Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Exodus 14:10
And when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians marched after them; and they were sore afraid: and the children of Israel cried out unto the LORD.
10. the Egyptians marched ] Heb., more graphically, Egypt was marching. Cf. on v. 25, and v. 30.
cried out, &c.] cf. Jos 24:7 (E).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
10 14. The sequel to vv. 5 7. The alarm of the Israelites, as they see the Egyptians approaching, and their encouragement by Moses, ‘told very graphically by J’ (Di.).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 10. The children of Israel cried out unto the Lord.] Had their prayer been accompanied with faith, we should not have found them in the next verses murmuring against Moses, or rather against the Lord, through whose goodness they were now brought from under that bondage from which they had often cried for deliverance. Calmet thinks that the most pious and judicious cried unto God, while the unthinking and irreligious murmured against Moses.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Which is not strange; these being now a people of low spirits, depressed by long and grievous servitude; being also generally unarmed, wearied with their journey, and their fears aggravated by the presence and outcries of their wives and children. But they should have supported themselves by the consideration of the mighty power of God, of which they had late and great experience. They cried out, partly by petition, and partly by complaint and expostulation. Which is not strange; these being now a people of low spirits, depressed by long and grievous servitude; being also generally unarmed, wearied with their journey, and their fears aggravated by the presence and outcries of their wives and children. But they should have supported themselves by the consideration of the mighty power of God, of which they had late and great experience. They
cried out, partly by petition, and partly by complaint and expostulation.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
10. when Pharaoh drew nigh, thechildren of Israel lifted up their eyesThe great consternationof the Israelites is somewhat astonishing, considering their vastsuperiority in numbers, but their deep dismay and absolute despair atthe sight of this armed host receives a satisfactory explanation fromthe fact that the civilized state of Egyptian society required theabsence of all arms, except when they were on service. If theIsraelites were entirely unarmed at their departure, they could notthink of making any resistance [WILKINSONand HENGSTENBERG].
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And when Pharaoh drew nigh,…. Or “caused to draw nigh” t; that is, his army, brought it very near to the camp of the Israelites:
the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians marched after them; in great numbers, with full speed, threatening them with utter destruction:
and they were sore afraid; being an unarmed people, though numerous, and so unable to defend themselves against armed and disciplined troops; and besides, through their long time of slavery their spirits were broken, and were a mean, abject, dispirited people; and especially were so on the sight of the Egyptians, whom they had so many years looked upon and served as their lords and masters:
and the children of Israel cried out unto the Lord: had they prayed unto him in this their distress for help and assistance, protection and preservation, with an holy and humble confidence in him for it, they had acted a right and laudable part; but their crying out to him seems to be only an outcry of the troubles they were in, and rather the effect of despair than of faith and hope; and was by way of complaint and lamentation of their miserable condition and circumstances, as appears by what follows, which shows what temper of mind they were in.
t “fecit accedere”, Pagninus, Montanus; “admovit castra”, Junius & Tremellius.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
When the Israelites saw the advancing army of the Egyptians, they were greatly alarmed; for their situation to human eyes was a very unfortunate one. Shut in on the east by the sea, on the south and west by high mountains, and with the army of the Egyptians behind them, destruction seemed inevitable, since they were neither outwardly armed nor inwardly prepared for a successful battle. Although they cried unto the Lord, they had no confidence in His help, notwithstanding all the previous manifestation so the fidelity of the true God; they therefore gave vent to the despair of their natural heart in complaints against Moses, who had brought them out of the servitude of Egypt to give them up to die in the desert. “ Hast thou, because there were no graves at all ( , a double negation to give emphasis) in Egypt, fetched us to die in the desert? ” Their further words in Exo 14:12 exaggerated the true state of the case from cowardly despair. For it was only when the oppression increased, after Moses’ first interview with Pharaoh, that they complained of what Moses had done (Exo 5:21), whereas at first they accepted his proposals most thankfully (Exo 4:31), and even afterwards implicitly obeyed his directions.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
10 And when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians marched after them; and they were sore afraid: and the children of Israel cried out unto the LORD. 11 And they said unto Moses, Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt? 12 Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians? For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness. 13 And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will show to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever. 14 The LORD shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.
We have here, I. The fright that the children of Israel were in when they perceived that Pharaoh pursued them, v. 10. They knew very well the strength and rage of the enemy, and their own weakness; numerous indeed they were, but all on foot, unarmed, undisciplined, disquieted by long servitude, and (which was worst of all) now penned up by the situation of their camp, so that they could not make their escape. On the one hand was Pi-hahiroth, a range of craggy rocks impassable; on the other hand were Migdol and Baalzephon, which, some think were forts and garrisons upon the frontiers of Egypt; before them was the sea; behind them were the Egyptians: so that there was no way open for them but upwards, and thence their deliverance came. Note, We may be in the way of our duty, following God and hastening towards heaven, and yet may be in great straits, troubled on every side, 2 Cor. iv. 8. In this distress, no marvel that the children of Israel were sorely afraid; their father Jacob was so in a like case (Gen. xxxii. 7); when without are fightings, it cannot be otherwise but that within are fears: what therefore was the fruit of this fear? According as that was, the fear was good or evil. 1. Some of them cried out unto the Lord; their fear set them a praying, and that was a good effect of it. God brings us into straits that he may bring us to our knees. 2. Others of them cried out against Moses; their fear set them a murmuring, Exo 14:11; Exo 14:12. They give up themselves for lost; and as if God’s arm were shortened all of a sudden, and he were not as able to work miracles to-day as he was yesterday, they despair of deliverance, and can count upon nothing but dying in the wilderness. How inexcusable was their distrust! Did they not see themselves under the guidance and protection of a pillar from heaven? And can almighty power fail them, or infinite goodness be false to them? Yet this was not the worst; they quarrel with Moses for bringing them out of Egypt, and, in quarrelling with him, fly in the face of God himself, and provoke him to wrath whose favour was now the only succour they had to flee to. As the Egyptians were angry with themselves for the best deed they ever did, so the Israelites were angry with God for the greatest kindness that was ever done them; so gross are the absurdities of unbelief. They here express, (1.) A sordid contempt of liberty, preferring servitude before it, only because it was attended with some difficulties. A generous spirit would have said, “If the worst come to the worst,” as we say, “It is better to die in the field of honour than to live in the chains of slavery;” nay, under God’s conduct, they could not miscarry, and therefore they might say, “Better live God’s freemen in the open air of a wilderness than the Egyptians’ bondmen in the smoke of the brick-kilns.” But because, for the present, they are a little embarrassed, they are angry that they were not left buried alive in their house of bondage. (2.) Base ingratitude to Moses, who had been the faithful instrument of their deliverance. They condemn him, as if he had dealt hardly and unkindly with them, whereas it was evident, beyond dispute, that whatever he did, and however it issued, it was by direction from their God, and with design for their good. What they had said in a former ferment (when they hearkened not to Moses for anguish of spirit), they repeat and justify in this: We said in Egypt, Let us alone; and it was ill-said, yet more excusable, because then they had not had so much experience as they had now of God’s wonderful appearances in their favour. But they had as soon forgotten the miracles of mercy as the Egyptians had forgotten the miracles of wrath; and they, as well as the Egyptians, hardened their hearts, at last, to their own ruin; as Egypt after ten plagues, so Israel after ten provocations, of which this was the first (Num. xiv. 22), were sentenced to die in the wilderness.
