground over which their chariots were rapidly rolling was the bottom of the Red Sea covered with large trees or plants of white coral. How often the Word of God is dark to unbelievers! They cannot see the miraculous workings of Gods Great Hand. Blindly they grope on in their relentless persecution of Gods people, until the dawnlight of eternity flashes on them; and too late they discover their perilous position, as the Waves of Judgment roll in and over.
How sinks his soul!
What black despairwhat horror fills his heart!Thomson.
Refuge! Exo. 14:21. Many figures are employed to convey the shelter which sinners have from the fires of wrathas well as which saints enjoy when waves of temptation sweep over a nation or community. Others have also been hailed to enforce the hairsbreadth escape of which the apostle speaks as being saved yet so as by fire; or as our English proverb of homely phrase says, by the skin of his teeth. All these might be illustrated of the incident of a prairie-fire. Schomburgh describes such a scene. We had not penetrated far into the plain, when we saw to the south-east high columns of smoke ascending to the skiesthe sure signs of a savannah conflagration. As the burning torrent would most likely roll in our direction, we were full alive to the extreme peril of our situation, for in whatever direction we gazed, we nowhere saw a darker patch in the grass plain announcing the refuge of a water-pool. We could already distinguish the flames of the advancing columnalready hear the bursting and crackling of the reeds, when fortunately the sharp eye of the Indians discovered a small eminence in front of us only sparingly covered with vegetation, and to this we now careered as if death were pursuing us. Half a minute later we could not have been alive to relate this hairsbreadth escape from a fiery fate. As the smoke and flames overtook us, we reached our vantage ground, to await the dreadful decision. We were in the midst of the blaze. Two arms of fire encircled the base on the little hillock on which we stood, and united before us in a waving mass, whichrolling onwardsreceded farther and farther from our gaze. We were savedthe fire having found nothing at the base or on the slopes of the eminence upon which to feed. When the sinners eyes first descry the advancing flames of wrath, he looks around for water in which to plunge, but all in vain. There is no salvation in man, and he is ready to despair. His attention is called to the rock, whereon is no guile or defilement of sin upon which the fires of hell can lay hold. To this he hastens: when my heart is overwhelmed, I will look to the Rock that is higher than I. Here standing, all is well; the flames and fumes of judgment roll on their way; and while whole swarms of voracious vultures, which have followed in circling flight the fiery column, pounce upon the half-calcined buffaloes, antelopes, and agotis, the sheltered sinner, saved through grace, retraces his stepsstriking towards the city of the living Go. What a picture also of the Last Judgment, when all who are not found in Christ, become the prey of evil angels; and while the redeemed know no alarms
Though heavens wide concave glow with lightnings dire,
All ether flaming, and all earth on fire.
Thomson.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(19, 20) The angel of God, which went before the camp of IsraelThe Jehovah of Exo. 13:21 becomes here the angel of God, as the angel of Jehovah in the burning bush (Exo. 3:2) becomes God (Exo. 14:4), and Jehovah (Exo. 14:7). The angel is distinguished from the cloud, and represented as antedating its movements and directing them. It is clear that the object of the movement now made was double: (1) to check and trouble the Egyptians by involving them in cloud and darkness; and (2) to cheer and assist the Israelites by affording them abundant light for all their necessary arrangements. Although there is nothing in the original corresponding to our translators expressions, to them, to these, yet those expressions seem to do no more than to bring out the true sense. (Comp, the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan, the Syriac Version, and the Commentaries of Rosenmller, Maurer, Knobel, and Kaliseh.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
19, 20. The Angel of God That is, the manifestation of God in the pillar of cloud and fire . See Exo 3:2; Exo 3:6. The pillar gave light to Israel, so that they could see how to direct their march, while at the same time it hid their movements from the Egyptians, and, as it was spread between the armies, perhaps seemed to Pharaoh’s host simply like the natural darkness of the night .
