The Bible as it was by Kugel James L

Author:Kugel, James L
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bible, Bible, Oude Testament
Publisher: Cambridge, Mass. : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
Published: 1997-03-12T16:00:00+00:00

THE RED SEA ♦ 345

founded (wayyahom): This word means a plague, as it says "And He will throw them into great confusion, until they are destroyed" [Deut. 7'2.3] • — Mekhilta deR. Shimon bar Yohai 14:24

Light and Dark Together

Other interpreters noted that, just before this mention of God looking out on the Egyptians, the text says that the pillar "went in-between the Egyptian camp and the Israelite camp, and there was the cloud and the darkness and it lit up the night" (Exod. 14:20 in the traditional Hebrew text). They therefore concluded that the "fire" part of the twofold cloud had been for the purpose of illuminating the Israelite side, and the "cloud" part for darkening the Egyptians':

A night of gloom and darkness overwhelmed them [the Egyptians].

— Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 2:344

And there was the cloud, and it darkened the Egyptians, but for Israel it was light the whole night. — Targum Onqelos Exod. 14:20

The cloud was [half] darkness and half light. The darkness darkened the Egyptians, and the light [was] for Israel.

— Targum Neophyti Exod. 14:20

The cloud was half light and half darkness: the light shined upon Israel and the darkness cast darkness on the Egyptians.

— Fragment Targum (P) Exod. 14:20

Ups and Downs of the Egyptians

The waters of the Red Sea swept over the pursuing Egyptians, killing them to a man. The grateful hymn the Israelites sang after being saved (the "Song of the Sea") retells these same events—but with some interesting changes. For example, the song says that Egyptians "plunged to the depths like a stone" (Exod. 15:5) and "sank like lead in the mighty waters" (Exod. 15:10). Then what did the narrative mean by saying that the Israelites, after they reached safety on the opposite side, "saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore" (Exod. 14:30)? Where were the Egyptians—on the beach or at the bottom of the sea? Interpreters reasoned that the Egyptians must have first sunk to the bottom and later risen to the surface—either to prove to the Israelites that the Egyptian army was indeed destroyed, or perhaps to provide the Israelites with the Egyptian armor and weapons for the future:

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