L. Thomas Holdcroft
The
Crossing of the Red Sea
"The
site of Pi-hahiroth, where God next led the people
constituted a strategic trap for the fleeing Israelites. On
either side were mountains and desert. Before them was the
Red Sea. As God intended, within a day or two this
predicament invited pursuit by Pharaoh and his company of
chariots. In such an hour of extremity, Moses exhorted the
fearful people, "Fear ye not, stand still, and see the
salvation of the Lord." Thus God intervened to provide for
the crossing of the Red Sea. Some scholars feel that since
the original implies this was a "Reed Sea" the body of water
actually was not the gulf of Suez but a northern inland lake
that is now extinct. It is evident that it is no
insignificant body of water, for the entire army of Egypt
was destroyed by the returning waves. Scripture points out
that before long the bodies of dead Egyptians littered the
shore and Josephus reports that the Israelites armed
themselves with weapons that were salvaged on this
occasion.
In order to accomplish the events described in Scripture the
body of water crossed would necessarily be several miles in
width. The dividing of the waters seems to have been
accomplished by causing them to congeal (as if they were
frozen) and thus stand as a wall on either side of the
marching Israelites. Elsewhere Scripture comments "He
divided the sea, and caused them to pass through; and he
made the waters to stand as a heap" (Psa. 78:13). Scripture
describes the role of the wind in connection with this
division but it is to be noted that although a strong wind
will somewhat influence the ebb or tide of a body of water
no natural wind has been known actually to divide waters.
Evidently the wind was only one aspect of God's working and
not the whole means of His divine operation. The crossing of
the Red Sea is a type of water baptism for the Christian.
St. Paul wrote ". . . all our fathers were under the cloud,
and all passed through the sea; and all baptized unto Moses
in the cloud and in the sea" (1 Cor. 10:1, 2). In crossing
the Red Sea, the Israelites who already were redeemed by
blood now left Egypt forever and officially and
determinately took on a new life and a new leader. Their
slavery in bondage in Egypt was typical of the sinner's
ensnarement in the bondage of sin. In effect, a nation of
slaves now were a nation of freed men and in standing on the
further shore of the Red Sea they were standing upon the
shores of a new continent"
L. Thomas
Holdcroft, "The Pentateuch" (California: Western Book
Co. 1966) pp. 63-64
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