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The Israelites Delivered, the Egyptians Destroyed
v. 19. And the Angel of God, v. 20. and it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them v. 21. And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. v. 22. And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground; and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand and on their left. v. 23. And the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them to the midst of the sea, even all Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots, and his horsemen, v. 24. And it came to pass that in the morning watch, v. 25. and took off their chariot wheels, v. 26. And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand over the sea that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen, v. 27. And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to his strength, v. 28. And the waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one of them. v. 29. But the children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea; and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand and on their left. v. 30. Thus the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the seashore. v. 31. And Israel saw that great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA. The Egyptians had arrived in the near neighbourhood of the Israelite camp, at the close of a long day’s march, towards evening. Having ascertained that the fugitives were still, as they had expected them to be, shut in between the sea and the wilderness, they were content, and made no immediate attack, but encamped over against them. Hereupon, “the pillar of the cloud,” which was at the time in front of the Israelite campprobably near the point where God intended the passage of the sea to be effected “removed” from this position, and placed itself directly behind the Israelite encampment, between them and the Egyptians. This movement alone was calculated to alarm the latter, and prevent them from stirring till near daybreak; but, the better to secure their inaction, the pillar was made to overshadow them with a deep and preternatural darkness, so that it became almost impossible for them to advance. Meanwhile, on the side which was turned towards the Israelites, the pillar presented the appearance of a bright flame, lighting up the whole encampment, and rendering it as easy to make ready for the march as it would have been by day. Thus, the beasts were collected and laden the columns marshalled and prepared to proceed in a certain fixed orderand everything made ready for starting so soon as the bed of the sea should be sufficiently dry. Moses, about nightfall, descending to the water’s edge, stretched forth his rod over the waves, and, an east wind at once springing upaccompanied perhaps by a strong ebb of the tidethe waters of the gulf were parted in the vicinity of the modern Suez, and a dry space left between the Bitter Lakes, which were then a prolongation of the Gulf, and the present sea-bed. The space may have been one of considerable width. The Israelites entering upon it, perhaps about midnight, accomplished the distance, which may not have exceeded a mile, with all their belongings, in the course of five or six hours, the pillar of the cloud withdrawing itself, as the last Israelites entered the sea-bed, and retiring after them like a rearguard. Thus protected, they made the transit in safety, and morning saw them encamped upon the shores of Asia.
Exo 14:19
The angel of God. The Divine Presence, which manifested itself in the pillar of the cloud, is called indifferently “the Lord” (Exo 13:21; Exo 14:24), and “the Angel of God”just as the appearance to Moses in the burning bush is termed both “God” and “the angel of the Lord” (Exo 3:2). Which went beforei.e.; “which ordinarily, and (so to speak) habitually preceded the camp” (Exo 13:21; Psa 78:14). And stood behind them. Took up a fixed station for the night, or the greater portion of it.
Exo 14:20
It was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these. Though there is nothing in the Hebrew correspondent to the expressions “to them,” “to these,” yet the meaning seems to have been rightly apprehended By our translators. (See the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan, the SyriActs version, and among moderns, Knobel, Maurer, Rosenmuller, and Kalisch.)
Exo 14:21
Moses stretched out his hand. As commanded by God (Exo 14:16). Compare the somewhat similar action of Elijah and Elisha, when they divided the Jordan (2Ki 2:8, 2Ki 2:14). The Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind. The LXX. translate “a strong south wind” ( ); but the Hebrew kadim is certainly “east” rather than “south.” It is not, however, “east” in the sense of due east, but would include all the range of the compass between N.E. and S.E. If we suppose the Bitter Lakes to have been joined to the Red Sea by a narrow and shallow channel, the action of a south-east wind, by driving the water of the Lakes northward, may have easily produced the effect described in the text. A simultaneous ebb of the lower gulf would have further facilitated the passage. The waters were divided. Water remained in the upper extremity of the Gulf, now the site of the Bitter Lakes, and also, of course, below Suez. The portion of the sea dried up lay probably between the present southern extremity of the Bitter Lakes and Suez. By the gradual elevation and desiccation of the region, it has passed into permanent dry land.
Exo 14:22
The waters were a walli.e; a protection, a defence. Pharaoh could not attack them on either flank, on account of the two bodies of water between which their march lay. He could only come at them by following after them. The metaphor has been by some understood literally, especially on account of the expression in Exo 15:8“The floods stood upright as an heap;” and again that in Psa 78:13“He made the waters to stand as an heap.” But those phrases, occurring in poems, must be taken as poetical; and can scarcely have any weight in determining the meaning of “wall” here. We must ask ourselvesis there not an economy and a restraint in the exertion by God even of miraculous power?is more used than is needed for the occasion?and would not all that was needed at this time have been effected by such a division of the sea as we have supposed, without the fluid being converted into a solid, or having otherwise the laws of its being entirely altered. Kalisch’s statement, that the word “wall” here is “not intended to convey the idea of protection, but only of hardness and solidity,” seems to us the very reverse of the truth. Protection is at any rate the main idea, and any other is secondary and subordinate.