II. The seasonable encouragement that Moses gave them in this distress, Exo 14:13; Exo 14:14. He answered not these fools according to their folly. God bore with the provocation they gave to him, and did not (as he might justly have done) chose their delusions, and bring their fears upon them; and therefore Moses might well afford to pass by the affront they put upon him. Instead of chiding them, he comforts them, and with an admirable presence and composure of mind, not disheartened either by the threatenings of Egypt or the tremblings of Israel, stills their murmuring, with the assurance of a speedy and complete deliverance: Fear you not. Note, It is our duty and interest, when we cannot get out of our troubles, yet to get above our fears, so that they may only serve to quicken our prayers and endeavours, but may not prevail to silence our faith and hope. 1. He assures them that God would deliver them, that he would undertake their deliverance, and that he would effect it in the utter ruin of their pursuers: The Lord shall fight for you. This Moses was confident of himself, and would have them to be so, though as yet he knew not how or which way it would be brought to pass. God had assured him that Pharaoh and his host should be ruined, and he comforts them with the same comforts wherewith he had been comforted. 2. He directs them to leave it to God, in a silent expectation of the event: “Stand still, and think not to save yourselves either by fighting or flying; wait God’s orders, and observe them; be not contriving what course to take, but follow your leader; wait God’s appearances, and take notice of them, that you may see how foolish you are to distrust them. Compose yourselves, by an entire confidence in God, into a peaceful prospect of the great salvation God is now about to work for you. Hold your peace; you need not so much as give a shout against the enemy, as Josh. vi. 16. The work shall be done without any concurrence of yours.” Note, (1.) If God himself bring his people into straits, he will himself discover a way to bring them out again. (2.) In times of great difficulty and great expectation, it is our wisdom to keep our spirits calm, quiet, and sedate; for then we are in the best frame both to do our own work and to consider the work of God. Your strength is to sit still (Isa. xxx. 7), for the Egyptians shall help in vain, and threaten to hurt in vain.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Verses 10-12:
The Israelites saw the approaching host of Pharaoh’s troops Terror gripped them. They were unarmed, and had no military training. They would be no match for Egypt’s best veteran warriors. They cried out to Jehovah as the one Source of help.
The people then began to vent their anger upon Moses. They charged that he had brought them into the wilderness merely to die uselessly. There were many cemeteries in Egypt, where they could be buried in peace, without having to die and be buried in this desolate place. Israel showed a pattern that would prevail throughout their wilderness experience. When confronted with danger, they turned against Moses and Aaron. They complained that they really did not want to leave Egypt in the first place, but preferred slavery to death in the wilderness.
It is significant that the New Testament declares Israel’s redemption from Egypt to be a type of the experiences of God’s child today, 1Co 10-1-11. The complaining of the people is a case in point. It is not uncommon for people today to turn against their leaders when difficult circumstances arise.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
10. And when Pharaoh drew nigh. Moses implies that the alarm was greater from its suddenness, because no messenger had preceded, so that a very short time indeed was given them for preparation. There was, then, just ground for fear even in the bravest hearts, unless there had been something very extraordinary about them. But they sinned doubly; because both the hope of divine assistance had abandoned their hearts together with the recollection of God’s mercies; and they advanced to such an extent of ingratitude as to revolt insolently against God and Moses. Although there is an appearance of two contrary facts being here reported, viz., that they cried out unto the Lord, and mutinied against His minister; yet we may easily gather that this cry neither arose from faith nor from serious and! well-ordered affections, but that it was extorted by a confused impulse; since the natural sense impels all men, in their adversity, promiscuously to offer their prayers to God, although they neither embrace His mercy nor rely on His power. Thus David, in Psa 107:0, says that all the distressed have recourse to God when any trouble oppresses them; because God, by the leadings of nature and by secret instinct, draws them to Him in their danger, in order that the most careless and most profane may be rendered more inexcusable. Yet in this way do they not render due honor to God, although by the utterance of their mouths they ask for safety from Him. It is, then, little to be wondered at, that the Israelites being reduced to such sore anxiety should have offered prayers and vows accompanied with God’s name; especially since He had recently manifested Himself to them in so many miracles, and they always had in sight the cloud, or the pillar of fire. But their insane cries against Moses were plain proof that, as in amazement, they had thoughtlessly hastened to call upon the name of God. For the exposition (154) is unreasonable which some give, that certain of them piously prayed to God, whilst others of the multitude wickedly mutinied against Moses; because these two statements are made in conjunction, and cannot be referred to different persons.
(154) The interpretation only noticed to be set aside is found in S. M. — W.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(10) The children of Israel . . . were sore afraid.It has been objected that 600,000 men above twenty years of age had no need to be afraid of such an army as the Pharaoh could have hastily gathered. The entire armed force of Egypt is reckoned by Herodotus (2:166-168) at 410,000, and it is tolerably clear that not one-half of these could have been mustered. It would imply, indeed, more facility of mobilisation than we should have expected in this early age, if Pharaoh was able to bring 100,000 men into the field upon a sudden emergency. Why, then, it is asked, should the Israelites have been sore afraid of a force but one-sixth of their number? Were they arrant cowards? The answer is that the Egyptian army, whatever its number, was composed of trained soldiers, well-armed and used to war; the 600,000 Israelites were, in the main, unarmed, ignorant of warfare, and trained very imperfectly. Above a million Persian soldiers were defeated and slaughtered like sheep by 47,000 Graeco-Macedonians at Arbela. A similar result would, humanly speaking, have followed on a conflict between the Israelites and the Egyptians at Pi-hahiroth. The fear of the former was therefore perfectly legitimate.
The children of Israel cried out unto the Lord.If Israel had been unduly timidwhich we have shown not to have been the caseat any rate they knew where to make their appeal for succour. There is no help like that of Jehovah.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
10-12. Cried out unto the Lord In terror, but not in faith . Because there were no graves in Egypt No graves at all; words that had a special pathos in the mouths of a people who had been bred in a land renowned for the vastness and grandeur of its sepulchres . The royal cemetery of Memphis stretched more than sixty miles along the Nile, and among its monuments now stands the loftiest and most massive work that man’s hand ever reared . The Theban tombs are magnificent palaces of the dead . To lie unburied after death was deemed in Egypt to be one of the greatest of calamities, and the Israelites had doubtless an Egyptian horror of having their bodies scattered over the desert .
Better for us to serve the Egyptians Cowardly despair . But it should be remembered they had been degraded by bondage, and the masters before whom they had cowered so long were full in sight with horses and chariots .
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The Great Fear of the Israelites
v. 10. And when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians marched after them; and they were sore afraid. And the children of Israel cried out unto the Lord. v. 11. And they said unto Moses, Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? Wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt? v. 12. Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians? v. 13. And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salva tion of the Lord which He will show to you today; for the Egyptians whom ye have seen today ye shall see them again no more forever. v. 14. The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace, v. 15. And the Lord said unto Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto Me? v. 16. But lift thou up thy rod, the same shepherd’s staff that had figured so largely in Egypt, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it. v. 17. And I, behold, I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, and they shall follow them, v. 18. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I have gotten Me honor upon Pharaoh, upon his chariots, and upon his horsemen.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Exo 14:10-14
THE TERROR OF ISRAEL AND THE COURAGE OF MOSES. It has been argued that the Israelites, if they were so numerous as stated (Exo 12:37), must have been wretched cowards, if they were afraid to risk an engagement with such an army as that hastily levied one which Pharaoh had brought with him. But the difference between an army of trained soldiers, thoroughly equipped for war, with helmets, shields, breastplates, swords and spears, and an undisciplined multitude, unarmed for the most part, and wholly unaccustomed to warfare, is such, that the latter, whatever its numbers, may be excused if it does not feel able to cope with the former, and declines an engagement. Numbers, without military training and discipline, are of no availnay, are even a disadvantage, since the men impede one another. It is not necessary to suppose that the Israelites were debased in character by their long servitude to account for their panic on seeing the army of Pharaoh. They had good grounds for their fear. Humanly speaking, resistance would simply have led to their indiscriminate massacre. The alarm of the Hebrews, and even the reproaches with which they assail Moses, are thus quite natural under the circumstances. What is surprising is, the noble courage and confidence of Moses. Moses, though only vaguely informed, that God would “be honoured upon Pharaoh and all his host” (verse 4), is perfectly certain that all will go wellhow the result will be achieved, he knows not; but he is sure that Israel will be delivered and Egypt discomfited; his people have no reason to fearthey have but to “stand still and see the salvation of God” (verse 13); “the Lord will fight for them;” they will have simply to “hold their peace” (verse 14).
