Lesson #7

The Exodus
(Exodus 12: 36 15: 21)
The cumulative force of the ten plagues has had a
devastating effect on Egypt, its people and its economy:
the land lies buried beneath a putrid mass of decaying fish
and frogs; the livestock have been felled by anthrax; the
crops have been destroyed by hail and fire; disease and
infections have ravaged the people; an onslaught of
locusts has stripped the nation bare of every leaf and
blade of grass; the Egyptians have been plunged into
terrifying darkness; and every home in Egypt mourns a
dead child, slain by God.
Egypt is destroyed, and Pharaoh gasps at the utter horror
of the catastrophe.









Whats more, the Egyptian gods have been thunderously
defeated; all are totally impotent before YHWH.

1
st
Plague, Water Turned to Blood (Osiris)
2
nd
Plague, Frogs (Heqet)
3
rd
Plague, Gnats (Geb)
4
th
Plague, Flies (Khepri)
5
th
Plague, Pestilence (Apis)
6
th
Plague, Boils (ALL gods deprived of priests)
7
th
Plague, Hail & Fire (Nut)
8
th
Plague, Locusts (coup de grce, death blow to Egypt)
9
th
Plague, Darkness (Ra)
10
th
Plague, Death of the Firstborn (ALL gods plundered)










In Lesson #7 the Israelites leave Egypt, avoiding the Via Maris, the
obvious escape route that parallels the Mediterranean Sea; instead,
they head southeast toward the Red Sea, a rouse intended to draw
the Egyptians after them.

And it works.

Arriving near the northern tip of the Gulf of Suez, the Israelites look
up and see the Egyptians in hot pursuit. With their backs to the sea
and the Egyptians bearing down upon them, the Israelites cry out to
Moses: Were there no burial places in Egypt that you brought us to
die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, bringing us out of
Egypt? (Exodus 14: 11).











And then an extraordinary thing happens:

Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord drove back
the sea with a strong east wind all night long and turned the sea
into dry ground. The waters were split, so that the Israelites entered
into the midst of the sea on dry land, with the water as a wall to
their right and to their left.
(Exodus 14: 21-22)

The Israelites rush through the parted Red Sea, scrambling onto dry
ground on the shore of the Sinai Peninsula. When the last Israelite
reaches dry land, God springs his trap: the Red Seas towering walls
of water collapse, drowning the entire Egyptian army.








As Pharaoh planned to drown all the infant Israelite boys in the Nile
River, lest they grow to become warriors and fight against him, so
God drowns in the depths of the Red Sea all the male Egyptian
warriors who fight against him : tit-for-tat.

The Israelites celebrate with a chest-bumping, high-fiving victory
song:

I will sing to the Lord for he is gloriously triumphant;
horse and chariot he has cast into the sea . . .!
(Exodus 15: 1)












The Ten Commandments, produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille.
Paramount Pictures, 1956.
(Voted among the top 10 epic films of all time by the American Film Institute.)
























Land of Goshen
Rameses
Succoth
Marah
Elim
Mt. Sinai
Rephidim
Bitter Lakes
Via Maris
Gulf of Suez
Gulf of Aqaba
Pidyon Haben ceremony, consecration of the firstborn.
(Numbers 3: 45-47 prescribes a five silver shekel redemption price, about $35.)












A Jewish man prepares for daily prayer by attaching tefillin (known in English as
phylacteries), two leather boxes containing Deuteronomy 6: 4-9, one box on the
forehead and one beneath the left upper arm next to the heart, attached by straps
to the hand. The prayer shawl is called a tallit.
























Land of Goshen
Rameses
Succoth
Marah
Elim
Mt. Sinai
Rephidim
Bitter Lakes
Via Maris
Nuweiba
Mt. Sinai?
Gulf of Suez Gulf of Aqaba






























The correct translation of
Yam Suph is Reed Sea, not
Red Sea;

The Gulf of Suez is 195
miles long, 20 miles wide
(maximum) and has an
average depth of 130 feet
(230 feet maximum);



Gulf of Suez from the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt on the horizon, 20 miles away.












Photography by Ana Maria Vargas
Dr. Creasy diving the Gulf of Suez. Sorry, no chariot wheels!












Photography by Ana Maria Vargas












The Gulf of Aqaba is 99 miles
long, 15 miles wide (maximum)
and has an average depth of 6,000
feet (it is part of the Jordan Rift
Valley).

Although some claim there is
a land bridge across the
Gulf of Aqaba at Nuweiba,
there is not. The sea floor is
indeed more shallow there,
around 2,800 feet, sloping to
3,500 feet to the north and
southbut that can hardly be
called a land bridge.