HOMILETICS
Exo 14:19-22
God protects his own, but in strange ways.
The passage of the Red Sea was the crowning miracle by which God effected the deliverance of his people from the bondage of Egypt; and all its circumstances were strange and worthy of notice.
I. THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD, WHICH HAD BEEN WONT TO LEAD THEM, REMOVED AND WENT BEHIND THEM. They had to enter the dark and slimy bed from which the sea had retired without the cheering sight of the Divine presence before their eyes beckoning them on. So there are occasions of trial in the life of every man, when God ,seems to withdraw his presence, to remove himself, to “go behind us,” so that we cannot see him. Sometimes he withdraws himself in grief or in anger; but more often he does it in mercy. The temporary obscuration will advantage the soul under the circumstances. There is perhaps some secular work to be done which requires all its attention, like this passage, where every step had to be taken with care. Short separations are said to intensify affection; and the sense of the Divine presence is more valued after a withdrawal, like the sun’s light after an eclipse.
II. THE PILLAR OF THE CLOUD, WHICH HAD BEEN WONT TO BE ALL SMOKE, OR ALL FIRE, WAS NOW BOTH AT ONCE. “It came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these.” The eye sees that which it has within itself the power of seeing. To the godly the presence of God is a joy and a delight, a brightness and a radiance. To the ungodly it is an awful and alarming thing, a cloud which mars their enjoyment. When Jesus was on earth, there were those among the inhabitants of Palestine who “besought him to depart out of their coasts” (Mat 8:34). The ungodly fear to look upon God. He is to them dark, mysterious, terrible. The sense of his presence paralyses themthey cannot stir till it is removed. But to the godly, it is “light in the darkness”it illuminates mind and soul and spiritit cheers and brightens the path of lifeit irradiates even the obscurest gulf that we have to traverse. Let us bear in mind that when the Divine presence is removed from before our eyes, it is still in no case far from us. If at any time we do not see God, he at all times sees us. We have only to make an effort, and we can in a short time recover our perception of his presence.
III. BY MEANS OF A STRONG EAST WIND THE WATERS WERE DIVIDED, UPON MOSES STRETCHING OUT HIS HAND OVER THE SEA. We may note here,
1. The weakness of the instrument. The rod of Moses, stretched over the sea, or towards the sea, from some vantage-point on the shorehow small a thing was this! How incapable in itself of producing any important effect! Yet in the providence of God, it was made a link in the chain of causation by which was brought about one of the greatest events in the whole course of mundane history. Must we not conclude from this, that, when God appoints means, however weak and trivial they may be in themselves, they become at once by his appointment, matters of the highest consequence? Again we may note,
2. The employment of a natural agency, insufficient in itself to accomplish the end, yet having a natural tendency towards its accomplishment. God, the author of nature, uses nature as a help towards accomplishing his ends, even when the help is but small. Our Lord fed the 5000 and the 4000, by means of loaves and fishes already existing, though the material which they furnished could but have gone a short way. He anointed the blind man’s eyes with spittle and clay, and bade him “go, wash in the pool of Siloam,” using means which were to some extent reputed salutary, but which of themselves could never have restored sight. So with the east wind. We must not suppose that it divided the sea by its own natural force. God used it, as he used the spittle and the clay, and made it accomplish his purpose, not by its own force but by his own power. And so generally with the forces which seem to remove obstacles from the path of God’s people in this lifethey are potent through his agency, because he sets them to work, and works through them.
