The Old and The New Exodus

(From Exodus 14:10-31)

“But I am the LORD thy God,

that divided the sea,

whose waves roared:

The LORD of hosts is his name”

(Isaiah 51:15).

One of the most significant themes in the whole Bible is the disclosing to us God’s redemptive history, showing that God is the One who saves/delivers His people. Throughout the Scriptures God repeatedly displays His planned Redemption. God’s plan by His great and precious promises to save His own people is one of the main subjects in the Bible. God’s pattern of delivering His people is explicitly described in the story of Exodus in the crossing the Sea of Reeds. In the Exodus story God continues to fulfill His promises to lead them to the land He promised them. This Exodus theme (Slavery - Deliverance – the Promised Land) goes over and over again in the Scriptures to give us a deeper understanding of God, our powerful Redeemer. Today, the church looks back to the Exodus story and is encouraged because the way God delivered the Israelites sets the pattern of His work of redemption. As Abraham foresaw God’s deliverance in Genesis, Joseph who lived before the time of the deliverance, also looked to the future and believed that God would deliver His people from Egypt and would bring them into their land. In hope, he stated that he wanted his bones to go with them. Genesis 50:25 says, “And Joseph made the sons of Israel swear an oath and said, ‘God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up from this place.”¹ Cole says, “Joseph never looked on Egypt as home, and showed it by his demand for a Canaanite burial.”² This was because Joseph understood God’s covenant promises to Abraham: the Exodus will come. So Moses took the bones of Joseph with him when he left Egypt (Exodus 13:19). We see clearly Joseph’s faith, looking forward to the promise of God, redeeming His people. Thus, the Exodus story is very important also for us to look back and see God’s faithfulness already shown in the deliverance of His people. In this paper, I would like to examine the story of Exodus from chapter fourteen concerning how the Bible teaches us in the crossing of the Sea of Reeds and how the church today should look back to this famous story in the light of Christ Jesus and how the church should apply the Exodus theme today.

The story written in chapter 14 was right after the Israelites left Egypt following the Passover. God delivered them out of the Egyptians’ hands, and the Israelites were finally free. However, God hardened Pharaoh’s heart and made him command his hosts to pursue and capture Israel again. The Israelites saw the Egyptians’ chariots chasing after them in the wilderness, and they were terrified and panicked. They complained to Moses as to why he did not let them stay in Egypt. They were sandwiched between the powerful Egyptian’s army and the Sea of Reeds. It seemed there was no escape for them. Then, a miracle happened.

