In Exodus 14:15, God directed some censure at Moses: “The LORD said to Moses, ‘Why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward.” Curiously, the verses preceding Exodus 14:15 record no “cry” on the part of Moses, but Exodus 14:10- 12 does contain the “cry” of the people whom Moses was leading. The cry of the people was directed toward Yahweh (Exod 14:10) and was a response to the frightening, nearing proximity of the Egyptian army. If one wonders why the censure of Exodus 14:15 was
3The comment of Bruckner, Exodus, 134, is on target: “Salvation and destruction came together. The sea of protection from evil was also the sea of destruction for evil forces.”
4On Yahweh using the Red Sea to drown the Egyptians in retribution for Egypt’s attempt to drown Israelite boys, see Currid, A Study Commentary on Exodus, 1:304; Peter Enns, Exodus, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 272, 274; and Cornelis Houtman, Exodus, Historical Commentary on the Old Testament, vol. 2 (Leuven, Belgium: Peeters-Leuven, 1993), 274.
5So James M. Hamilton, Jr., God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment: A Biblical Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 96.
directed at Moses, and not at the people who had cried out, the conclusion of Peter Enns seems valid: “There is a close identification between Moses and the people he is leading,”
and “what we see in 14:15 . . . is one reflex of this close identification between Moses and the Israelites: Their guilt becomes his.”6 The one who represented the crying people is told by Yahweh to stop crying; a directive aimed ultimately at the crying people.7 The time for complaint had passed—now was the time to act. Even though fearfully
disheartened, the people had to move forward. Sometimes God will command forward movement even in the midst of what seems like impossible odds.
In the Hebrew text, the initial word of Exodus 14:16 is an emphatic “you!”
“You, Moses, lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the people of Israel may go through the sea on dry ground.”8 The next verse of the Hebrew text begins with an emphatic “I,” as Yahweh says, “I, behold I, will harden the hearts of the Egyptians” (Exod 14:17).9 Thus, the job description of Moses is enunciated
6Enns, Exodus, 274. See also Currid, A Study Commentary on Exodus, 1:298; John N. Oswalt, Exodus, in vol. 1 of Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, ed. Philip W. Comfort (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 2008), 390; and Stuart, Exodus, 338. A different argument has been presented by John I. Durham, Exodus, Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 3 (Waco, TX: Word, 1987), 192, who thinks that v. 15 represents a response to some actual complaint that Moses himself made, that is now lost to contemporary readers.
7Oswalt, Exodus, 390, concurs with the conclusion of Enns, writing, “[Moses] did not exist in some bubble apart from [the people]. If they were crying out, then in a real sense Moses was crying out too.”
8The debate concerning the precise location of the “Red Sea” of the exodus continues, and here is not the place to engage the discussion. Suffice it to say that some contemporary evangelical scholars, such as Victor P. Hamilton, Handbook on the Pentateuch, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), 171-72; and John N. Oswalt, Exodus: The Way Out (Anderson, IN: Warner, 2013), 107; conclude that the Israelites likely crossed on dry ground in a freshwater lake in northern Egypt. However, in a persuasive article, R. Larry Overstreet, “Exegetical and Contextual Facets of Israel’s Red Sea Crossing,” The Master’s Seminary Journal 14, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 63-86, argues against the lakes of northern Egypt as the location of the crossing, contending that the Gulf of Suez better matches the historical and geographical indicators presented in Scripture.
9The contrast between the emphaticה ָתּ ַא ְו of v. 16 and the emphaticי ִנ ְנ ִה י ִנ ֲא ַוof v. 17 has been noted by Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Exodus, in vol. 1 of The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. Tremper Longman III and David E. Garland, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), 443; and William H. C.
Propp, Exodus 1-18, The Anchor Bible, vol. 2 (New York: Doubleday, 1999), 497.
emphatically in verse 16, followed in verse 17 by an equally emphatic statement of what Yahweh will do. At the Red Sea, both Moses and Yahweh would play a distinct and important role.