IV. THE SEA, ON WHICH PHARAOH COUNTED FOB THEIR DESTRUCTION, BECAME FIRST THEIR DEFENCE AND THEN THEIR AVENGER. “The waters were a wall unto them.” But for the two bodies of water, on their right and on their left, Pharaoh’s force might have outflanked the host of Israel, and fallen upon it on three sides, or even possibly have surrounded it. God can at any time turn dangers into safeguards. When persecutors threaten the Church, he can turn their swords against each other, and allow the Church to pass on its way in peace. When temptations assault the soul, he can give the soul such strength, that it conquers them and they become aids to its progress. And with equal ease can he make the peril which menaces his faithful ones fall, not upon them, but upon their adversaries. The furnace heated to consume the “three children” destroyed none but those bitter persecutors who had arrested them and cast them into the fire (Dan 3:22). The lions of Darius the Mede devoured, not Daniel, but “those men that had accused Daniel” (Dan 6:24). The Jews, who had sought to destroy the infant Church by prejudicing the Romans against Christ (Joh 19:12) and his apostles (Act 24:1-9), were themselves within forty years of Christ’s death, conquered and almost exterminated by these same Romans. The ungodly are ever “falling into their own nets together,” while the godly man for whom the nets are set “escapes them.”
HOMILIES BY J. ORR
Exo 14:19, Exo 14:20
Light to the friend, darkness to the foe.
We are told that as the Israelites were about to cross the Red Sea, the fiery-cloudy pillar changed its position, and came between them and the Egyptians. It was the self-same pillar, but it wore a very different aspect to friends and foes respectively. “It was,” we read, “a cloud of darkness to them (the Egyptians), but it gave light to these (the camp of Israel).” We should notice that the same double aspect belongs to all God’s manifestations of himself, in Law and Gospel, in matter and spirit, in the world, and in the Church.
I. GOD‘S ATTRIBUTES have this double aspect. Not one of his attributes but has a bright side turned to the believer, and a dark side to the wicked. This is true even of such attributes as holiness and justice, from which the believer, as a sinner, might seem to have most to fear. “Faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1Jn 1:9). So God’s omnipotence, which is hostile to the transgressor, is pledged to defend, bless, and save the saint (1Pe 1:5; Jud 1Pe 1:24). God’s eternity, in like manner, is given to the believer for a dwelling-place (Deu 33:27; Psa 90:1), but how terrible an aspect it has to the evil-doer! The dark side of love is wrath. “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Rom 8:31). But on the other hand, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb 10:31).
II. GOD‘S LAWS have this double aspect.
1. Physical laws. The constitution of nature is favourable to virtue, hostile to vice (See Butler’s Analogy).
2. Moral law, for this, while awarding life to the obedient, is a ministry of condemnation to the sinner.
3. Mental and spiritual laws. Take e.g. the law of habit. “The law of habit, which applies alike to all our physical, mental, and moral actions, must be regarded in its design as a truly benevolent one. But the law of habit, when the soul yields to sin, works death to the sinner:like the pillar of cloud which made day to Israel, and was darkness to the Egyptians, so the law, which is bright to the well-doer, sheds night upon the path of the sinner, until he is plunged into the sea of death” (Theodore D. Woolsey).
III. GOD‘S WORD has this double aspect. To the prayerful, believing, docile mind, it is a source of unfailing light. It is a lamp to the feet and a light to the path (Psa 119:105). But to the proud, the unbelieving, and the presumptuous, it is only darkness. These can see nothing in it but difficulties, incredibilities, contradictions, moral monstrosities. It is full of stumbling-blocks. The more they read it, the more are they blinded by it. They read only to discover some new fault or error.
IV. GOD‘S VERY GOSPEL has this double aspect. “The preaching of the Cross is to them that perish foolishness, but to us who are saved it is the power of God” (1Co 1:18-24). It repels the one class, and attracts the other. To the one, it is a savour of life; to the other, a savour of death (2Co 2:16).J.O.
HOMILIES BY J. URQUHART
Exo 14:19-31
The goodness and severity of God.
I. WHAT GOD IS TO HIS OWN IN THE DAY OF TROUBLE.
1. He comes between them and their foes. God’s presence is between us and our enemies, and they can do no more against us than his love permits.
2. He is light to them in the time of peril.
3. The waters are divided before them However much our way may seem hedged in, God’s arm will open up a path for us.
4. The way was not only a path of escape, but one of perfect safety; the waters were a wall to them upon the right hand and the left.
II. WHAT GOD IS TO HIS PEOPLE‘S FOES.
1. Their path is wrapped in darkness. They cannot lay hold of the weakest of those who but a moment before seemed wholly in their power. They are perplexed and baffled.
2. Daring to follow they are filled with horror by the revelation that their contest is with the mighty God: they are face to face not with the servant, but the master.