Exo 14:10
They were sore afraid. Before the Israelites are taxed with cowardice, let it be considered
1. That they were unarmed. Egypt was so settled a government that civilians generally went unarmed; and slaves, like the Hebrews, would scarcely have been allowed to possess any arms, if the case had been otherwise.
2. They had no military training. Whatever had been done to teach them order and arrangement in connection with their proposed journey, we may be sure there had been no drill or training in the use of arms, since this would have been regarded by the Egyptians as open rebellion.
3. They were quite unaccustomed to warfare. The Pharaohs main-rained large garrisons of Egyptian and mercenary troops in the frontier provinces, to resist the invasions to which they were liable. The Hebrews may have had occasionally to defend themselves against a hasty raid: but in real war they had stood aloof, and left the fighting to the regular Egyptian army. The children of Israel cried out unto the Lord. The appeal to Jehovah showed that, with all their weaknesses and imperfections, the Israelites were yet true at heart. They knew where alone help was to be obtained, and made their appeal accordingly. No cry is more sure of an answer than the despairing one”Lord, save us; we perish.”
Exo 14:11
And they said to Moses. It was not unnatural that, while flying to God as their only refuge, they should be angry with Moses. Moses, they would argue, ought to have known better than to have brought them into a situation of such peril. He, the leader, should have known the geography of the countryhe, the courtier, should have known the temper of the court. It is always a satisfaction to men to vent their anger upon some one when they are in a difficulty. No graves in Egypt. Egypt, with a necropolis outside every city, was “a land of tombs;” surely they might have found graves there, instead of being led out to such a distance simply to die.
Exo 14:12
Is not this the word that we did tell thee? The reference was probably to that time of depression, after their burdens had been increased, and before the series of miracles began, when the Israelites had addressed reproaches to Moses and Aaron (Exo 5:21), and refused to listen to words of encouragement (Exo 6:9). It was not true that they had uniformly held the same language, and desired Moses and Aaron to cease their efforts. It had been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die. The spirit to prefer death to slavery, where they are the only alternatives, is not a common one; and we must not be surprised that a people which had grown up in servitude and had no traditions of national independence did not rise to the heroic height attained under other circumstances by Greeks, by Switzers. and by Poles. It would have been most extraordinary had they done so.
Exo 14:13
And Moses said fear ye not. Moses knew that the pursuit of Israel by the host of the Egyptians was a part of the counsel of God, and was to tend in some way or other to the promotion of God’s honour and glory (Exo 14:4). He had sufficient faith to believe in a deliverance the nature of which it is not likely that he could anyway conjecture. Whether hail would fall from heaven and destroy them (Jos 10:11); or the earth gape and swallow them up (Num 16:32); or the angel of death smite them all in the night (2Ki 19:35); or any other strange form of destruction come upon them, he did not know; but he concluded from what had been revealed to him, that God was about to vindicate his own honour without the aid of man. Hence his wordsStand still, and see the salvation of the Lordwhich assigned to the Israelites a mere passive attitude of expectation. For the Egyptians, etc. The order of the words in the original favours the marginal rendering, which is to be adopted with one slight change. Translate”For, as ye have seen the Egyptians to-day, ye shall see them again no more for ever,” i.e; ye shall see them no more alive, vigorous and menacing, but still and lifeless upon the Red Sea shore (Exo 14:30). There is no reference to any other Egyptians than those with Pharaoh in the camp, nor to any later relations between Egypt and the chosen people.
Exo 14:14
Ye shall hold your peacei.e; “do nothing, remain at rest.”
HOMILETICS
Exo 14:10-14
Divine trial a touchstone to distinguish faith from unfaithfulness.
The Israelites had almost as much ground as Moses to believe in God, and trust his providential care of them. They had seen the whole series of miracles which Moses had wrought. They had found themselves exempt from visitations which fell with the utmost severity on their near neighbours. They had heard from Moses God’s positive promise to bring them into Canaan (Exo 13:5, Exo 13:11). Yet at the first appearance of danger they lost all heart, all hope. They turned upon Moses with reproaches, taxed him with having brought them out of Egypt against their will, and expressed a readiness to return, and resume their old service. Moses, on the other hand, remained firmdid not blenchthough, like the people, he felt the need of crying to God for aid (Exo 14:15), yet he did so in a different spirit from themhe with faith, they, in panic terror, without it; he, sure that God would somehow grant salvation, they expecting nothing less than almost immediate death. Thus the same trial which shows forth one man’s faith and trust and confidence in God, reveals other men’s want of faith. While things went smoothly, there was no apparent differencean unprejudiced observer might have thought the people just as trustful as their leaderbut it was not so; and God willed that the difference should be made apparent. God will have faith distinguished from unfaithfulness, and each recognised as what it really is.
I. FOR THE HONOUR OF HAS TRUE AND FAITHFUL SERVANTS, which he wills to have set forth in the eyes of men, out of the tender love he bears towards his people. Though they be at the best “unprofitable servants,” he deigns to recognise merit in their service, and wishes them to be honoured and held in respect by others, assigning them this as a part of their reward.
II. FOR THE WARNING OF THE UNFAITHFUL ONES, who, unless a severe trial came, might remain self-deceived, imagining themselves to have true faith, though wholly lacking it.
III. FOR THE MERE RIGHT‘S SAKE. Because he is a God of justice and of truth, abhorrent of pretence, semblance, make-believe; and always on the side of sincerity and openness. “There is nothing secret,” he tells us, “that shall not be made manifest, nor hid that shall not be known” (Luk 8:17). And this revelation of the true character of men and actions, which his truthfulness makes an ultimate necessity, his providence works for here. His trials are touchstones, potent to detect shams, and to prove the faithfulness of the faithful
HOMILIES BY J. ORR
Exo 14:10-23
The deliverance.
Consider on this section:
I. THE CRITICAL SITUATION OF THE ISRAELITES.
1. Their position. “Encamping by the sea, beside Pi-hahiroth, before Baal Zephon” (Exo 14:9). The first view of the sea would probably be attractive to them. Its breeze, after the tedious travel of the desert, would be deliciously refreshing. They would look with a child’s wonder and delight on the novel spectacle it presented. They would crowd to the beach to watch its dancing, white-tipped waves, and curiously to listen to its soft, lapping ripple on the shore. Yet this sea, which is to-day their joy and plaything, will have become by the morrow their terror and despairtheir impregnable prison barrier. The experience is not uncommon. How often does it happen that the very things which at first we are disposed to hail with delight, to welcome and rejoice in, prove afterwards our greatest causes of sorrow! The engagements we enter into, the friendships we form, the bargains we make, the society we are introduced to, etc.
2. The approach of the enemy. “The children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold the Egyptians marched after them” (Exo 14:10). The mountains are around, the sea is in front, and nowterrible situation!the Egyptians are pursuing, and close at hand. On they come, in whirling chariots, in ranks upon ranks of footmen; the long lines are seen defiling in the distance, and Israel knows that in an hour or two more the avalanche will be upon them, sweeping all before it, burying them in destruction.