To examine this famous chapter, I will focus on two things: the Israelites’ complaints and God’s deliverance through the water. First of all, I will look at the Israelites’ complaints to Moses and his and God’s response to them. In their terror, they said to Moses, “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!” (Exodus 14:11-12) This is their first complaint after leaving Egypt. To them, serving the Egyptians seemed much better than to live in freedom. Facing bad, chaotic situations, they panicked and did not think straight. Fretheim understands their complaints saying, “The desire to stay in Egypt, and now the urgent pleas to return there, are typical for people who have gone through an extensive period of oppression. This dispirited and just-released-from-slavery people do not need a word of condemnation from either commentators or Moses.”³ Fretheim is saying that the Israelites’ reaction here is very human and normal. Stuart has a similar view on their complaints. Stuart says, “When hardship is encountered, the miserable past suddenly looks like the good old days. The Israelites were simply thinking the way most people think of the past when the present seems unbearable.”⁴ To both, their reaction was a common reaction as human. They were just being normal. Moses’ reaction to their complaint was: “Moses answered the people, ‘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’” (Exodus 14:13-14). Fretheim continues, “Moses understands this and brings a word of pure gospel to them. As in the lament psalms, Moses speaks an oracle of salvation to a hurting people, making clear the divine plan in all of this.”⁵ In his view, Moses is compassionate over them, encouraging and comforting His disheartened sheep. Peter Enns has a different opinion. Enns says, “This is not, as is suggested by a number of translations (including the NIV) and commentaries, a word of comfort. Moses is not saying, ‘There, there. Don't worry. God will take care of you. You'll see. Be calm.’ Rather, this is a terse, impatient command on Moses' part.”⁶ According to Enns, he adds, “In Hebrew, the last part of the verse is a mere two Hebrew words, which are best translated as ‘You be quiet!’ or better, ‘Shut up!’ This is no word of comfort but an angry denouncement of Israel's paper-thin faith.”⁷ In his view, Moses is harsh! Enns has a strict view here that Moses is angry with them, not trusting God but complaining like in Numbers 20:9-11 that Moses’ anger caused him to hit the rock instead of talking to it. Pink suggests a different insight here, saying that Satan is attacking the Israelites to make them doubt God and to make them feel terrified. Pink says, “How often it occurs (exceptions must surely be few in number) that as soon as a sinner has fled to Christ for refuge, Satan at once lets fly his fiery darts. The young believer is tempted now as he never was in his unregenerate days; his mind is filled with evil thoughts and doubts, and he is terrified by the roaring of the ‘lion,’ until he wonders who is really going to gain possession of his soul – God or Satan. This was precisely the issue raised here at the Red Sea. It looked as though Jehovah had deserted His people. It seemed as though they might fall victims to their powerful and merciless foes. But how deceptive are appearances?”⁸ Not like Enns, Pink does not blame the Israelites. Pink suggests that Satan is tempting them to complain to Moses by raising fear and doubt within their hearts. Under Satan’s attack, Moses encourages them by saying, “The LORD will fight for you” (Exodus 14:14a). Here we learn that their doubts did not cause God to abandon them. Instead, God put the pillar of clouds and sent angels to protect them (Exodus 14:19-20). God came to Israel graciously and helped them to believe. Moses encouraged them not to be afraid because the Lord Almighty would fight for them. God was the One who orchestrated this terrifying situation to teach a very important lesson that they needed to depend on God alone so that no one would boast and that all glory and praise would be pointed to God. This reminds me of Paul, saying, “We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raised the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:8b-9). God said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites to move on” (Exodus 14:15b). Then the clouds that were leading in front of the Israelites now went behind them to protect them from the Egyptians. It seems to echo what Isaiah says, “the LORD will go before you, the God of Israel will be your rear guard” (Isaiah 52:12b). By faith and Moses’ obedience to God’s Word, he stretched out the staff in his hand over the Sea of the Reeds. God then performed a miracle.