3. Their progress is arrested (25).
4. They in vain attempt to flee. Men may flee to God; they cannot flee from God.
5. They are overwhelmed with destruction.
III. THE RESULT OF THE CONFLICT (31).
1. The people are filled with holy awe. “They feared Jehovah. God’s judgments deepen in his people’s hearts the sense of his terribleness and majesty.”
2. It strengthened their faith; they believed the Lord.
3. It produced a spirit of obedience: they “believed has servant Moses.” They were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea. The outcome of fear and trust must be full obedience to him who leads us into the promised restthe Shepherd and Bishop of our souls.U.
HOMILIES BY G.A. GOODHART
Exo 14:22
We walk by faith, not by sight.
The great mistake of most people is, that they trust too much to their own eyes. They will not take into consideration anything that lies beyond the field of sensible experiences. Now God and his eternity, though manifested in this field, are practically outside it; the spiritual eyesight is more reliable than the physical, because that which it sees is safer to rely upon. Natural sight shows us obstacles, spiritual sight shows us how they may be surmounted. Try to walk by the one and you must stand still; try to walk by the other and nothing can long keep you standing. Notice here:
I. FAITH‘S SECRET, The story illustrates this; it shows us:
1. What the Israelites saw. Their position looked bad enough. Behind were the hosts of Pharaoh; before, the sea. They were shut in. Trusting only to their eyes they could hardly do other than despair (Exo 14:10-13). Better to have been “let alone” in Egypt, than thus delivered, to be destroyed in the wilderness. A clear head, if the heart be faint, is not much help to any man.
2. What Moses saw. He was in the same position as the people whom he led, yet he could see more than they did. He looked not merely before and behind, he looked also up to God. Faith enabled him to ignore sight, and inspired him to encourage his sight-fascinated followers. Soon the word came which justified his faith, obstacles were nothing, let them wait the word of command and then “go forward.” Often difficulties seem to surround usno way of escape anywhere visible. Even so faith can sight the way, for faith can sight God who sees it. Stand still, wait his word; refuse to allow that for those who trust him any difficulties can be insurmountable. Faith would not be of much good were there no obstacles to test it. Faith is not of much good if it cannot learn to ignore obstacles.
II. FAITH‘S SUCCESS. The path of faith not merely leads out of danger, it turns dangers into safeguards and transforms them into a protection for those who tread it. When the word came “Go forward,” the waters no longer “shut in” the Israelites; instead:
1. They protected them during their passage. The Egyptians could but follow, they could not circumvent. “The waters were a wall unto them” on either side; no wall could have been more impregnable.
2. They secured them against the fury of their pursuers. Israel once across, the waters returned, overwhelming the armies of the enemy. So too faith, facing the flood, found that waters which drowned the world upheld the ark and floated it in safety. So too faith, facing the waters of death, finds that though they overwhelm the unready they float the faithful into a safe harbour. So too with all difficulties, faced in faith, they are our best helpers. “The hand of the diligent’ not only “maketh rich,” it cleaves a way for him through the sea of difficulty, and leaves his pursuers, sloth, ignorance, all the deadly sins, overwhelmed and swallowed up behind him.
III. FAITH‘S STRENGTH. HOW comes faith to do all this? It is not faith that does it, but the God in whom faith trusts. Nothing is impossible to faith, because nothing is impossible to God. The Egyptians are sure of their prey; the Israelites are sure of destruction; because, whilst reckoning with what sight sees, they fail to reckon with the unseen God. Moses is sure of safety because he is sure of God, and knows that he is more than a match for all the seeming tyranny of circumstances.
Application. How many people are shut in, faithless and discouraged before some sea of difficulty! “I cannot do this,” “I cannot do that,” and yet no progress is possible until I not merely can but do. “O ye of little faith, wherefore will ye doubt!” “I cannot;” no, but God can; and what he bids you do that he will strengthen you to do. Don’t stand facing the difficulties, but face the God who is above them and beyond them. “Stand still and wait” until the word comes, but when the word does come, “Go forward” (cf. 2Co 12:9, 2Co 12:10).G.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Spiritually considered the same light which enlighteneth God’s people, darkens the ungodly. The same gospel is both a savour of life unto life, and of death unto death. 2Co 2:15-16 ; Isa 45:7 . Reader! was not this the Lord Jesus Christ? See what is said Exo 14:24 . See also Act 7:38 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Exo 14:19 And the angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them:
Ver. 19. And the Angel of God. ] Christ, the Angel of God’s presence. See Exo 13:21 ; Exo 23:23 .