3. They were entirely unprepared. They had been resting and unbending, not preparing for battle. The attack took them by surprise. There was no possibility under the circumstances of presenting an effectual resistance to the enemy. But, indeed, had the circumstances been ever so favourable, these hordes of slaves, accustomed so long to crouch before the rod of the taskmaster, would scarcely have attempted it. How critical, how perilous, therefore, the entire situation! A picture this of those straits of life formerly referred to, in which having done our utmost, we can do no more, and no alternative remains but prayer, and quiet waiting upon God.
II. THEIR PANIC AND DESPAIR (Exo 14:10-13). The appearance of the Egyptians naturally threw the Israelites into a state of the most acute terror. Remark:
1. Great allowance must be made for them. We do not read that, on this occasion, God dealt severely with them for the wild, ungrateful words they uttered. He made allowance.
(1) Their situation was really very serious. Placed in like circumstances, we would perhaps not have shown much more faith than they did.
(2) They were unused to the life of freedom. It takes time to teach those who have always been slaves to appreciate the blessings of the opposite condition. They carry their slave habits with them into the state of freedom. The Israelites had not as yet had much comfort in their emancipation. Their painful marches had probably been harder work than even the brick-making of Egypt. They could not as yet feel that it was better to be free, though enduring hardships in their freedom, than to be more comfortably situated and be slaves; Do we blame them? Then reflect how even Christians sometimes murmur and rebel at the self-denials, the sacrifices, the inconveniences, the persecutions, which their Christian freedom entails upon them. You complain, perhaps, that you have a harder time of it now, than even when you served the flesh. It may be true. But do not forget that the difference between your condition now and then, is all the difference between slavery and bondage, between salvation and a state of wrath.
2. Israel‘s behaviour was nevertheless very unworthy.
(1) It was faithless. They did not wait to ask or see what God, who had already done so much for them, was about to do now, but at once concluded that he would leave them to perish. It is, indeed, said that they “cried unto the Lord” (Exo 14:10), but then, in the next breath, we read of them reproaching his servant and delegate (Exo 14:11). They are faithless prayers that come from faithless hearts.
(2) It was ungrateful. How willing they had been to be led out of Egypt! yet now, at the first approach of danger, they turn on their leader, and taunt him for having given them their liberty. Was Moses to blame for the pursuit of Pharaoh? Or did he deserve to be thus requited for the noble stand he had taken on their behalf? Public servants have often much to endure from the fickle humour of the crowd.
(3) it was cowardly. It showed a servile and ignoble spirit even to breathe so base a regret as that they had not been suffered to continue in Egypt.
3. The contrast of their conduct with that of Moses. The bearing of Moses at this crisis was sublime in its calmness and trust. He does not return “railing for railing.” No angry word escapes his lips in reply to the reproaches of the people. They murmur; he betakes himself to prayer (Exo 14:15). They look to the visible chariots; he to the invisible power which is mightier than all. They seem bereft of reason, fearing immediate death; he is calm, undaunted, self-collected, and gives them the best of counsel. Ponder his words”Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will shew to you today” (Exo 14:13).
(1) The situation was one in which God alone could bring salvation. They could do nothing for themselves. The salvation must be God’s from first to last.
(2) God would bring them this salvation. The fact that he had brought them into this strait was of itself a pledge that be would find them a way out of it. The believer, who finds himself in situations of difficulty, may cherish the same confidence.
(3) Their duty was to stand still, and see this salvation. So long as means of help are put within our reach, it is our duty to use them. When no such means exist, or when all available means have been exhausted, and still the shadow overhangs us, what remains but to wait patiently on the help of the Most High? “Stand still”in trust, in prayer, in expectancy, in readiness to advance the instant the word is given. “Stand still”as opposed to weak murmurings, to passionate regrets, to foolish rebellion against circumstances you cannot alter,so shall you “see the salvation of the Lord.” If nothing else will do, God will cleave a way for you through the waves, or better still, will enable you, like Peter, to walk on them (Mat 14:29).
III. GOD‘S COMMAND TO MOSES (Exo 14:15-19).
1. The command came in answer to prayer. “Wherefore criest thou unto me” (Exo 14:15). The words contain no reproach, but imply that prayer needed on the instant to be exchanged for action.
2. Moses was to speak to the people that they go forward. See below.
3. He was to stretch his rod over the sea, and divide the waters (Exo 14:16). The confidence of Moses, that God would show a way of salvation, was thus justified by the result. The light was not given as early as the people might have wished, but it was given in time. God also announces to Moses his purpose of destroying the Egyptians (Exo 14:17, Exo 14:18).
IV. THE ADVANCE THROUGH THE SEA. On this notice
1. The change in the position of the pillar of cloud and fire (Exo 14:19, Exo 14:20). Moving to the rear, it stood between the Israelites and their pursuers, turning a bright side to the former, and a dark side to the latter. (See below.) By this seasonable change in its position, it
(1) Illuminated the passage for the Israelites. The light would stream on in front.
(2) Made the way dark and perilous for the pursuers.
(3) Hid the pursuers from the pursued, and vice versa. This, besides being an additional defence to the Israelites, saved them from the terror which the sight of their pursuers would naturally awaken. It is related of a party of the Waldenses, that escaping by night from their cruel persecutors, their path lay through the rugged and perilous defiles of the Alps. At length the day broke, and under the light of the rising sun, they turned to survey the track along which they had trod. By a unanimous and irresistible impulse, they fell on their knees to thank God for their marvellous preservation. “Here, they had walked on the very verge of a tremendous precipice where a false step would have dashed them to atoms; there, they had skirted the banks of a mountain lake, whose black waters seem to indicate unfathomable depths,” etc. But the dangers amidst which they had moved had been veiled by the impenetrable darkness. There are some things which it is better for us not to see. Learn
(1) That God adapts his manifestations of himself to his people’s needs.
(2) That God’s presence with his Church is an effectual bulwark against attack. He can hide his people from their pursuers. He can darken the path of the latter; can confound their wisdom, divide their counsels, perplex them in their courses, and obstruct their progress by providential obstacles.
(3) Spiritually, in times of temptation and trial, we may rely on being illuminated by God’s truth, defended by God’s power, and ultimately conducted to a place of safety.
2. The division of the waters (Exo 14:21).
(1) It was accomplished by natural agencies, supernaturally directed. “The Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night.” The recognition of natural agency in no wise detracts from the supernatural character of the transaction; nay, seeing that direct miracles are no longer to be looked for by the Church, it is even more helpful to faith to find that natural means were employed in this instance, than if the result had been wholly miraculous. It heightens our conceptions of what God can accomplish by means of the agencies of nature. Instance the defeat of the Spanish Armada
(2) It was unexpected and surprising. In considering the ways by which God might conceivably save them, the Israelites probably never dreamt of his opening a path through the sea. So, in those straits of life to which reference has been made, help usually arrives from unexpected quarters, in a way we had not thought of. “God’s way is in the sea, and his path in the deep waters, and his footsteps are not known” (Psa 77:19).
(3) It afforded the passage that was required. The march through the sea, certainly, would not be without its difficulties. The violent gale, the thunderings and lightnings (Psa 77:18), the darkness, the boom of the distant waters, the lurid light of the fiery cloud, the uneven passage, the panic and confusion, the strangeness and fearfulness of the entire situation, would make it an experience never to be forgotten. But if the road was difficult, it was practicable. They could pass by it. God promises to make a way for us. He does not promise that the way wilt always be an easy one.
3. The safe transit (Exo 14:22). The children of Israel got safely across. They were preserved in the very midst of the hostile element. Nay, the sea, which they had so much dreaded, became on either side a protecting wall to them. The same superintending Providence which secured, in the shipwreck of Paul, that “so it came to pass, that they escaped all safe to land” (Act 27:44), doubtless brought about a like happy result in the case of the Israelites. Their deliverance became, in after days, the type of any great deliverance wrought by God for his saints. See the figure wrought out in Psa 18:4-20.J.O.
