Exodus 14:10-31
I don’t know if I can help you understand how absolutely terrifying the last several weeks had been. Even as a child, I understood the cause. Moses called on Pharaoh to let our people go to worship in the wilderness. Pharaoh knew we would never come back, so he refused.
Plagues, disasters, whatever you called them, because I lived in the palace with my grandmother, everything that happened to the Egyptians was a part of my own experience. I went without water when the river turned to blood. The frogs, the gnats, the flies hung on me tighter than my clothes. I couldn’t go anywhere to get away from them. I smelled the stench of dead animals all around—cattle, sheep, horses, donkeys, goats.
After those first few plagues, what happened to the Egyptians did not happen to the Israelites in Goshen. When God told Moses that he would spare the land of Goshen, we went to live with her brother. The boils were painful, itching and bleeding. Everyone in the palace—from the Pharaoh on down: the nobles, the advisors, the servants … it was awful. Big festering sores all over—arms, legs, stomachs, backs, faces. It hurt just to look at them.
The hailstones were huge, as big as my head, and thunder and lightning—even Grandmother said she had never seen such a storm. Even from my uncle’s house, I could hear the thunder. I could still see the flashes of lightning that started fires in the fields.
And the locusts …
Somewhere back in the beginning of this whole process, I think my mind went numb. I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t think. I wandered around the palace – actually, a lot of us were simply wandering around in a daze. So many disasters. So much destruction. Even after staying with my uncle, even when the disasters didn’t hit us, I couldn’t think. I didn’t play with my cousins. I just sat and looked into the distance, staring at the palace.
When the Pharaoh told Moses and Aaron to go away and stay away, I think we all felt a sense of relief. If they didn’t come back, they wouldn’t bring more disasters. Only they did. One more, and it was a killer. Literally.
And by now, everyone, including the Egyptian people, was tired of what was happening. They blamed Pharaoh for being so stubborn. If he would just let the Israelites go worship their God, everything would be fine. So when our people went to the Egyptians they knew, everyone gave them gifts of silver or gold, valuable treasures. Just go! Whatever you want, take it! God had told Moses to tell the people to go asking, because God was going to bring one more great disaster upon Egypt. Pharaoh would drive the people out.
That evening, by Moses’ instructions, our people gathered together by family. Each family took a year-old lamb and at dusk, they killed it. Some of the blood was smeared on the door frame. The lamb itself was roasted over the fire.
We ate it with unleavened bread, because there wasn’t time for the dough to rise. We didn’t prepare ourselves for bed, but remained alert, dressed, ready to travel. This was the beginning of what Israelites would forever after call Passover, because the angel of death passed over our homes.
Our homes, but not the homes of the Egyptians. The death angel went past the homes with blood smeared on the door frame. About midnight, a horrible cry rose out of the other households, from Pharaoh’s quarters down to the lowliest shepherd. The oldest son in each family died. And as I thought about the children I knew in the palace, my mind tallied which ones would have died. Children I knew, had played with, had served with, and they had all died so that we might leave Egypt forever. Even Pharaoh’s oldest son, a teenager, almost a man.
I crawled onto Grandma’s lap, buried my face in her bosom, and cried. She, too, must have been thinking about children she had cared for, children she had helped raise, because I felt teardrops landing on my head.
Not long after, we heard soldiers passing through the town. Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron one last time and told them to get out. “Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship the Lord as you have requested. Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go.”
Knowing Pharaoh as I did, I imagine he waved his arms, maybe even stamped his feet. He would have been red faced when he added, not very softly, I’m sure, “And also bless me.”
I have thought about that many times since. Should we pray for our enemies, too? For those who oppress us? For those whose hearts are hardened?
And so we left, even though it was still dark. At least, there was almost a full moon. Out through the city gates, driving our livestock, carrying our possessions. I can’t imagine what we would have looked like from the palace roof, pouring out of the city, a ragtag mob with cattle and sheep and donkeys intermixed with children and old people, wagons and hand carts, young people, mature men and women, all eagerly leaving the only home we had ever known.
By now my heart was beating so fast, it almost jumped out of my throat. We were free! No more bowing and scraping, no more doing the work for someone else, letting them have the benefits, wearing their castoffs.
“Where are we going, Grandmother?”
“To the land of our ancestors; the land of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Rachel; to the Promised Land.”