The miracle… How do the theologians in history understand crossing the Red Sea? Childs shares some different views on the crossing. Jewish commentaries say about the crossing, “Very early it was noted that in 13.20 Israel was encamped at Etham, yet according to Num 33.8 they entered into the wilderness of Etham after the crossing. Ibn Ezra (with others) argued that Israel did not therefore cross the sea, but only went some way into it, and making a semi-circle, came out on the same side from which they had entered. (This theory was later accepted by many Christian interpreters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Cf. Poole, Synopsis Criticorum.)”⁹ I am personally surprised that many Christian interpreters agreed with this view because there are some things that our small mind cannot fathom, and separating the water is one of them. I believe God has supernatural power and can do whatever He chooses, so I disagree with that view. How does Luther look at the crossing? He perceives the crossing as a good example of how faith works. God pushed the Israelites to the end of their rope allowing great fear and pressure in their hearts. Luther understood that what caused God to separate the water was their faith in Him. Their “faith in God accomplished the impossible (Sermon on Ex.14.9-12; WA XVI, pp. 181ff.).”¹⁰ But we need to remember we do not manipulate God by faith. Faith is of God. We put faith of Him, and He will do what is pleasing to Him. How about Calvin? Childs says, “Calvin finds in the exodus an illustration of God’s majestic power and gracious dealing with his people.”¹¹ God purposefully orchestrated the situation to the point that it was obvious that they could not save themselves, but God could! Childs continues to talk about Calvin’s view that “Israel’s disobedience only showed how necessary were God’s repeated acts of intervention to bring us to salvation.”¹² In Calvin’s understanding, the miracle was not focused on the part their faith played in it, but rather, the purpose was to unfold God’s graciousness and mercy and power for the sake of His people. God moves on behalf of His children. I personally agree with Calvin’s view. Yes, faith moves the mountains, but ultimately this crossing the Sea of Reeds was all about God who exercises His goodness toward His people and His faithfulness to His promises. Through this Exodus story, absolutely we can know how God preserved His people. The Egyptians tried to capture them, but God protected and preserved His own as He promised to Abraham. Yes, God promised Abraham that He would bless his descendants and would give the Promised Land to them; therefore, God kept his promises by preserving the Israelites from the Egyptians’ hands. Lastly here, we want to look at the final author’s view. Childs says that the earlier J account focuses “on the effect of ‘natural causes’ (strong east wind, dry sea bed, panic among Egyptians), and the later P account which is ‘supernaturally’ oriented (splitting of the sea, wall of water, etc.).”¹³ Childs explains, “On the basis of this critical evidence the usual hermeneutical move is to suggest that the original crossing was viewed as resulting from a series of natural events, and that the later writer sought to articulate the theological meaning of this event by extending the imagery into the supernatural.”¹⁴ So there were two sources (J and P); one says natural and the other says supernatural. However, both sources declare that God Himself redeemed the Israelites. The final author might have had those sources in mind, but ultimately it was inspired by the Spirit, so I don’t take much time here.

Now I want to discuss how we should look at Israel’s crossing in the light of Christ and that of the New Testament. Enns says, “The full depth of this pattern of divine activity becomes clear through the person and work of Christ. Exodus continues to serve as a paradigm for salvation in the New Testament. The person and mission of Christ recall unmistakably Israel's deliverance from Egypt.”¹⁵ Enns gives an example from the book of Matthew, presenting allegory between the Israelites and Christ. In Matthew 2:15, he uses Hosea 11:1, saying, “"Out of Egypt I called my son.” There is a significant parallel here: Out of Egypt God called the Israelites, and out of Egypt God called a boy, Jesus Christ. Childs adds, “He [Matthew] cites the exodus as having been ‘fulfilled’ in the life of Jesus. Jesus not only participates in the history of Israel, he ushers in the messianic age which the original exodus from Egypt only foreshadowed.”¹⁶ Moses was pointing to what was to come, and Jesus fully completed what Moses could not do. Jesus ushers His people into the final, ultimate redemption. Paul explains, “Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses” (Acts 13:38-39). Moses could not save His people, but he was pointing God’s people to Christ, saying, “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him” (Deuteronomy 18:15). Enns suggests, “From this we can draw the conclusion that Christ in some sense is to be understood as living out Israel's experience, in a way similar to how the patriarchs and Moses foreshadow the Egypt experience of Israel.”¹⁷ There is another picture of Christ: Christ is living out Israelites’ experience. Jesus also went through the water through the Baptism. Like Moses went through the water, Jesus did the same thing. Here again we can clearly see that Moses is the type of Christ. Paul says, “For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Corinthians 10:1-2). So the Israelites were all baptized into Moses, and now Christians are all baptized into Christ. According to Childs, “The Church Fathers took their lead in interpreting the exodus from Egypt from the New Testament, particularly from I Cor. 10, and extended the allegory to cover all the details of the tradition.”¹⁸ Childs continues, “Water became a type of judgment from which baptism provided an escape (Origen, Tertullian, Ambrose, cited by Danielou)… The defeat of the enemy is a picture of the need to drown in the waters of baptism all of the sins of greed, pride, and anger which besiege the soul of the Christian. The exodus is a passing from earthly to heavenly things very much after the lines set by Philo.”¹⁹ His statement agrees with what Paul says: “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (Romans 6:3-4). Moses delivered God’s people from the bondage of slavery, so Christ delivers us from the bondage of sins. Again like Moses, Christ went through the water before us, so that believers now follow Jesus, the new Moses, into the water through baptism. The author of Hebrews compares Moses and Christ, and he explains that Christ is greater than Moses. Enns says, “Perhaps nowhere in the New Testament is the ‘new Moses’ theme more explicit than in Hebrews 3:1-6, where Moses and Christ are compared as deliverers. The writer here employs a rather difficult analogy to explain the superiority of Christ over Moses (v 3). The main point, however, should not be lost in the details: In order to argue for Jesus' superiority over Moses, the writer assumes a connection between the two. Jesus is a new and better Moses. The reasons for this assertion are clarified in what follows (Heb 4:1-13). It is through Christ (the new Moses) that we as the church (the new Israel) gain entrance into heaven (the new Promised Land).”²⁰ There are more examples that Moses was a type of Christ. Pink encourages us to look at God’s words to Moses, saying, “Lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it; and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea” (Exodus 14:16). According to Pink, “Moses is plainly a type of Christ, the ‘rod’ a symbol of His power and authority.”²¹ King David uses the same word: “Your rod and your staff, they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4). Pink also presents another interpretation, saying, “The Red Sea completely destroyed the power of Pharaoh (Satan) over God’s people.”²² This is also pointing to what Christ will do in the future. Hebrews 2:14b says, “by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil.” Christ has already destroyed the power of Satan, and he will complete his work in it. So What Moses did foreshadowed what Christ would do in the future for us, and He will accomplish every single promise that He gave to us.