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG
Exo 14:11
Cruel words out of cowardly hearts.
There was much, as we have seen, to excuse the terror of Israel; but there is one thing not so easy to excuse, and that is the sarcastic, unjust spirit in which these terrified Israelites treat their visible leader. Formerly (Exo 5:21) they had turned on him with bitter reproaches; but their conduct then was the effect of ignorance and hasty expectations, and their language, however strong, was simply the language of reproach. But now to reproach they add sarcasm; they speak so as to set Moses in a ridiculous as well as a painful position. We may suppose that when the question was asked, “Whatever can we have been brought here for?” some of the wits of Israel would reply, “There is no room in Egypt to bury us, and so we are brought to be buried here.” Then this sharp speech, quickly flying from lip to lip, as clever things usually do, would in no long time become the well-nigh universal thought. We have then here to consider the evils of sarcastic speech. That such speech may do good sometimes, and sometimes be necessary, need not be denied. But inasmuch as the temptation is almost entirely the other way, we may dismiss as needless the work of considering what benefits there may be in sarcastic speech. The ills of sarcasm have so far outweighed the good, that we had better set ourselves earnestly to consider them. Is it not to be presumed that fewer such sayings would fall from our lips, if only we habitually considered all the ill effects that may flow from such a way of speaking?
I. CONSIDER THE PAIN INFLICTED BY SARCASTIC SPEECH. There may be a great deal of pain inflicted where no sense of pain is expressed. Moses does not here take any notice of this bitter, clever, far-echoing word about the graves; but thereby, he only gives another illustration of his characteristic natural meekness. He may have felt, and felt deeply, even though he did not speak. If, indeed, he reckoned nothing of these words, we should hardly think so well of him. To be what is called thick-skinned is not good, if it is meant thereby that one has no perception of the insolent, inconsiderate language of others. Lack of sensibility to pain means a corresponding lack of sensibility to pleasure. We can no more avoid feeling pain when a harsh word is spoken, than when we receive a cut or a blow. No doubt it is pleasant to say sharp, clever things; but the pleasure is a momentary one, an entirely selfish one; it will not bear thinking about; and it may inflict a durable pain. Sharp words may be like barbed arrows that not all the lapse of years can work out of the memory. Assuredly we must not shrink from inflicting pain, if duty, affection, and prudence point that way; but we had need to be very sure of the indications. To inflict bodily pain for our own pleasure is admittedly an unchristian thing; and yet what a monstrous inconsistency is revealed in the fact that persons who would not tread on a worm, are constantly found inflicting the intensest pain by the words they speak. Knock a man down, and you might do him less harm than by the few words that pass so lightly, easily, and pleasantly between your lips. Less harm is done by the fist than by the tongue.
II. CONSIDER THE INJUSTICE DONE BY IT. Sarcastic speeches never can be true speeches. If they were true, it would be no justification of them, but in the very nature of things they cannot be true. They must have about them, more or less, elements of the false and exaggerated. If a thing is to be sharp at all, there is an irresistible temptation to make it as sharp and striking as possible; and truth cannot but suffer in the process. Epigrams are always to be distrusted. How clearly the injustice of sharp sayings comes out in the illustration before us! The speech about these graves was a witty, clever one, but how unjust! As it happened, Moses was under no responsibility whatever for bringing the Israelites to this particular place. lie had not been left to use his own judgment and discretion, but was as much under the guidance of the cloudy pillar as all the rest. Hence from this illustration we receive a slight warning that we may not only be inflicting pain, Which is much, but injustice, which is a great deal more. You who would not steal the least fragment of a man’s property, be equally careful to speak no word which may do hurt to his reputation. Speak that you may inflict no pain; speak also that you may do no injustice.
III. CONSIDER THE PERIL TO THE SPEAKER HIMSELF. Cleverness is a perilous, and not unfrequently a fatal gift. To be sharper than our neighbours may prove in the end a dangerous thing for our own interests. Some who are admired, courted, widely spoken about, for their powers of mimicry, find in the end that it might have been far more for their comfort and permanent well-being, if they had been of only commonplace abilities. To be admired is a poor satisfaction, mere dust and ashes, if it has to stand instead of being loved. Make fun of other people, seize without mercy on their weaknesses, their follies and their natural defects, and the chances are that you will find yourself exposed, in turn, to like treatment. Those who attack with sharp speeches are just the men who deserveif they always got their deserts, and it were expedient to retaliateequally sharp speeches in return. What about these Israelites here? Did they not by talking in this fashion show clearly what a mean, miserable company they were? They hurt themselves far more than they hurt Moses. There is hardly one who takes pride in what he calls his plain speaking, but might be pilloried himself, and greeted with sarcastic speeches as severe as any he had uttered, and probably more charged with truth. And the worst of all is, that in the end those habituated to evil-speaking may find themselves forsaken in their own great need. We need friends, and, if we would have them, we must show ourselves friendly. If we go through the world constantly replenishing our sarcastic quiver with arrows, and stretching the bow on every slight provocation, then we must expect people to give us a wide berth; and when at last we come to be stricken ourselves, it will be no matter of just complaint if we are left well-nigh alone.
IV. CONSIDER HOW MUCH GOOD IS THWARTED AND NEUTRALISED BY THIS WAY OF SPEAKING. We may flatter ourselves that there is good to be gained in making folly ridiculous, and so there may be; but it can only be when the speaker is one of great wisdom, goodness, and habitual elevation of life. Certainly we find in the Scriptures the language of solemn irony from God himself; but his words are above our criticism, and we are not at liberty to speak as he speaks. We are all upon the same level of sin, ignorance, and partial views, and must speak as remembering this level. To affect authority and superior station will be ruinous to all good effects from any remonstrance of ours. Whatever truth is revealed to us, and put upon our consciences to speak, must be spoken in love, in humility, and in the very best season we can find. If it is really our desire to win others to better, wiser and manlier courses, we had better not begin with sharp speeches. True it may be that the world is mostly made up of fools, and perhaps there is no occasion when we do more to prove our own place in the large company than when, in our contempt and impatience, we call other people fools. We are not then behaving as fishers of men. We are not then becoming all things to all men in order to save some. Many a Christian has had to sorrow for his imperfect control over the gift of intellectual quickness. Before his conversion, he used his gift of wit, repartee, and ludicrous conception with careless freedom and delight, not staying to consider whom he hurt, whom he hindered. Then when such a one submits at last to the true lord of the intellect, he finds it hard, in this matter in particular, to bring his thoughts into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
V. GOD‘S PEOPLE MUST THEMSELVES PREPARE TO BE SARCASTICALLY AND BITTERLY SPOKEN OF. Only let each one of us consider his own temptation to say hard things, and then we shall cease to wonder that hard things are said of us. We cannot expect to receive from others, but as we give to them. Anyway we must be ready for hard things, ready in particular for hard speeches. Where Christ went, his people must go; and he went in a path where he was called a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. If he was sneered at on the very Cross, it is babyish on our part to complain because the world sneers at us in the comparatively easy paths we have to tread. Our strength, our joy, and our serenity must not depend on the world’s opinion. Moses was getting a hint even thus early that he must not expect consideration from his brethren, with respect to his feelings and difficulties. The joys of Moses were to be got from quite another direction, even from the assiduous tenderness of Jehovah himself.