Moses is commanded to raise his staff and stretch his hand over the water, a command that clearly echoes an earlier directive given to Aaron in connection with the first plague (Exod 7:19).10 Aaron had been instructed to “take his staff and stretch out his hand over the waters” of Egypt, the result of which had been a curse upon Egypt. At the Red Sea, the action of the staff and hand of Moses over the waters issues further trouble for Egypt, but concurrently, the same action flowers into blessing for Israel.11
The staff and hand of Moses are to “divide” the sea. The word translated
“divide” (Hebrew: bāqaʿ) is a deliberate echo of the flood narrative in Genesis. In Genesis 7:11, God caused the fountains of the great deep to “burst forth” (bāqaʿ) in his judgment on all living things. The re-employment of the verb at Exodus 14:16 appears as a
conscious allusion to Genesis 7:11, and therefore to the motif of judgment: Moses is to bāqaʿ the sea, the eventuality of which will be judgment on Egypt.
A further allusion to the text of Genesis is found at the close of Exodus 14:16.
Yahweh commands Moses to divide the sea so that the people might travel through it on
“dry ground.” The word translated “dry ground” is the Hebrew yabbāšâ, a word found in the Hebrew Bible only three times prior to Exodus 14:16.12 Two of those three instances occur in the creation narrative when God separated the waters from “dry land” (Gen 1:9- 10). Since this relatively rare word gets re-employed in Exodus 14:16, it is not impossible to conceive that the writer of the Red Sea narrative would like his story to be read as a
10Noted by Currid, A Study Commentary on Exodus, 1:298; John L. Mackay, Exodus, A Mentor Commentary (Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2001), 253; and Stuart, Exodus, 338.
11Currid, A Study Commentary on Exodus, 1:298.
12The three instances are Gen 1:9, 10, and Exod 4:9.
reworking of the creation story.13 God will work with his servant Moses to divide the waters from the yabbāšâ, and in so doing will engage in some sort of fresh, creative enterprise.
If Exodus 14:15-16 is concentrated on the job description of Moses, Exodus 14:17 centers on God: his action and its result. In the Hebrew text, Exodus 14:17 begins with a phrase found previously in only two other places (Gen 6:17 and 9:9).14 The phrase waʾӑnî hiněnî (“and I, behold I”) is used in Genesis 6:17 as God declares, “For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life,” and the same phrase is used in Genesis 9:9 as God declares to Noah and his sons,
“Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you.” Thus, both uses in Genesis are connected with the flood narrative. When one reads waʾӑnî hiněnî in Exodus 14:17, it seems clear that a connection is being made back to the flood story: at the Red Sea, God will once again employ the waters in cataclysmic fashion (for Egypt), but for blessing toward the new Noah and his sons—Moses and the Hebrew people.
Yahweh’s “I, behold I” invites readers in all eras to focus squarely on him.
Facing the seeming impossibility of escape from the mighty Egyptian army—now approaching with venomous intent—Yahweh called upon his beleaguered people to look solely and exclusively upon him. When confronted with frightening circumstances, the optimum direction in which to look is only toward God.
In Exodus 14:17-18, Yahweh declares,
And I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they shall go in after them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, his chariots, and his horsemen. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I have gotten glory over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen.
13See Terence Fretheim, Exodus, Interpretation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2012), 159.
14Noted by Bruckner, Exodus, 135-36.
If, after Exodus 14:16, one expected Yahweh to say, “And I will liberate you all from Egypt,” one is disappointed. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, Yahweh’s focus in Exodus 14:17-18 is not so much Israel’s deliverance as the securing of his own fame and glory.15 In orchestrating events at the Red Sea, the primary purpose of God was to fashion honor for himself. Pharaoh forced “hard” (Hebrew: kābēd) work on God’s people (Exod 5:9), and Pharaoh “hardened” (kābēd) his own heart (Exod 7:14; 8:11 [15], 28 [32]; 9:34) toward God. In reply, God sent “heavy” (kābēd) plagues (Exod 8:20 [24]; 9:3, 18, 24;
10:14), and now Yahweh would gain “glory” (kābēd) over Pharaoh and his entourage at the Red Sea (Exod 14:17-18).16 Pharaoh’s cutting-edge chariots would be a beggarly match for the God who wielded sun, sea, wind, and fire; the God who was determined to win himself glory.17
The plans having been laid out, God then engaged in final positioning, prior to his spectacle at the sea. It is this tactical maneuvering that occupies Exodus 14:19-20.
Exodus 14:19-20: Final Preparations