From Plagues to Miracles: The Transformational Journey of Exodus, From the Slavery of Ego to the Promised Land of Spirit by Robert Rosenthal

Author:Robert Rosenthal [Rosenthal, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Great Rays Books
Published: 2018-03-03T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Crossing the Red Sea: Birth into Freedom

In the deadly aftermath of the tenth plague, Pharaoh orders the Hebrews to leave Egypt. “[G]et out from among my people . . . and go” (Exod. 12:31). From this point forward, they are slaves no longer. At last, they are free.

God guides them out of Egypt by a roundabout route in order to avoid doing battle with the Philistines. He doesn’t want to frighten them at this early stage of their journey and give them an excuse to turn back to Egypt. He leads them, taking the form of “a pillar of cloud by day” and “a pillar of fire by night” (Exod. 13:21), until they come up against the banks of the Red Sea (literally translated as “the Sea of Reeds”). Here they make camp.

Pharaoh gets word of their meandering route and assumes they’re lost. He’s seized with a fit of anger. One last time, he changes his mind. He gathers his soldiers and charioteers, pursues the Hebrews, and catches up to them. But God keeps the Hebrew and Egyptian camps separated through the night. What next takes place is perhaps the most famous miracle of the entire Bible.

Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord swept the sea back by a strong east wind all night, and turned the sea into dry land, so the waters were divided. The sons of Israel went through the midst of the sea on the dry land, and the waters were like a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. Then the Egyptians took up the pursuit, and all Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots and his horsemen went in after them into the midst of the sea (Exod. 14:21–23).

Working through Moses, God divides the waters of the Red Sea to let the Hebrews pass. The Egyptian armies recklessly give chase, but God sows confusion among their ranks to slow them down. When all the Hebrews have made it across, He instructs Moses to again stretch his hand out over the sea “so that the waters may come back over the Egyptians” (Exod. 14:26).

So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its normal state at daybreak, while the Egyptians were fleeing right into it; then the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea. The waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen, even Pharaoh’s entire army that had gone into the sea after them; not even one of them remained (Exod. 14:27–28).

Thus ends the reign of Pharaoh and the oppression of the Hebrew people by the Egyptians.

What’s the meaning of this miracle for the spiritual journey? Why do the Hebrews cross safely, but not the Egyptians? And why does Pharaoh die here and not earlier, for instance, during the tenth plague?

The Test of Water At the start of Exodus, water played a major role in helping to preserve the life of baby Moses, saving him from Pharaoh’s command to drown all newborn Hebrew boys in the Nile.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.