“What will it be like when we get there?”
“We will live in our own houses, farm our own land, tend our own livestock, eat our own crops, sleep under blankets woven from wool from our own sheep. We will worship our own God, not the Egyptian gods. We will make our own decisions, follow our own leaders. We will be free.”
And so we headed out to an unknown future, full of hope, eager to taste independence, ready for the best, whatever that might be. We knew that God was with us, because a pillar of cloud went in front of us as we traveled. At night, if we were still moving, a pillar of fire led us. Otherwise, we could see it close to our camp.
But the Promised Land wasn’t next door, right around the corner. And as many as we were, driving our flocks and herds, letting them graze as we went, in three days we didn’t get very far.
Grandmother and I were near the front. In my eyes, she was old, but she still walked briskly, a lot faster than the families with really old people, hobbling on their canes, bringing up the rear.
As we were approaching the Red Sea, word came up from the back. “The Egyptians are coming! Soldiers in their war chariots pulled by speedy horses!”
Panic spread among us like those plagues back in Egypt. Even without the sea in front of us, what would we do? What COULD we do? We were slaves, not trained even in self-defense. They would round us up like cattle and haul us back in disgrace. This new feeling of freedom we had tasted? It would all be gone up in smoke.
I admit that I was frightened, too.
“What are we going to do, Grandmother? What’s going to happen to us?”
Grandmother tried to reassure me and those around her. “Yahweh would not have brought us out this far for nothing. Moses will know what to do.”
But fear is contagious, and reassurance is not. Women wailed, men shouted, and children cried. Some of the men, including my uncle, ran to Moses, yelling at him. “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”
My uncle told us what Moses said. “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
A fog fell upon us. Actually, the fog fell around us. We could see in our camp, but, as darkness fell, we couldn’t see the Egyptian camp. That was good, because if we couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see us.
Sometime early in the night, a strong wind came up. When night should have fallen, the pillar of cloud still hung in the sky between us and the Egyptians, casting light on our camp. Moses called us to move on. We gathered our things. In the moonlight, we waited.
I saw Moses ahead of us, standing on the edge of the sea on a big rock. He raised his arms over us. Slowly the crowd hushed, and we could hear him.
“Stand still and see! The Lord has provided a way!”
And then … we saw what the wind had done. It was like a big hand, holding back the flowing waters. To the left was a wall of water, and to the right was a wall of water. The people up front eased slowly forward, hesitantly, looking back at Moses, looking up at the waters on either side, looking forward to the other shore.
About half way across, their pace quickened, until they were almost running. We followed, keeping an eye on the people in front of us. Even Grandmother uttered a sigh of relief when our feet touched the shore beyond the sea.
Slowly the rest made it across. Moses was last, holding his staff high in the air. We could see the Egyptian army coming toward us on the other side. Not just their dust, but their chariots, their spears, their angry faces. Not as fast as before, but the panic spread among us again as the Egyptian army followed us into the water tunnel. But it was not going well for them. Their wheels stuck in the mud that had been for us dry land.
Again Moses raised both arms in the air. We heard him shout, “Stand still and see the power of God!” He stretched his hand out over the sea. And the waters? The restraining wind lifted, and the liquid walls fell like a waterfall, rushing to catch up with the water below.
Horses screamed, soldiers shouted, and they were swept downstream in a tremendous surge.
The sun rose. We were safe on the other side.
Our panic fell from us, like the water wall had fallen. We cheered. Those closest to Moses patted him on the back, shook his hand, congratulated him. We all shouted our thanks. And we camped there until the next day.
That evening we filled our water jugs, ate our supper, and slept well for the first time. We were beyond the reach of the Egyptians. We did not know what lay ahead, but the past lay on the other side of the sea, and it was gone forever. And I don’t think Pharaoh felt blessed.
General questions
1) How does this story follow its Scripture?
2) How does this story expand its Scripture for you?
3) What is the message of this story?
4) How does the message apply to us today?
Specific questions
5) If you have experienced one disaster, such as an earthquake, you can relate to the Egyptians. How would they respond to ten such disasters in a short period of time?
6) Should we pray for our enemies? For the people who do us wrong?
7) What would it be like to be free to make your own decisions if you have been a slave all your life?
8) What emotions would the people have felt once they were safe from the Egyptian army but facing an unknown future in the wilderness?
