Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Exodus 14:28
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.
Not so much as one of them – Escape would be impossible Exo 14:26. Pharaohs destruction, independent of the distinct statement of the Psalmist, Psa 136:15, was in fact inevitable. The station of the king was in the vanguard: on every monument the Pharaoh is represented as the leader of the army. The death of the Pharaoh, and the entire loss of the chariotry and cavalry accounts for the undisturbed retreat of the Israelites through a district then subject to Egypt and easily accessible to their forces. If, as appears probable, Tothmosis II was the Pharaoh, the first recorded expedition into the Peninsula took place 17 years after his death; and 22 years elapsed before any measures were taken to recover the lost ascendancy of Egypt in Syria. So complete, so marvelous was the deliverance: thus the Israelites were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea 1Co 10:2. When they left Baal-Zephon they were separated finally from the idolatry of Egypt: when they passed the Red Sea their independence of its power was sealed; their life as a nation then began, a life inseparable henceforth from belief in Yahweh and His servant Moses, only to be merged in the higher life revealed by His Son.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 28. There remained not so much as one of them.] Josephus says that the army of Pharaoh consisted of fifty thousand horse, and two hundred thousand foot, of whom not one remained to carry tidings of this most extraordinary catastrophe.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
After them, i.e. after the children of Israel. Note here, the relative is put without an antecedent before it; the antecedent being to be understood and gathered out of the following verse, or out of the course of the story. An observation which is very useful for the understanding of many scriptures. See Poole “Gen 3:1“.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
28. there remained not so much asone of themIt is surprising that, with such a declaration,some intelligent writers can maintain there is no evidence of thedestruction of Pharaoh himself (Ps106:11).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And the waters returned,…. To their place, and so in the above tradition related by Diodorus Siculus, it is said that the sea returning with a mighty force was restored to its place again;
[See comments on Ex 14:22].
and covered the chariots and the horsemen; the wall they made being much higher than a man on horseback, when they fell down, covered even those who had the advantage of horses and chariots; and much more must the infantry be covered by them, who may be meant in the next clause:
and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; the foot, that went into the sea after the chariots and horsemen, or the whole army, including the cavalry and infantry, which went into the sea after the children of Israel. Who this Pharaoh was is not agreed; according to Berosus x his name was Cenchres, or Chenchres, whom Acherres succeeded; according to Bishop Usher y it was Amenophis; but our English poet z calls him Busiris; though Strabo a says there was no king or governor of that name. Diodorus Siculus b indeed speaks of two so called; yet he elsewhere c says, not that there was any king of the name, only the sepulchre of Osiris was so called:
there remained not so much as one of them; wherefore it must be a falsehood which is related by some, that Pharaoh himself was preserved, and afterwards reigned in Nineveh d, since not one was saved; see
Ps 106:11 and so Artapanus e the Heathen says, they all perished, and among these are said f to be Jannes and Jambres, the magicians of Egypt mentioned in 2Ti 3:8 but this is contradicted by those g who ascribe the making of the golden calf to them.
x Antiqu. l. 5. fol. 88. 2. & 90. 2. y Annal. Vet. Test. p. 19. z “——-whose waves o’erthrew Busiris, and his Memphian chivalry.” Milton’s Paradise Lost, B. 1. v. 306, 307. a Geograph. l. 17. p. 552. b Bibliothec. l. 1. p. 42. c Bibliothec. l. 1. p. 79. d Dibre Hayamim, fol. 13. 2. e Ut supra. (Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 27. p. 436.) f Midrash in Exod. xv. 10. & Arab. MS. apud Gregory’s Notes & Observ. p. 6. g Shalshalet, fol. 7. 1.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
28. And the waters returned. In these two verses also Moses continues the same relation. It plainly appears from Josephus and Eusebius what silly tales Manetho (158) and others have invented about the Exodus of the people; for although Satan has attempted by their falsehoods to overshadow the truth of sacred history, so foolish and trifling are their accounts that they need not refutation. The time itself, which they indicate, sufficiently convicts them of ignorance. But God has admirably provided for our sakes, in choosing Moses His servant, who was the minister of their deliverance, to be also the witness and historian of it; and this, too, amongst those who had seen all with their own eyes, and who, in their peculiar frowardness, would never have suffered one, who was so severe a reprover of them, to make any false statements of fact. Since, then, his authority is sure and unquestionable, let us only observe what his method was, viz., briefly to relate in this place how there was not one left of Pharaoh’s mighty army; that the Israelites all to a man passed over in safety and dry-shod; that, by the rod of Moses, the nature of the waters was changed, so that they stood like solid walls; that by the same rod they were afterwards made liquid, so as suddenly to overwhelm the Egyptians. This enumeration plainly shows an extraordinary work of God to have been here, for as to the trifling of certain profane writers (159) about the ebb and flow of the Arabian Gulf, it falls to nothing of itself. From these things, therefore, he at last justly infers, that the Israelites had seen the powerful hand of God then and there exerted.