VI. CULTIVATE A HABIT OF PITIFUL CONSIDERATION TOWARDS THE MEN OF SARCASTIC SPEECH. Remember that they are not happy men. How can a man be happy whose eye is for ever lighting on the blots and loathsome ulcers of human nature; who seems to have a morbid acuteness of vision with respect to them, but to become purblind when noble and Divinely-produced elements of character appear? Such a man is to be pitied with Christ’s own gentle pity. Do not meet his sarcasm with sarcasm, but here emphatically return good for evil. Force him to see that there is a great deal more in the world, if only he will look for it, than duplicity, selfishness, and stupidity. Show him how to discern, even in the jostling and wrangling crowd, men who have in them the mind which was in Christ.Y.
HOMILIES BY H.T. ROBJOHNS
The passage of the Red Sea.
“Fear ye not, stand still (firm), and see the salvation of God” (Exo 14:13). Mark, by way of introduction, the critical character of this event, the greatest in Old Testament history. Lay solid foundations for sermonic treatment by describing first the scene, expounding the history, and then evolving the truths in the history.
I. THE SCENE. In the Gospels, the spiritual significance is almost independent of topography. Only two or three scenes (e.g; Jacob’s well: the ridge whence Jesus saw from Olivet the city and wept over it), can be absolutely and certainly identified. But here sermon and story are inextricably blended with sea and shore. Note! twice change of direction:
(1) not by way of Philistia:
(2) not by caravan road, round by the mouth of the western arm of the Red Sea; but brought into a position of extreme danger, with the sea roaring between Israel and the freedom of the desert. The writer of this section of the commentary believes, that Israel encamped on what is now known as the plain of Suez, the sea reaching then much further north than now. Any detailed map will showthat there Israel would have the sea on the east, hills to north and south, an open valley to the west, along which the Egyptian forces would charge. Deepen the impression, that these two millions of people, some indeed armed, but not yet organised, with women, children, and the aged, were in a position utterly hopeless. It was a situation of despairbut that which is impossible with man is possible with God.
II. THE HISTORY. One of the objects should be to vivify and make very real to the hearers, the histories of the Old Testament, which sometimes seem so very far away from modern thought and life. With this intent, bring out clearly, by aid of exposition elsewhere, points like these:probably seven days elapsed between the Passover and the song on the eastern shore of the sea, occupied thus:
1. By Israel. On the 15th, to Succeth, fifteen miles; on the 16th, to Etham, fifteen miles; on the 17th, to the dangerous position by the sea; on the 18th, 19th, and 20th, encamped there, completing arrangements for the pilgrimage to Sinai and Palestine.
2. By Egypt. Every movement watched by the government; night of 15th, report from Succoth; of the 16th, from Etham; morning of the 17th, courier could carry in a few hours, over the thirty miles, intelligence that Israel had taken the wrong (?) road. Sudden determination of the king. Had three days to overtake. Called together six hundred picked chariots, other chariots, infantry, and led in person. On the afternoon of the 20th, the pickets of Israel saw far away the force coming over the sand ridges. Horror of the two millions. The splendid cities of tombs in Egypt rose to the memory. But here soon a sort of gigantic anticipation of Isandula. A cry against Moses, and unto Jehovah. The moral attitude of Moses mixedcheer for the peoplea fainting heart before God. His silent prayer. “The upward glancing of an eye.” The word of assurance. “Forward.” The movement of what must have been, in this instance, wall of cloud and fire, to give soft electric light to Israel and over the sea, to be darkness to Egypt, and to cover the greatest military movement in all history. The short time demanded perfect order. Then came the ploughshare of the east winch In the confusion and darkness, Egypt eagerly followed. The look out of the cloud, shot with thunderbolta lock which meant ruin. Sea rolls back from the rear of Egypt. Chariot clashes against chariot. Wheels lost. On the night of the 14th Israel became a nation. On the morning of the 21st the nation was free.
III. TRUTHS.
1. Neither first nor even second openings in life are always into the way God intends us to take. A common error to suppose that any opening is “providential.” Not via Philistia: nor the caravan road to Sinai. God’s object to develop moral thoughtfulness, and the scrutiny of apparent leading. E.g; Will this course imperil my principle, lead into temptation, and ruin my soul?
2. Seemingly hopeless entanglement may have great issues. Moral firmness developed: dependence upon God. Salvation complete, and anthem of victory.
3. The temper for crisis is that of calm confidence. No panic! Had there been panic, Israel had been food for Egyptian sabres! “Stand firm!” (see Hebrews) Apply this to state of religion; things social, political, at home and abroad; to affairs personal.
4. Confidence should express itself in prayer. Note the difference: the cry of Israel, and the evidently silent appeal of Moses.
5. Action must follow prayer. “Wherefore criest,” etc; an intimation that prayer was already answered; and now Moses to the front, and every man to his post.
6. When God leads into danger, He will certainly see us safely through it. If wantonly and wilfully we go into danger, we may (through mercy) be delivered; if on Divine leading, we shall. E.g; going into some scene of vice, out of curiosity, or worse motive; on the other hand, at the request of a distant friend, to save a soul. Difference between presumption and courage.
7. Salvations of God are ever timely and complete.
8. After God’s great salvation comes, the dumbness of amazement, and after the dumbness, song. “Jehovah shall fight for you, and ye shall be dumb.“ (Hebrews 14:31; 15:1; Rev 15:2-4.)R.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Exo 14:10. And they were sore afraid We shall have frequent occasions to remark this unbelieving and pusillanimous spirit in the Israelites; who, though they had seen to many miracles wrought in their favour, and though they came forth from Egypt with so high an hand, Exo 14:8 no sooner saw danger before them, than their hearts fainted, and they forgot that Jehovah had already done so great things for them. It is said, they cried out unto the Lord; but not with the cry of supplication and faith, as the context proves. Theirs was the language of timidity and despair: Is not this the word, say they, Exo 14:12 that we did tell thee in Egypt? &c. See ch. Exo 5:21 Exo 6:9.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
No doubt their situation, as to all human appearance, was utterly hopeless. Before them was the Red Sea; behind them the enemy; on either side mountains. And is not this the very case of the believer? Apparent destruction before: the accursed enemy, the accuser of the brethren, behind; and mountains of sin on every side? 2Co 4:8 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Old Enemies Pursuing
Exo 14:10
Some resemblances between the condition of the children of Israel in Egypt, in their flight from the tyranny of Pharaoh, and the condition of man in sin and his escape from the tyranny of the devil are obviously suggested. The state of Israel in Egypt was one of the severest depression. At every point the Israelites were overborne; their manhood was insulted; they had no rights, privileges or claims. Their time was not their own. If ever they looked up complainingly into the face of the taskmaster, their answer was another stroke of the lash. The light of their best nature was put out, and they were treated simply as beasts of burden. The political condition of Israel in Egypt in these particulars very fitly resembles the spiritual condition of man in a state of sin. However loud may be his boasting, he is a slave; however much he may think he has liberty which he can enjoy as he pleases, he can only go the length of a chain. Sin is slavery; sin is continual oppression. No man who has tasted of the bitterness of sin will contradict the statement, that a state of sin is a state of exhausted manhood. All that is noble, true, pure, and beautiful has been expelled from the nature; and there is nothing left behind but great gaps, blanks and voids, which the world cannot fill, and what hopes remain are only turned to the bitterness of disappointment and mortification. The enemy of Israel was powerful. Pharaoh had everything at his command; a nod was law; the lifting of a finger was equal to the extension of a sceptre; whenever Israel threatened to become rebellious he could bring forces to bear upon the rising that could soon crush it. He was powerful, they were weak; he was on the throne, they were under his feet and Pharaoh’s feet were heavy! The spiritual condition of mankind in a state of sin is precisely the same. The enemy of man is powerful. When he is described by earthly figures, those figures themselves are terrible. He is a roaring lion going about seeking whom he may devour; he is a prince; he is the prince of the power of the air; he has all but unlimited resources; his hand is heavy and cruel, his arm is long, and we have no power to break it; he is subtle; he comes to us in a thousand ways we do not dream of; he comes to us along the streaming of music; he looks at us through the beauty of pictures; he meets us on the highway, smiles himself into our confidence, entangles us in many peculiar combinations. And when we say, “Now we shall be free,” he says, ” Will you?” No man who has lived deeply, who understands life, who has seen below the outside of things, but knows that sin gets a daily increasing power over him. The habit which to-day we can snap because it is but half-formed, will, in the course of a few weeks, become so strong as to mock all our strength. The young man says that he knows when to turn back. He may be perfectly sincere in saying that he has that good knowledge, but is his power equal to his information? He says, “I will go down this way a certain distance; I will drink so much worldly pleasure; I shall sit so long at the devil’s table; I shall just peep in behind the curtain which conceals hell; and then I will come back again after I have formed some idea of the reality of things in that direction.” His purpose is very good; he fully intends to do what he says, but the footprints which he made on the road are rubbed out, and he has not gone down the road a mile before he loses all his bearings; he knows not which is east, west, north, south; going back and going forward are the same thing; he is locked up in the most terrible of jails the prison of darkness! I point out these things with this care, not to wound or shock anyone’s sensibilities or tastes, but to show who it is that has the sinner under his foot, and whose hand it is that strikes at everything good, and true, and beautiful in human nature. The enemy of man is powerful.