Went behind them.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Exodus
A PATH IN THE SEA
Exo 14:19 – – Exo 14:31
This passage begins at the point where the fierce charge of the Egyptian chariots and cavalry on the straggling masses of the fugitives is inexplicably arrested. The weary day’s march, which must have seemed as suicidal to the Israelites as it did to their pursuers, had ended in bringing them into a position where, as Luther puts it, they were like a mouse in a trap or a partridge in a snare. The desert, the sea, the enemy, were their alternatives. And, as they camped, they saw in the distance the rapid advance of the dreaded force of chariots, probably the vanguard of an army. No wonder that they lost heart. Moses alone keeps his head and his faith. He is rewarded with the fuller promise of deliverance, and receives the power accompanying the command, to stretch forth his hand, and part the sea. Then begins the marvellous series of incidents here recorded.
I. The first step in the leisurely march of the divine deliverance is the provision for checking the Egyptian advance and securing the safe breaking up of the Israelitish camp. The pursuers had been coming whirling along at full speed, and would soon have been amongst the disorderly mass, dealing destruction. There was no possibility of getting the crossing effected unless they were held at bay. When an army has to ford a river in the face of hostile forces, the hazardous operation is possible only if a strong rearguard is left on the enemy’s side, to cover the passage. This is exactly what is done here. The pillar of fire and cloud, the symbol of the divine presence, passed from the van to the rear. Its guidance was not needed, when but one path through the sea was possible. Its defence was needed when the foe was pressing eagerly on the heels of the host. His people’s needs determined then, as they ever do, the form of the divine presence and help. Long after, the prophet seized the great lesson of this event, when he broke into the triumphant anticipation of a yet future deliverance,-which should repeat in fresh experience the ancient victory, ‘The Lord will go before you; and the God of Israel will be your rearward,’ In the place where the need is sorest, and in the form most required, there and that will God ever be to those who trust Him.
We can see here, too, a frequent characteristic of the miraculous element in Scripture, namely, its reaching its end not by a leap, but by a process. Once admit miracle, and it appears as if adaptation of means to ends was unnecessary. It would have been as easy to have transported the Israelites bodily and instantaneously to the other side of the sea, as to have taken these precautions and then cleft the ocean, and made them march through it. Legendary miracle would have preferred the former way. The Bible miracle usually adapts methods to aims, and is content to travel to its goal step by step.
Nor can we omit to notice the double effect of the one manifestation of the divine presence. The same pillar was light and darkness. The side which was cloud was turned to the pursuers; that which was light, to Israel. The former were paralysed, and hindered from advancing a step, or from seeing what the latter were doing; these, on the other hand, had light thrown on their strange path, and were encouraged and helped to plunge into the mysterious road, by the ruddy gleam which disclosed it. So every revelation is either light or darkness to men, according to the use they make of it. The ark, which slew Philistines, and flung Dagon prone on his own threshold, brought blessing to the house of Obededom. The Child who was to be ‘set for the fall,’ was also for ‘the rising of many.’ The stone laid in Zion is ‘a sure foundation,’ and ‘a stone of stumbling.’ The Gospel is the savour of life unto life, or of death unto death. The same fire melts wax and hardens clay. The same Christ is salvation and destruction. God is to each of us either our joy or our dread.
II. The sudden march of the Egyptians having thus been arrested, there is leisure, behind the shelter of the fiery barrier, to take the next step in the deliverance. The sea is not divided in a moment. Again, we have a process to note, and that brought about by two things,-Moses’ outstretched rod, and the strong wind which blew all night. The chronology of that fateful night is difficult to adjust from our narrative. It would appear, from Exo 14:20 , that the Egyptians were barred advancing until morning; and, from Exo 14:21 , that the wind which ploughed with its strong ploughshare a furrow through the sea, took all night for its work. But, on the other hand, the Israelites must have been well across, and the Egyptians in the very midst of the passage, ‘in the morning watch,’ and all was over soon after ‘the morning appeared.’ Probably the wind continued all the night, so as to keep up the pressure which dammed back the waters, but the path was passable some hours before the gale abated. It must have been a broad way to admit of some two million frightened people with wives and children effecting a crossing in the short hours of part of one night.
