EXPLORE THE TEXT
God will lead His people and make a way when circumstances seem bleak.
19 Then the angel of God, who was going in front of the Israelite forces,
moved and went behind them.
The pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and stood behind them.
20 It came between the Egyptian and Israelite forces.
There was cloud and darkness, it lit up the night,
and neither group came near the other all night long.
21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea.
The Lord drove the sea back with a powerful east wind all that night
and turned the sea into dry land. So the waters were divided, (br /> 22 and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground,
with the waters like a wall to them on their right and their left.
After the night of wailing, Pharaoh ordered the Israelites to leave the land immediately (Ex. 12:29-32).
in the wee hours, the Lord led Israel
to take all they had (including their “plunder”) to Succoth (12:33-42).
There, the Lord gave further instructions
regarding the Passover celebration and the consecration of all Israel’s firstborn (12:43–13:16).
This was all to help Israel remember
when “the Lord brought us out of Egypt by the strength of his hand” (13:16).
Then the Lord led Israel 2 the Red Sea, guiding them by his pillar of cloud and pillar of fire,
By the sea, God warned Moses that he would cause Pharaoh to harden his heart and pursue Israel, (14:3-4).
Pharaoh led more than 600 chariots after Israel. He believed he had trapped them (14:5-9),
but he was the one God had lured into a trap.
When Israel saw the Egyptians coming, they cried out in terror to the Lord
and complained to Moses.
like spoiled children they now reconstructed the facts and made their situation Moses’s fault.
In their minds, it would have been better to stay in Egyptian slavery than to face the dangers of the wilderness (14:11-12).
Rather than arguing the point, Moses turned to God for help
and challenged the people not to fear.
God inserted Himself between His people and their enemies.
Then, the God who specializes in giving orders that make no sense to us, told Israel to prepare to move out.
With the Egyptians behind them and Red Sea in front of them, the question became, Where?
Direct attention to Pack Item 1 (Map: The Route of the Exodus)
to show where the events of Exodus 14 took place.
verses 19-20 (PSG, p. 48).
19) The angel of God:
Moses first encountered “the angel of the Lord” at Horeb in the burning bush (Ex. 3:2).
Later, the angel of the Lord was associated with “the destroyer” who killed Egypt’s firstborn sons (12:23; Heb. 11:28).
Likewise, the angel of God can be equated to a manifestation of God’s presence and power.
Moses’s identifying the angel with the pillar of cloud also affirms that the “angel” was God.
19) Went behind them:
To this point, God had been leading His people from the front.
the Lord went behind the Israelites to create a barrier between them and the Egyptians.
While God was there to guide Israel, He also showed His power to protect them.
19) The pillar of cloud:
both God’s “angel” and the pillar of cloud were said to move behind the Israelites.
The pillar manifested the divine presence.
In the day it appeared as a huge cloud, but all night it became a vast storm cloud producing terrifying lightning and thunder.
Later, He covered the tent of meeting with a cloud of His glory
filling the tabernacle (40:34-35).
This cloud that hovered over the tabernacle to protect and guide Israel on their journey to Canaan had “a fire inside [it] by night” (40:38).
20) Neither group came near the other:
The Hebrew wording is somewhat vague as to how the cloud separated the two groups.
It could have lit up the night for both sides,
given light to one and darkness to the other,
or created a dark wall that kept them apart.
The key is that the Egyptians were stopped in their tracks.
They could not get to the Israelites because of God’s work on behalf of His people.
how God moved from leading the Hebrews to protecting them.
God worked for His people, both by making a way through the sea and by standing behind them.
the walls of water were massive, contradicting skeptics who say Israel crossed at a shallow spot.