E. Biton and H. Gildor. The general circulation of the Gulf of Aqaba . . .,
Journal of Geophysical Research, vol. 116, C08020, doi:10.1029/2010JC006860.

Hypothetical
Crossing Point
(Dr. Cs note)
Dr. Creasy has also dived Nuweiba many times. Sorry, againno chariot
wheels or Egyptian skeletons, only sharks and other critters!












Photography by Ana Maria Vargas
As we noted in Lesson #1, questioning the literal historicity of events
in Exodus in no way undermines Scripture or diminishes its message;
rather, such questioning highlights the literary nature of the text,
viewing the Exodus as a story of redemption, writ on a grand, epic
scale.
Almost certainly the route of the Exodus passes through the marshes
around the Bitter Lakes, providing a realistic kernel for the
heightened miraculous character of the Israelites escape from Egypt.
As former Jesuit Jack Miles observes in his 1995 Pulitzer Prize-winning
God: a Biography, Cecil B. DeMilles The Ten Commandments, with its
mighty throng crossing the sea, may be truer to the intended literary
effect of the Book of Exodus than scholarships reconstruction of a
band of minor tribes slipping through the marsh (loc. 1929).






























Land of Goshen
Rameses
Succoth
Marah
Elim
Mt. Sinai
Rephidim
Bitter Lakes
Via Maris
Nuweiba
Gulf of Suez Gulf of Aqaba

It is conventional in epic narrative, after a great military victory, for
the victors to celebrate in song, praising the courage and performance
of their great warriors, and so we have The Song of Moses and
Miriam in Exodus 15: 1-18.

The song is structured in 3 strophes: vv. 1-6, 7-11 and 12-18. Each
strophe focuses on one aspect of the battle: the 1
st
strophe on
YHWHs defeat of the enemy; the 2
nd
strophe on YHWHs defeat of
the Egyptian gods; and the 3
rd
strophe telescopes into the future to
affirm Gods eternal sovereignty.

In addition, each strophe ends with a simile: like a stone, v. 5; like
lead, v. 10; and like stone, v. 16.











I will sing to YHWH, for he is gloriously triumphant; A (doublets form basis
horse and chariot he has cast into the sea. B of the parallelism)
My strength and my refuge is YHWH, A
and he has become my savior. B
This is my God, I praise him; A
the God of my father, I extol him. B
YHWH is a warrior, A
YHWH is his name! B
Pharaohs chariots and army he hurled into the sea; A
the elite of his officers were drowned in the Red Sea. B
The flood waters covered them, A
they sank into the depths like a stone. B
Your right hand, O YHWH, magnificent in power, A
your right hand, O YHWH, shattered the enemy. B










In your great majesty you overthrew your adversaries; A
you loosed your wrath to consume them like stubble. B
At the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up, A (triplet intensifies)
the flowing waters stood like a mound, B
the flood waters foamed in the midst of the sea. C
The enemy boasted, I will pursue and overtake them; A (triplet intensifies)
I will divide the spoils and have my fill of them; B
I will draw my sword; my hand will despoil them! C
When you blew with your breath, the sea covered them; A
like lead they sank in the mighty waters. B
Who is like you among the gods, O YHWH? A (triplet intensifies)
who is like you, magnificent among the holy ones? B
awe-inspiring in deeds of renown, worker of wonders. C











When you stretched out your right hand, A
the earth swallowed them up. B
In your love you led the people you redeemed; A
in your strength you guide them to your holy dwelling. B
The people heard and quaked; A
anguish gripped the dwellers in Philistia. B
Then were the chieftains of Edom dismayed, A
the nobles of Moab seized by trembling. B
All the inhabitants of Canaan melted away; A
terror and dread fell upon them. B
By the might of your arm they became silent like stone, A (triplet intensifies)
while your people, YHWH, passed over, B
while the people whom you created passed over. C




You brought them in, A
you planted them on the mountain that is your own B
the place you made the base of your throne, YHWH, C
the sanctuary, YHWH, your hands established. D (quadruplet greatly
intensifies!)
May YHWH reign forever and ever!
(The concluding statement affirms Gods eternal sovereignty.)




1. God clearly states in 12: 43 that No foreigner may eat
*the Passover meal+. What are the implications of this
statement for a Christian today?
2. Why does God require the consecration of the firstborn?
3. Why does Moses take the bones of Joseph with him
when he leaves Egypt? What does he do with them?
4. What is the pillar of cloud and fire?
5. The Exodus from Egypt is the great archetypical act of
redemption in the Hebrew Scriptures, the single most
significant event in Jewish history. How is the
redemption of the Israelites mirrored and amplified in
the New Testament?




Copyright 2014 by William C. Creasy
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