Exodus14chapter 14

Exodus 14:1-3

The route is dictated rather than chosen, and it puts the sea in front of the camp with Migdol behind it. God says in advance what Pharaoh will conclude from the map, that they are entangled in the land and the wilderness hath shut them in. Israel is placed in a trap on purpose, and the trap is set for Egypt.

Exodus 14:4

And I will harden Pharaoh: This is one of the last three hardening statements in the book, with 14:8 and 14:17 still to come, and since 9:12 the subject has been the LORD every time. Through the first five plagues the text put the act on Pharaoh or left it stative, at 7:13, 7:22, 8:15, 8:19, 8:32 and 9:7. Sproul holds compatibilism and reads the whole sequence as one act carrying two true descriptions, while the free-will reading takes the order seriously and holds that God confirmed a man in the direction he had already taken. Romans 9:17 quotes Exodus 9:16 and draws from it the words whom he will he hardeneth.

Exodus 14:5-7

Pharaoh's own words name what he counts as lost, that we have let Israel go from serving us, and the Hebrew root behind serving is the one Exodus 1:13 and 1:14 used five times over for the bondage. He had said go, serve the LORD at 12:31, and within days he reckons the cost in labour. Six hundred chosen chariots and all the chariots of Egypt go out after people who left with kneading troughs on their shoulders.

Exodus 14:8-9

hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt: One verse says both that the LORD hardened Pharaoh and that Israel went out with an high hand, so the pursuit and the boldness are reported together. Numbers 33:3 looks back on the same march and keeps the same phrase for it. What overtakes them is the whole force counted item by item, the horses, the chariots, the horsemen and the army, drawn up against a camp the text gives no weapons to.

Exodus 14:10

Two things happen in the one verse, they were sore afraid and they cried out unto the LORD. Their crying out is the same act recorded at Exodus 2:23, where the cry came up unto God from the bondage and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. Fear and prayer stand side by side here and the text prefers neither.

Exodus 14:11-12

Because there were no graves in Egypt: This is the first murmuring of the wilderness and it comes before the sea opens, with nothing yet suffered in the desert. Three more follow within four chapters, at Marah in 15:24, in the wilderness of Sin at 16:2, and at Rephidim in 17:2, and Exodus answers every one of them with water, bread, meat or a dry road. Their appeal to what they had said in Egypt has one recorded parallel, the officers of Israel to Moses at 5:21, and the request to be left alone to serve the Egyptians reverses the demand the whole book has been making.

Exodus 14:13

Moses answers the complaint with three orders, fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, and every one of them asks for stillness. The promise attached is specific enough to check, that the Egyptians they see that day they will see no more for ever, and verse 30 reports it kept on the shore. Standing still is the hardest instruction in the chapter because the army is already in sight.

Exodus 14:14

Egypt confirms this sentence inside the chapter, since at verse 25 the Egyptians themselves say the LORD fighteth for them against the Egyptians. One chapter later the song calls him a man of war at 15:3, which is the first place in Scripture that title is given him. Holding their peace is the whole of Israel's part in the deliverance, and the next chapter has them singing about it.

Exodus 14:15-16

The answer to the prayer is an order to move, and the only rebuke in the chapter falls on Moses rather than on the people who complained. The instrument is the shepherd's stick from Horeb, the rod that became a serpent at 4:3, swallowed the magicians' rods at 7:12, turned the river to blood at 7:20, and strikes the rock at 17:6. Israel is told to go forward while the water is still in front of them.

Exodus 14:17-18

I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians: This is the last of the nineteen hardening statements in Exodus and it widens from one man to a whole army. The purpose is given twice in two verses, that the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, which is the reason attached to the first sign back at 7:5. Egypt learns the name at the close of a contest it opened by asking at 5:2 who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice.

Exodus 14:19-20

The pillar that has led since 13:21 moves to the rear and becomes a barrier, and the verse names the angel of God and the cloud in the same breath. One cloud does opposite work on its two sides, darkness to the Egyptians and light to Israel, and the two camps come no nearer each other all night. Gill and other older writers read the angel of God here as the same figure who spoke from the bush at 3:2, and Exodus itself gives him no further name.

Exodus 14:21-22

The sea goes back before a strong east wind blowing all that night, so a means and a miracle stand in the same sentence. Israel walks on dry ground with the waters a wall on the right hand and on the left, and both details are repeated word for word at verse 29 once the army is gone. Paul calls the crossing a baptism at 1 Corinthians 10:1 and 10:2, saying the fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.

Exodus 14:23

Egypt follows into the corridor the wind opened, so the whole army is standing inside a road God made for somebody else. Water has run through the book in both directions, drowning the boys of 1:22, turned to blood at 7:20, and here carrying one nation across and holding another for the morning. The chapter reports the two uses of one element and treats them as one act.

Exodus 14:24-25

The LORD looks at the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud and the host is troubled, so the blow lands through a look rather than through a weapon. Their chariot wheels come off and they drive heavily, and the men whose king asked at 5:2 who the LORD was now say that he fighteth for them against the Egyptians. Egypt states the truth of verse 14 in its own mouth, and states it while fleeing.

Exodus 14:26-28

The gesture that opened the sea closes it, and the water returns to his strength when the morning appeared. There remained not so much as one of them, which is the same absolute the text used of Egypt's houses at 12:30, where there was not a house where there was not one dead. Nehemiah 9:11 and Psalm 136:15 sing the event back as Israel's history, and Hebrews 11:29 says the Egyptians assaying to do the same were drowned.

Exodus 14:29-31

The crossing is stated a second time in the words of verse 22 and then summed up, thus the LORD saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians. The people feared the LORD and believed him and his servant Moses, which they had done once before at 4:31 when the signs were shown, and had stopped doing at 6:9 for anguish of spirit and cruel bondage. The song begins in the next verse, and 15:1 is the first place in Scripture where anyone sings.