The Passover

 Exodus 14

            There is no event more formative for Israel than the Exodus. The word exodus literally means the road out. Sometimes it refers to the whole complex of events from the plagues to the conquest of the promised land. More narrowly it refers to the deliverance at the Red Sea. The psalmists refer to it over and over; it becomes for them the paradigm, the clearest example, of the Lord’s favor for Israel. The prophets refer to it the same way. Even when Israel goes into exile in 586 BC and begin to return in 538 BC, that act of restoration is cast as a re-enacting of the exodus. For Israel, the exodus is the Boston Tea Party, the Revolutionary War, the Declaration of Independence all rolled into one. It’s their defining moment.

            Where exactly the people crossed the Red Sea is a matter of debate. As the NIV indicates in its footnotes, the phrase “Red Sea” is more accurately “Sea of Reeds.” It’s about 170 miles from Port Said on the Mediterranean coast to Suez at the north point of the Gulf of Suez on the Red Sea. That’s a lot of territory, and it seems unlikely that the Israelites walked all the way south to what we call the Red Sea before Pharaoh caught up with them. So, most likely the Israelites crossed a smaller body of water somewhere to the north, for which there are a number of candidates.

            If that’s the case, it shouldn’t take away from miraculous nature of the event. It’s every bit as miraculous if the Lord divides the waters on a lake as it is if He divides the waters of a sea. The point is the Lord miraculously saved Israel and He completed the demonstration of His glory by wiping out the army of Pharaoh.