But though God used the wind as His besom to sweep a road clear for His people, the effect produced by ordinary means was extraordinary. No wind that ever blew would blow water in two opposite directions at once, as a man might shovel snow to right and left, and heap it in mounds by the sides of the path that he dug. That was what the text tells us was done. The miracle is none the less a miracle because God employed physical agents, just as Christ’s miracles were no less miraculous when He anointed blind eyes with moistened clay, or sent men to wash in Siloam, than when His bare word raised the dead or stilled the ocean. Wind or no wind, Moses’ rod or no rod, the true explanation of that broad path cleared through the sea is-’the waters saw Thee, O God.’ The use of natural means may have been an aid to feeble faith, encouraging it to step down on to the untrodden and slippery road. The employment of Moses and his rod was to attest his commission to act as God’s mouthpiece.
III. Then comes the safe passage. It is hard to imagine the scene. The vivid impression made by our story is all the more remarkable when we notice how wanting in detail it is. We do not know the time nor the place. We have no information about how the fugitives got across, the breadth of the path, or its length. Characteristically enough, Jewish legends know all about both, and assure us that the waters were parted into twelve ways, one for each tribe, and that the length of the road was three hundred miles! But Scripture, with characteristic reticence, is silent about all but the fact. That is enough. We gather, from the much later and poetical picture of it in Psa 1:1 – Psa 1:6 , that the passage was accomplished in the midst of crashing thunder and flashing lightnings; though it may be doubted whether these are meant to be taken as real or ideal. At all events, we have to think of these two millions of people-women, children, and followers-plunging into the depths in the night.
What a scene! The awestruck crowds, the howling wind, perhaps the thunderstorm, the glow of the pillar glistening on the wet and slimy way, the full paschal moon shining on the heaped waters! How the awe and the hope must both have increased with each step deeper in the abyss, and nearer to safety! The Epistle to the Hebrews takes this as an instance of ‘faith’ on the part of the Israelites; and truly we can feel that it must have taken some trust in God’s protecting hand to venture on such a road, where, at any moment, the walls might collapse and drown them all. They were driven to venture by their fear of Pharaoh; but faith, as well as fear, wrought in them. Our faith, too, is often called upon to venture upon perilous paths. We may trust Him to hold back the watery walls from falling. The picture of the crossing carries eternal truth for us all. The way of safety does not open till we are hemmed in, and Pharaoh’s chariots are almost come up. It often leads into the very thick of what we deem perils. It often has to be ventured on in the dark, and with the wind in our faces. But if we tread it in faith, the fluid will be made solid, and the pathless passable, or any other apparent impossibility be realised, before our confidence shall be put to shame, or one real evil reach us.
IV. The next stage is the hot pursuit and the panic of the Egyptians. The narrative does not mark the point at which the pillar lifted and disclosed the escape of the prey. It must have been in the night. The baffled pursuers dash after them, either not seeing, or too excited and furious to heed where they were going. The rough sea bottom was no place for chariots, and they would be hopelessly distanced by the fugitives on foot. How long they stumbled and weltered we are not told, but ‘in the morning watch,’ that is, while it was yet dark, some awful movement in the fiery pillar awed even their anger into stillness, and drove home the conviction that they were fighting against God. There is something very terrible in the vagueness, if we may call it so, of that phrase ‘the Lord looked . . .through the pillar.’ It curdles the blood as no minuteness of narrative would do. And what a thought that His look should be a trouble! ‘The steady whole of the judge’s face’ is awful, and some creeping terror laid hold on that host of mad pursuers floundering in the dark, as that more than natural light flared on their path. The panic to which all bodies of soldiers in strange circumstances are exposed, was increased by the growing difficulty of advance, as the chariot wheels became clogged or the ground more of quicksand. At last it culminates in a shout of ‘ Sauve qui peut!’ We may learn how close together lie daring rebellion against God and abject terror of Him; and how in a moment, a glance of His face, a turn of His hand, bring the wildest blasphemer to cower in fear. We may learn, too, to keep clear of courses which cannot be followed a moment longer, if once a thought that God sees us comes in. And we may learn the miserable result of all departure from Him, in making what ought to be our peace and blessing, our misery and terror, and turning the brightness of His face into a consuming fire.
