Exodus 14:15-18

PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA (THE COMMAND GIVEN)

"And Jehovah said unto Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto me? speak unto the people of Israel that they go forward. And lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thy hand over the sea, and divide it: and the children of Israel shall go into the midst of the sea on dry ground. And I, behold, I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, and they shall go in after them: and I will get me honor upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host, upon his chariots, and upon his horsemen. And the Egyptians shall know that I am Jehovah, when I have gotten me honor upon Pharaoh, upon his chariots, and upon his horsemen."

"Wherefore criest thou unto me ...?" Moses did not record his prayer to Jehovah in this situation, but we surely know that he did pray a most fervent and urgent prayer, as we can conclude from God's answer to it, which Moses did relate.

"Go forward ..." No better motto for any time or people than this one, and yet what a hopeless order it might have seemed to some when God gave it! God's commands require only an affirmative human response to be effective. The means and ability are always supplied by God Himself, and so it was here. It was the responsibility of the people to go forward, and it was God's part to divide the seas and provide the dry land.

We cannot tell how long Israel remained camped by the sea near Pi-hahiroth before the divine order to cross the sea was given. The Israelites would not have moved until the pillar of cloud and of fire moved, and it had taken them a day to come from Etham, that being the point at which the spies of Pharaoh doubtless sent their lord the message of Israel's apparent "wandering," an impression they surely received from the reversal of directions there. Then, as Rawlinson calculated it, it would have taken Pharaoh one day to get the message, another day to assemble his chariots, and another three or four days to overtake the Israelites. From this, he observed that, "The Jewish tradition that the Red Sea was crossed on the night of the 21st of Abib (Nisan) is, therefore, a true one.[16]