Israel escaped from the hand of Pharaoh. By a strong and mighty deliverance Israel was brought out from Egypt The Israelites had gone along the road of promise and liberty so far, but they turned round to look back, and behold, the Egyptians were after them! The Israelites had said, “Now we have escaped at last”; and behold the breath of the destroyer was breathed upon their necks! That is precisely the case with redeemed and liberated man in a spiritual sense. Upon this point I would speak with a good deal of remonstrance in one direction and hopefulness in another. With a good deal of remonstrance thus:
Here is a man who professes to have been redeemed from sin, and who has taken upon himself the Christian profession, and there is one who is watching him at a little distance who is expecting that the man will instantly step out of Egypt right into Canaan; and because the man is weak and worn, and less than half himself, some cruel word is used when he stumbles or falters a little! Is that right? Is that decent? Look at the man’s condition, as typified by the circumstances. Israel in Egypt bowed down, the hand of cruel tyranny upon his neck, the lash of cruel oppression cutting his back to the bone. He has only been liberated a day. Do you expect him to stand erect, as if he had been a man for half a century? This is precisely what so many persons do in interpreting moral character and spiritual profession. Let me suppose that, at the age of forty, you have been saved from your sin; you have lifted up your face towards the light; you have taken the solemn pledge in the name and strength of God to be good and to do good. But your forty years’ history is behind you, forty years of moral exhaustion, forty years of spiritual tyranny; and because you cannot step right out of Egypt into Paradise you will find some persons who will mock you, and will say, “Ha, ha! Is this your piety? I thought you had become a Christian now. Is this your Christianity?” The mocker is never wanting in the good man’s path. Those who have the cruel gift of taunting are never wanting to mock men who would live well, who would go in the right direction, and hold their worn faces and their streaming eyes towards the light of God.
I would speak hopefully. I would remind you that you cannot expect to escape from all your old associations in a moment. I would speak hopefully, because I know some of you have been distressed by the uprising of forces in your heart which you thought had been settled and quenched for ever. A man cannot throw off his old past as he can throw off an old garment; he cannot strip himself and throw the old slave into the fire, and say, “Now I will begin at this point, and never have any connection with the past.” Old slaveries, old tyrannies, old recollections, and habits, and companionships, will assert themselves in one way or another. It is more than a step from hell to heaven. You are now a professor of Christianity. Let me suppose you are sincere in your profession. You are ardent in your pursuit of Christian knowledge, you omit no opportunity of improving your spiritual faculties, you pray, you search the Scriptures, you attend helpful ministries; and yet you say, just when you think you are becoming safe and can take a little rest, and enjoy somewhat of the beauty and prospect of the scene, just then the old devil, that you had supposed to be dead, turns over in your heart! It is not unnatural, it is not some strange thing that has happened to you. It is a long way from evil to goodness, from darkness to light, from the depths of sin to the highest attainments of grace! There will be many a struggle, many a reappearance of your old self; your old self will become a thousand ghosts, and they will frighten you. It is so with us all. We think now, after this lesson or that prayer, or some well-accepted appointments of God, that at last we have attained, and are something like already perfect; and suddenly an unexpected event occurs, and, to our own surprise, we find that, notwithstanding our hope of rest, we are in some respects as weak and as bad as ever we we’re I am. I am no separated priest; but a man, a fellow-sufferer. I know this, and my heart cries over it bitterly; because it seems as though one never could be at rest, and never could say that we are complete and beyond the region of fear. In some directions we are so happy, so buoyant, so full of glad expectancy, and softened and chastened by the most hallowed influences, and yet in a moment we slip right down, back again into the old Egypt, where our condemnation was written in the dust, and the air was filled with the voice of our torment.
And there are persons who mock us! When a Christian man makes any slip at all, you know how bitter is the taunt that is levelled against him, as though he ought to have stepped clear out of Egypt right up to the throne of God, as though there had been no wilderness, and no Red Sea, and no long wandering, and no daily severe discipline. Let us be gentle with one another. We were in Egypt but yesterday, and the enemy will not let us go easily. The devil does not say, “You are going, are you? Yes; well, good-bye.” No, no. Just as a man is going into heaven lie makes a dash at the skirts of his garments; he fights battles in the chamber of death; he troubles the last hours of the saint, and it is not until heaven’s door shuts upon the redeemed man that the devil gives up the pursuit with a sob of disappointment, and falls back to be the severer with those who are yet upon the earth!
There was an omnipotent and gracious Redeemer in the case of Israel; so there is in the case of redeemed men. We are not saved by sheer power. Power in itself considered is a terror; it is something very awful and unapproachable. But power in the hands of mercy becomes redemption. The Redeemer of Israel was not only powerful but gracious. The Israelites upon this occasion were sore afraid, they lifted up their eyes and they cried unto the Lord. They were weak; they had no strength left in them; and as for weapons of war, what had they? or if they had them, how could they use them with any successful effect when they had been so long trampled upon and unmanned and disquieted? There they were; and Egypt, mighty in her pride and cruel in her wrath, was upon their track. Egypt never knew the mystery of mercy. What was to be done then? The word reads so sweetly, the word is this: “Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord.” Precisely the gospel that was adapted to their weak condition. If the command had been, “Rouse you; fight!” it would have been like asking dead men to light those who were in the very bloom and pride of their strength. But the command is, “Stand still.” The adaptation of God’s message to our condition is so perfect, so gracious, so sufficient. When we are weak and cannot fight he says, “Stand still, and I will fight for you.” When we have our energies in all their completeness, he says, “Rise! fight!” He meets us according to the condition that we are in. The Lord shall fight for you and ye shall hold your peace.
The Egyptians were to be seen that day for the last time. “The Egyptians whom ye have seen to-day, ye shall see them again no more for ever.” How so? “Because the Lord will fight for you.” When God shuts his hand he crushes Egypt. There will be no stir, or tumult, or great ado; the lifting up of his hand is destruction; the outlook of his eye annihilation; the breath of his nostrils is a wind that carries with it desolation and death, when he is so pleased. Here a little mistake was made by the great leader of Israel. I am so thankful when men like Moses stumble, because their stumbling gives inferior men hope and heart. Moses began to make it too much a question of prayer; he began to talk to the Lord as if it were a great case of grief and despondency, as if all difficulties had culminated in one terrific crisis. The Lord said unto him, “Moses, do not pray at all.” He told them to do just as they were doing when they saw the Egyptians coming after them, namely, to go on.