V. Then comes, at last, the awful act of destruction, of which a man is the agent and an army the victim. We must suppose the Israelites all safe on the Arabian coast, when the level sunlight streams from the east on the wild hurry of the fleeing crowd making for the Egyptian shore. What a solemn sight that young morning looked on! The wind had dropped, the rod is stretched out, the sea returns to its strength; and after a few moments’ despairing struggle all is over, and the sun, as it climbs, looks down upon the unbroken stretch of quiet sea, bearing no trace of the awful work which it had done, or of the quenched hatred and fury which slept beneath.
We can understand the stern joy which throbs so vehemently in every pulse of that great song, the first blossom of Hebrew poetry, which the ransomed people sang that day. We can sympathise with the many echoes in psalm and prophecy, which repeated the lessons of faith and gratitude. But some will be ready to ask, Was that triumphant song anything more than narrow national feeling, and has Christianity not taught us another and tenderer thought of God than that which this lesson carries? We may ask in return, Was it divine providence that swept the Spanish Armada from the sea, fulfilling, as the medal struck to commemorate it bore, the very words of Moses’ song, ‘Thou didst blow with Thy wind, the sea covered them’? Was it God who overwhelmed Napoleon’s army in the Russian snows? Were these, and many like acts in the world’s history, causes for thankfulness to God? Is it not true that, as has been well said, ‘The history of the world is the judgment of the world’? And does Christianity forbid us to rejoice when some mighty and ancient system of wrong and oppression, with its tools and accomplices, is cleared from off the face of the earth? ‘When the wicked perish, there is shouting.’ Let us not forget that the love and gentleness of the Gospel are accompanied by the revelation of divine judgment and righteous retribution. This very incident has for its last echo in Scripture that wonderful scene in the Apocalypse, where, in the pause before the seven angels bearing the seven plagues go forth, the seer beholds a company of choristers, like those who on that morning stood on the Red Sea shore, standing on the bank of the ‘sea of glass mingled with fire,’-which symbolises the clear and crystalline depth of the stable divine judgments, shot with fiery retribution,-and lifting up by anticipation a song of thanksgiving for the judgments about to be wrought. That song is expressly called ‘the song of Moses’ and ‘of the Lamb,’ in token of the essential unity of the two dispensations, and especially of the harmony of both in their view of the divine judgments. Its ringing praises are modelled on the ancient lyric. It, too, triumphs in God’s judgments, regards them as means of making known His name, as done not for destruction, but that His character may be known and honoured by men, to whom it is life and peace to know and love Him for what He is.
That final victory over ‘the beast,’ whether he be a person or a tendency, is to reproduce in higher fashion that old conquest by the Red Sea. There is hope for the world that its oppressors shall not always tyrannise; there is hope for each soul that, if we take Christ for our deliverer and our guide, He will break the chains from off our wrists, and bring us at last to the eternal shore, where we may stand, like the ransomed people, and, as the unsetting morning dawns, see its beams touching with golden light the calm ocean, beneath which our oppressors lie buried for ever, and lift up glad thanksgivings to Him who has ‘led us through fire and through water, and brought us out into a wealthy place.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
God. Hebrew. Elohim: the Creator in relation to His creatures. See App-4.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
angel
(See Scofield “Heb 1:4”).
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
the angel: Exo 14:24, Exo 13:21, Exo 23:20, Exo 23:21, Exo 32:34, Num 20:16, Isa 63:9
and the pillar: Exo 13:21, Exo 13:22
Reciprocal: Exo 40:34 – a cloud Num 9:15 – the cloud Deu 1:33 – in fire Jos 3:13 – the soles Jdg 2:1 – And an angel 1Ch 21:16 – saw the angel Neh 9:12 – thou leddest Psa 35:5 – and Psa 77:20 – General Psa 78:53 – so that Isa 4:5 – a cloud Isa 52:12 – for Isa 58:8 – the glory Luk 9:34 – there Act 7:35 – by 1Co 10:1 – were
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Exo 14:19. The angel of God Whose ministry was made use of in the pillar of cloud and fire, went from before the camp of Israel, where they did not now need a guide, (there was no danger of missing their way through the sea,) and came behind them, where now they needed a guard, the Egyptians being just ready to seize the hindmost of them. There it was of use to the Israelites, not only to protect them, but to light them through the sea; and at the same time it confounded the Egyptians, so that they lost sight of their prey just when they were ready to lay hands on it. The word and providence of God have a black and dark side toward sin and sinners, but a bright and pleasant side toward those that are Israelites indeed.