Exodus 14

Before the mighty parting of the Red Sea (which was actually the "Sea of Reeds"), God hardens Pharaoh's heart (verses 4 and 8), spurring him to get off his royal rear and pursue the fleeing Israelites. As I've written in innumerable posts before this, Egypt did quite dandy for a long time after the Israelites left, so Pharaoh's possible fears that Egypt would collapse without slave labor proved unfounded.

As for the Israelites themselves, they see the Egyptians bearing down on them, and what do they do? Well, they did what any self-respecting human being would do after witnessing God saving their firstborn sons: they started to evince an incorrigible querulousness that would soon lead to 40 years of meandering in the desert. In verse 12, they even say, "Didn't we say to you in Egypt, 'Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians?' It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!" Two major problems here. First, I don't know about you, but I don't remember the Israelites saying anything about staying around in Egypt. If serving the Egyptians sent them into such raptures, they were perfectly free to stay. Second, while I don't know whether I would rather die or be a slave (I lack experience in both departments), the Israelites' argument features a false dilemma (i.e., they only have two options: serving the Egyptians or dying in the desert). Such fallacious reasoning stems from their lack of faith in God. But as I just wrote, God just saved all their firstborn sons while killing all the Egyptians' firstborn sons. Then again, I see some of their behavior reflected in me; God has given me so much, and yet I still question if He really has a purpose for me.

I find verse 14 fascinating; Moses, replying to the carping, says, "The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still." While I don't think this means that we should sit around on our butts waiting for God to bless us, it does remind me that, while I do have responsibilities, I need not worry about whether God knows what He's doing. I need to be patient in following His will and still so I can discern Him speaking to me when I pray.

In The Ten Commandments and most other films based on the Exodus, Moses splits the Red Sea in about five seconds. But verse 21 states that "all that night the LORD drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land." The parting of the Sea of Reeds did happen overnight. The return of the water back over the Egyptians took longer than traditionally depicted, as it was "daybreak" by the time the sea was back to normal (verse 27). God screwed up the wheels of the Egyptians' chariots so they couldn't move well, but the Egyptians still must have taken their sweet time trying to waltz out of the way of the returning waters. I mean, a mass of more than 600,000 people made it through, so how could 600 Egyptians dawdle at an even more leisurely pace? OK, while the Sea of Reeds was no Red Sea, I will concede that it was probably wide enough that, by the time the Egyptians saw that the waters were coming back, they probably couldn't run back to the shore in time.

All this thinking about rushing water has activated my bladder, so I'll end this post on that ignominiously juvenile note as I run off to the loo.