(158) Les ennemis de Dieu. — Fr.
(159) “Artapanus, an ancient heathen historian, informs us that this was what the more ignorant Menophites, who lived at a great distance, pretended, though he confesses that the more learned Heliopolitans, who lived much nearer, owned the destruction of the Egyptians and the deliverance of the Israelites to have been miraculous.” — Whiston’s Josephus, Notes on Jew. Ant., 2:16. “At an early period, historians (particularly in Egypt) hostile to the Jews, asserted that Moses, well acquainted with the tides of the Red Sea, took advantage of the ebb, and passed over his army, while the incautious Egyptians, attempting to follow, were surprised by the flood and perished. Yet, after every concession, it seems quite evident that, without one particular wind, the ebb-tide, even in the narrowest part of the channel, could not be kept back long enough to allow a number of people to cross in safety. We have thus the alternative of supposing that a man of the consummate prudence and sagacity, and the local knowledge attributed to Moses, altered, suspended, or at least did not hasten his march, and thus deliberately involved the people whom he had rescued at so much pains and risk, in the danger of being overtaken by the enemy, led back as slaves, or massacred, on the chance that an unusually strong wind would blow at a particular hour, for a given time, so as to keep back the flood, then die away, and allow the tide to return at the precise instant when the Egyptians were in the middle of the passage.” — Milman’s Hist. of the Jews, b. 2. Dr. Kitto says that, in those regions, the blowing of an easterly wind would be in itself a miracle.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(28) The chariots, and the horsemen, and all the host . . . This translation is misleading. The Heb. runs thus: The chariots and the horsemen (who were) all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea. It is implied that his footmen did not enter the sea.
There remained not so much as one of them.The armour of an Egyptian warrior would make it impossible for him to escape by swimming from such a catastrophe. All who were caught by the tide would certainly be drowned. The question whether the Pharaon was drowned or no cannot be ruled by the expression here used, nor by any parallel one in the Psalms (Psa. 78:53; Psa. 106:11); it depends on more general considerations. In the first place, is it likely that if the Pharaoh had been killed there would have been no explicit mention of it? Would the point have remained one open to question? Secondly, if the Pharaoh had been killed, would the Egyptian annals have retained no trace of it? Must we not have had some account of a great king cut off in the flower of his age, after a reign of two, or at the most three, years? (Comp. Exo. 2:23; Exo. 4:19, &c.) But Menephthah, to whom all the indications point, reigned at least eight years. The latter part of his reign was inglorious, and he left the empire a prey to pretenders; but he was not suddenly cut off after reigning a year or two. Thirdly, was an Egyptian king sure to lead an attack, and place himself in the position of most peril? This has been asserted, and it is so far true, that most Egyptian kings, according to the records which they have left of themselves, so acted. But it happens that Menephthah records it of himself that on one great occasion, at any rate, he kept himself out of danger. His country was invaded by a vast army of Libyans and others from the northwest in the fifth year of his reign; the assailants menaced his chief cities, and the peril was great. Menephthah collected all his forces to meet the danger, but declined to lead them out in person, pretending that one of the Egyptian gods, Phthah, had forbidden him to quit Memphis (Brugsch, History of Egypt, vol. ii., p. 119). It is thus quite probable that he would remain with the reserve of footmen when the chariots and horsemen entered the bed of the sea.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Heb 3:8-10
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Exo 14:28 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.
Ver. 28. There remained not so much as one of them. ] No more doth there of our subdued iniquities. Mic 7:10 Peccata non redeunt. We shall see them no more, any otherwise than these Israelites did their enemies, dead upon the shore.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
not so much as one of them. This implies that Pharaoh himself did not escape. Compare Exo 15:9, Exo 15:10. Psa 106:11; Psa 136:15. His body may have been washed
up on the shore, p. Exo 14:30, and “also”, in Exo 15:4.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
the waters: Exo 15:10, Deu 11:4, Neh 9:11, Psa 78:53, Hab 3:8-10, Hab 3:13, Heb 11:29
remained: Exo 14:13, 2Ch 20:24, Psa 106:9-11, Psa 136:15
Reciprocal: Gen 7:18 – waters prevailed Gen 7:23 – and Noah Gen 50:9 – chariots Exo 9:15 – cut off Exo 15:5 – depths Exo 15:19 – brought Jos 24:7 – brought 1Ch 14:11 – like the breaking Job 36:30 – and Psa 33:16 – no king Psa 74:13 – brakest Psa 76:6 – both Psa 77:19 – footsteps Psa 106:11 – General Ecc 8:9 – there is Hag 2:22 – and I will overthrow the chariots Zec 10:11 – smite Mar 4:39 – he arose