Not straight across, above the Red Sea about where the Suez Canal is now, but down the Egyptian side of the Red Sea, the children of Israel were led. This was God’s way; He was not through with Pharaoh, and that proud king was going to be humbled lower still. Pharaoh and his servants presently were saying to one another,
“Why have we done this, that we have let Israel go from serving us?” and an army was sent out quickly after those they had just been glad to send away free. “Six hundred chosen chariots, and all the chariots of Egypt,” “all the horses and chariots of Pharaoh, and his horsemen, and his army” caught up with the former slaves by the Red Sea, and frightened them terribly. They were “sore afraid,” and they cried out unto the Lord; indeed they were so discouraged that they thought they were just going to be killed.
It is easy for us to read the story, and think how those people were perfectly safe, because we know that God was with them, but they only saw and heard their enemies behind them, and saw the sea ahead. They didn’t really trust God, indeed I am afraid that many of them did not know, Him as their Saviour; they were not only slaves of Pharaoh, but slaves of Satan. Yet God had given His word that He would take the people to the promised land. Many of them died in unbelief, but their children went into the country God gave for their home. Many an experience did they have on the way, truly, but those who trusted in God did not die in the wilderness. Of course, Canaan was not heaven, and no doubt some of those who crossed from Egypt to that land, or were born on the way to Canaan, were like a good many today: they knew about God, and yet never came to Him as lost sinners, and asked Him to be their Saviour. What about yourself?
In front of the children of Israel, the sea, beating its waves on the sandy shore; behind them was the Egyptian army. The Israelites were not trained soldiers, but just newly freed slaves. They had said to Moses, Why bring us out here to be killed? They had not thought of God, had they? Had He forgotten them, or did He not care what happened?
“I have surely seen the affliction of My people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey.”
Would God then leave them on the road to die? Has He ever been untrue to His word? No, never! God does what He says He will, always. Yes, the people thought about their troubles and fears, but you won’t find in verses eleven and twelve that they said anything about God. But He was just going to deliver them, and as Moses said, they were to “fear not,” to “stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.” which He would show to them that day, for they would not see the Egyptians any more again for ever.
The angel of God, who went before the camp, went between them and the Egyptians, and the pillar of the cloud took its place there too, to be a cloud and darkness to their enemies, and to be a light by night to the people. That closed the way behind; —what about in front of them?
Verse 21 answers: Moses, at God’s word, stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night and made a dry road across to the other side before morning. This was God’s answer to their fears, making a way where there never had been one before, and never would be again.
Into the midst of the sea on the dry ground late that night walked the men, women. and children, and the flocks and herds, the waters standing still as only God could make them, like walls on either side of the road. How strange it all was, but it was God’s way for them. The Egyptians after a while, early in the morning, found out what had happened and tried to follow. Even to the middle of the channel of the sea their army drove, but God was not on their side. He troubled them, took off their chariot wheels so that they wanted to get back to the Egyptian shore. Let us flee, the Egyptians said, for the Lord is fighting for Israel against us, but it was not to be. Moses, at God’s word, stretched out his hand over the sea which rolled back where it had been before, covering chariots and horsemen and all the army of Pharaoh that had come into the roadway from shore to shore; not one was spared. One party was saved, and one was lost. That is solemn, isn’t it? Not an Israelite lost, not an Egyptian saved!