How should we look at the old Exodus and the new Exodus? First, we want to remember God mercifully uses God’s people to deliver His own. “You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron” (Psalm 77:20). He sent His only Son to us, and now God uses the church as His instruments to deliver His people. That is why the Sacraments are significant today because that was what the Israelites did: They were baptized into Moses through the water and had a Feast to celebrate what the Lord had done for them. Thus, the church should faithfully keep the Sacraments. Second, I am personally encouraged by the Exodus story in my life. When I was a little girl, I was abused by my father and my uncle. Unconsciously, I was suffering and hurting myself by ignoring the pain and misery. But I can face myself, my woeful condition now, because of the hope that I find in the Exodus story. I was in Egypt, being abused, but God saved me and delivered me from that chaos. Egypt is now behind me. I still go through wilderness and often walk through the shadow of the valley of death because of the wounds, but I have hope that the God who saved His people out of Egypt will also deliver me and will take me to heaven, the place where there is no more pain and tears any more. I thank God because He is mighty to save. And like Paul I have hope in difficulties in this very life because “He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us” (2 Corinthians 1:10). Yes, in Christ, he has delivered us and will continue to deliver us not only to eternal life after death but also in this very life on the earth. I believe it is absolutely necessary for the leaders of the church that they first need to be delivered by God. It is wonderful to be set free by God’s mighty power in our own lives. I want to share N.T. Wright’s experience:

"During my second year at McGill, I plunged into the deepest depression I’ve ever known. I wrestled in prayer, searched the scriptures, examined my conscience, and fell apart. I told my wife about it one night; the next morning, a letter arrived from a Christian psychotherapist who had felt an inexplicable but irresistible urge to write. I still have that letter. Over the next year I learned more about myself and my emotions than I had thought possible. If today I manage to function as a pastor, it is not least because I know something about pain. I know, too, that healing of memory and imagination is not just wishful thinking."²³

If God’s deliverance is not wishful thinking, and if we really experiences God’s deliverance in our own life, how powerful our message would be! Many people will be encouraged by just reading what N. T. Wright says. God’s saving power is real. And its power was displayed by the crossing. God will keep His promises. God will continually deliver His people. We might cry out in the middle of the journey like the Israelites did, but that will not cause God to abandon us. God still encourages us to “move on” and yes, God will surely continue to deliver us now and forever.