Consider the circumstances. Israel was going on. Israel turned round and saw the Egyptians; and Israel was full of weakness, and trembling, and despair; and Moses spake unto the Lord. And the Lord said unto Moses, “Go on as if this thing had not happened; do not take it into your calculations at all; leave the Egyptians in my hands; there is a time to pray, but not now; only lift up thy rod, and stretch thy hand over the sea, and divide it, and behold I will get me honour upon Pharaoh and upon all his host, upon his chariots, and upon his horsemen.” “All!” with holy, mighty scorn, he named them, and they seemed to perish whilst he enumerated them! Mighty in their degree, but when compared with Jehovah but so many insects fluttering in the air a breath being able to destroy them.
Then occurred this beautiful incident. The angel of the Lord, which went before the camp of Israel all the journey long up to this hour, removed and went behind them. The angel of the Lord could do as he pleased. God is not the victim of law. God is the Lawgiver. Life is above law. For ages he has been yonder, in the front; when it pleaseth him he can turn round and be at the rear of things. He has a right to every chamber in his own house; he built it; he has the key of every room, he can enter when he pleases. On this occasion it pleased him to reverse the order of things, and from the van he came to the rear. So beautiful are his adaptations! He said to Israel, in effect and substance, “Are the Egyptians behind thee, O Israel? Then I will come behind thee.” “But the Egyptians are so very near to us, Lord!” “I can come between you and them, how near soever they be; I made all spaces, and have them all under my control, and though the Egyptians were just upon thy neck I could come in between you, I will go behind.” And Israel sang a song unto the Lord: “Thou hast beset us behind and before, and laid thine hand upon us.” There are men who tell us that God must move in this direction and must move in that; they have been looking into affairs, they have been adding things up, and they have been drawing their conclusions, and the conclusion of the thing is this that we are prisoners in the great jail of law. I am not. I am a prisoner of God’s love; I am shut up in the great sanctuary of his heart. I believe he is greater than aught he has made; that the Lawgiver is greater than the law, and that he who established the universe has the key of its secret in his own heart. I teach this gracious truth because I have lived it; I have known its completeness, its excellence, and its redeeming power. God can be at one point to-day and at another tomorrow. He can be before them in this case, behind them in that; he determines all things by a sovereignty we cannot control. His sovereignty is his grace, at its highest point. The supremacy of love is the sovereignty of God. I will trust myself with the Most High, I will cast myself solely upon him, I will call him my Father and my King!
We are, then, in the wilderness; we have had long and bitter experience of sin, and that experience has made us very weak, we have been under a most powerful and oppressive enemy; he has never spared us, he has been severe with us; he has taken away from us all that made life strong and desirable and useful, and we have been redeemed by a gracious and omnipotent Redeemer; and still the great enemy has pursued us, as though he never, never would give us up whilst there seemed, even to himself, to his infernal hope, the slightest possible chance of recapturing us, and locking us up in his great prison-house. This is our condition; we are still in the wilderness; old associations still remind us of their existence, evil memories still trouble our recollection, ghosts and spectres of the past come to terrify us, even when we sit down at the board of Sacrament, and when we repeat the oath of Christian love at the Cross. But our Redeemer is sufficient; he says to us in the time of despair, “I will come behind thee.” When we are just giving up, and asking, “Who is sufficient for these things?” he says to us, in his own sweet voice, “My grace is sufficient for thee; thy shoes shall be iron and brass, and as thy days so shall thy strength be; no weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper. Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, hath it not been told thee from the beginning, that the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?” “He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall; but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint” They shall be troubled on every side, but not distressed; cast down, but not destroyed; persecuted, but still there shall be room enough left for the triumphing of the grace of God. Sirs, your redemption is not of your own skill, energy, or wit. “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help.” When there was no eye to pity and no arm to save, his own eye pitied, and his own arm brought salvation. And I am persuaded that he who hath begun this good work will continue it even unto the end.
Let us hope in this. Are you persecuting anybody? Are you pursuing any one who has escaped the clutches of your evil influence? Know this, that if their hearts be set on God, you cannot get at them. “Cannot get at them?” No. “But they are now within sight.” But God could blind you, if you were within an inch of them. “Not get at them? Why, I can almost touch them now.” Yes, you can almost do it, but your “almost” is to God as wide as infinitude. Are you pursued? Do you say you cannot get away from old influences, companions, associations, and conditions? Not all at once, but little by little. If you be in God and love his truth, the pursuit of the enemy will bring salvation nearer to you; if you cast your heart’s poor weakness and distrust entirely upon his keeping, then, nor mountain nor sea shall keep the pilgrim back from the Canaan of God!
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Exo 14:10 And when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians marched after them; and they were sore afraid: and the children of Israel cried out unto the LORD.
Ver. 10. And they were sore afraid. ] Because sorely distressed. They saw no way to escape, unless they could have gone up to heaven: which because they could not, heaven came down to them, though unworthy, that God might get him a name. Isa 63:12 ; Isa 63:14 The Israelites herein were far more happy than those ancient Britons, who, being greatly distressed by their northern enemies in the time of Valentinian III, implored the aid of Aetius, the Roman prefect of Gaul, using these words: “To Aetius, thrice consul, the sighs of the Britons”: and after thus they complain, “The barbarous enemy beats us to the sea; the sea beats us back to the enemy: between these two kinds of deaths, we are either murdered or drowned.” a But their implorations prevailed not. Neither found they any other remedy than what the Prince of Orange showed to his soldiers at the battle of Newport; when they had the sea on one side and the Spaniards on the other. If, saith he, you will live, you must either eat up these Spaniards, or drink up this sea. b
a Daniel’s Chronicle.
b Hist. of Netherl.
the Murmuring People Encouraged
Exo 14:10-20
We cannot wonder at their consternation. Before, the surf of the beach; behind, the serried ranks of Egypts chivalry; on either side, impassable cliffs. It seemed a veritable death-trap. But Moses reckoned confidently on the salvation of God. All they had to do, in the first instance, was to stand still and see it. It is hard to stand still when the situation becomes acute. If you dont know what to do, stand still until you do; it is Gods business to direct and defend the believing soul. Let God do the fighting, Exo 14:14. This Angel, Stephen tells us, was our Lord, Act 7:38. He always puts Himself between us and our strong enemies. Note Exo 14:19. The ordinary man puts circumstances between himself and God, but the consecrated soul inserts God between himself and circumstances. When God says Forward! He will open the path and lead His people, as a shepherd leads His flock, by a way they know not.
sore afraid: Psa 53:5, Isa 7:2, Isa 8:12, Isa 8:13, Isa 51:12, Isa 51:13, Mat 8:26, Mat 14:30, Mat 14:31, 1Jo 4:18
cried out: Jos 24:7, 2Ch 18:31, Neh 9:9, Psa 34:17, Psa 106:44, Psa 107:6, Psa 107:13, Psa 107:19, Psa 107:28, Isa 26:16, Jer 22:23, Mat 8:25
Reciprocal: Gen 32:7 – greatly Exo 15:25 – cried Num 20:16 – we cried 1Sa 7:7 – afraid 1Sa 13:6 – in a strait 1Ki 22:32 – Jehoshaphat 2Ch 13:14 – looked back 2Ch 14:11 – cried unto Psa 9:16 – known Psa 81:7 – calledst Heb 11:27 – not fearing
14:10 And when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians marched after them; and they were sore {f} afraid: and the children of Israel cried out unto the LORD.
(f) They who earlier had rejoiced in their deliverance, being now in danger, are afraid.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes