For Teaching

Exodus 14: What the Passage Says

102 claims across 31 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Exodus 14 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

The LORD tells Israel to turn back and camp by the sea, and says he will harden Pharaoh's heart so that Pharaoh pursues them. Pharaoh takes his chariots and overtakes Israel at the water; the people are terrified and blame Moses, and Moses tells them to stand still and watch the LORD fight for them. Moses stretches out his hand, an east wind divides the sea, Israel crosses on dry ground, and when the Egyptians follow, the water returns and covers Pharaoh's whole army. Israel sees the Egyptians dead on the shore, and the people fear the LORD and believe him and his servant Moses.

Claim by Claim

14:1
- The LORD spoke to Moses.
- The LORD's speech was introduced as a command to say something.
14:2
- The LORD told Moses to speak to the children of Israel.
- The Israelites were to turn back and encamp before Pi-hahiroth.
- The place of encampment was between Migdol and the sea.
- The place of encampment was in front of Baal-zephon.
- They were to encamp by the sea, directly opposite Baal-zephon.
14:3
- The LORD said Pharaoh would say of the Israelites that they were wandering in confusion in the land.
- The LORD said Pharaoh would say the wilderness had closed in on them.
14:4
- The LORD said he would harden Pharaoh's heart.
- The LORD said Pharaoh would pursue the Israelites.
- The LORD said he would gain honor through Pharaoh and through all his army.
- The LORD said the Egyptians would know that he is the LORD.
- They did as they were told.
14:5
- The king of Egypt was told that the people had fled.
- The heart of Pharaoh and of his servants was turned against the people.
- They said, What is this we have done?
- They said they had let Israel go from serving them.
14:6
- Pharaoh harnessed his chariot.
- Pharaoh took his people with him.
14:7
- Pharaoh took six hundred chosen chariots.
- Pharaoh took all the other chariots of Egypt.
- Officers were over all of them.
14:8
- The LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
- Pharaoh pursued after the children of Israel.
- The children of Israel were going out boldly, with a raised hand.
14:9
- The Egyptians pursued after the Israelites.
- The Egyptians overtook them while they were encamped by the sea.
- The pursuers included all Pharaoh's chariot horses, his horsemen, and his army.
- The overtaking happened at Pi-hahiroth, in front of Baal-zephon.
14:10
- Pharaoh drew near.
- The children of Israel lifted up their eyes.
- The Israelites saw the Egyptians marching after them.
- The Israelites were greatly afraid.
- The children of Israel cried out to the LORD.
14:11
- The Israelites spoke to Moses.
- They asked whether it was because there were no graves in Egypt that he had taken them away to die in the wilderness.
- They asked what he had done to them by bringing them out of Egypt.
14:12
- They asked whether this was not the very thing they had said to Moses in Egypt.
- They said they had told him in Egypt to leave them alone so they could serve the Egyptians.
- They said it would have been better for them to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.
14:13
- Moses spoke to the people.
- Moses told them not to be afraid.
- Moses told them to stand firm.
- Moses told them to see the salvation of the LORD.
- Moses said the LORD would perform that salvation for them that day.
- Moses said the Egyptians they saw that day they would never see again.
14:14
- Moses said the LORD would fight for them.
- Moses said they would be silent.
14:15
- The LORD spoke to Moses.
- The LORD asked Moses why he was crying out to him.
- The LORD told Moses to speak to the children of Israel that they should set out forward.
14:16
- The LORD told Moses to lift up his staff.
- The LORD told Moses to stretch out his hand over the sea.
- The LORD told Moses to divide the sea.
- The LORD said the children of Israel would go into the midst of the sea on dry ground.
14:17
- The LORD said he was hardening the hearts of the Egyptians.
- The LORD said the Egyptians would go in after the Israelites.
- The LORD said he would gain honor through Pharaoh and all his army, his chariots, and his horsemen.
14:18
- The LORD said the Egyptians would know that he is the LORD.
- The LORD said this knowing would come when he gained honor through Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen.
14:19
- The angel of God had been going before the camp of Israel.
- The angel of God moved and went behind them.
- The pillar of cloud moved from in front of them.
- The pillar of cloud stood behind them.
14:20
- It came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel.
- There was the cloud and the darkness.
- It gave light to the night.
- The text is ambiguous as to which camp received the darkness and which received the light; the King James assigns darkness to the Egyptians and light to Israel.
- Neither camp came near the other all that night.
14:21
- Moses stretched out his hand over the sea.
- The LORD drove the sea back by a strong east wind all that night.
- The LORD made the sea into dry ground.
- The waters were divided.
14:22
- The children of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground.
- The waters were a wall for them on their right hand and on their left.
14:23
- The Egyptians pursued and went in after the Israelites.
- All Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his horsemen went into the midst of the sea.
14:24
- In the morning watch the LORD looked down on the camp of the Egyptians from the pillar of fire and cloud.
- The LORD threw the camp of the Egyptians into confusion.
14:25
- He removed the wheels of their chariots, so that they drove with difficulty.
- The Egyptians said, Let us flee from before Israel.
- The Egyptians said the LORD was fighting for Israel against Egypt.
14:26
- The LORD spoke to Moses.
- The LORD told Moses to stretch out his hand over the sea.
- The LORD said the waters would come back over the Egyptians, over their chariots, and over their horsemen.
14:27
- Moses stretched out his hand over the sea.
- At the turn of morning the sea returned to its normal state.
- The Egyptians were fleeing toward it.
- The LORD shook the Egyptians off into the midst of the sea.
14:28
- The waters returned.
- The waters covered the chariots and the horsemen.
- The waters covered all the army of Pharaoh that had gone into the sea after the Israelites.
- Not one of them remained.
14:29
- The children of Israel walked on dry ground in the midst of the sea.
- The waters were a wall for them on their right hand and on their left.
14:30
- On that day the LORD saved Israel from the hand of the Egyptians.
- Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the shore of the sea.
14:31
- Israel saw the great power that the LORD had exercised against the Egyptians.
- The people feared the LORD.
- The people believed in the LORD.
- The people believed in Moses his servant.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

14:1: Where the King James prints "LORD" in capital letters, the Hebrew has God's personal name, four consonants usually written YHWH. Jewish readers avoided pronouncing it and said a word meaning "lord" instead, and English translations have followed that custom ever since. "Lord" in ordinary type translates a different Hebrew word that simply means master.
14:2: Pi-hahiroth, Migdol and Baal-zephon are Egyptian border landmarks whose locations are no longer known; 'Migdol' is a Semitic word for a watchtower or fort, and 'Baal-zephon' means 'Baal of the north', naming a shrine to a Canaanite storm god. 'The sea' is the body of water called in Hebrew yam suph, 'sea of reeds', traditionally rendered 'Red Sea'; which stretch of water is meant is disputed.
14:3: 'Pharaoh' is a title, not a personal name. It comes from the Egyptian for 'great house', originally the palace, and came to stand for the king himself. The chapter never names him.
14:4: In Hebrew the 'heart' is the seat of thinking and decision, not feeling; to harden or strengthen someone's heart is to make them resolute or unyielding in their intentions. The verb used here means to make firm or strong. 'I will be honoured' translates a verb meaning to be weighty or impressive, to gain public standing at someone's expense, the way a victor's reputation is made by the enemy he defeats.
14:5: Pharaoh's "servants" here are his officials, the important men who ran the country for him. When their heart "was turned," it means they changed their minds.
14:6: A chariot was a light cart on two wheels, pulled by fast horses. A driver and a fighter rode in it. Chariots were the quickest, most feared war machines of that time.
14:7: Chariots were the elite arm of an Egyptian army: light, fast, two-wheeled platforms carrying a driver and an archer. Against a crowd traveling on foot with children and livestock they were overwhelming. The word behind 'captains' or 'officers' literally means 'third men', probably the third man riding on a chariot.
14:8: 'With an high hand' is a Hebrew idiom for acting openly and in full confidence, marching out in triumph rather than slipping away. The same phrase can carry the sense of defiance, and both readings fit here.
14:9: Egyptian armies of this period fought from chariots rather than on horseback, so the word translated "horsemen" most likely means the chariot crews and their horse teams. Cavalry as we usually picture it, soldiers riding into battle on horses, came into use later.
14:10: "Sore" in the King James is an intensifier meaning severely or greatly, with nothing to do with pain. "Sore afraid" simply means terrified.
14:11: Egypt was famous for its burial places, from royal tombs to enormous cemeteries, so the complaint is bitter sarcasm: was there some shortage of graves back there? Behind the joke is real dread, because dying unburied in open country was one of the worst fates people of this world could imagine.
14:12: The Hebrew verb for 'serve' is the same word used for slave labor and for worship. The Israelites' demand of Pharaoh throughout Exodus has been to leave one kind of service for another; here they ask to go back to the first.
14:13: 'Salvation' here translates a word meaning rescue or deliverance from physical danger, being got out of a tight spot. It carries no sense of an afterlife.
14:14: 'Hold your peace' in 1611 English means keep silent or stay still, not make peace. The Hebrew verb suggests standing quiet and not intervening.
14:15: "Wherefore criest thou unto me?" means "Why are you crying out to me?" Wherefore means why.
14:16: The 'rod' or staff is the shepherd's stick Moses has carried since his call, used earlier in the confrontations with Pharaoh. A staff was also a standard mark of authority.
14:17: The Hebrew word for honor comes from a root meaning heavy or weighty, so to be honored is to be treated as someone of real weight rather than someone who can be ignored. To "get me honour upon" an enemy means to gain that reputation at their expense, in public, where everyone can see who actually holds power.
14:19: 'Angel' translates a word that simply means messenger, one sent to act or speak on another's behalf. The word itself says nothing about wings or appearance.
14:20: The Hebrew of this verse is unusually obscure and has been read in opposite ways since ancient times: either the cloud darkened one side while lighting the other, or it brought darkness so that the two camps could not see each other all night. The translations differ because the original does.
14:21: An east wind in this region blows in off the desert: hot, dry and strong, the wind that elsewhere in the Bible withers crops and breaks ships apart. The water is called in Hebrew yam suph, "sea of reeds," which older translations rendered "Red Sea" following the ancient Greek version. Exactly which lake or arm of the sea is meant is still argued over.
14:24: The night was divided into three watches. The 'morning watch' is the last of them, running roughly from two o'clock until sunrise, the darkest, coldest stretch before dawn, and a traditional time for surprise attacks.
14:25: The Hebrew here is uncertain. It can mean the wheels were removed, or clogged, or made to swerve and wobble; ancient versions differ, some reading 'he bound' or 'he jammed' rather than 'he took off'.
14:27: 'Returned to his strength' translates a phrase meaning the sea went back to its normal, steady flow. 'When the morning appeared' is literally 'at the turning of the morning', the moment night tips over into day.
14:30: 'The hand of' is a standard Hebrew idiom for power or control, not a body part, to be saved from someone's hand is to be got out of their grip.
14:31: 'Feared the LORD' does not mean they were frightened of him. The Hebrew verb covers the awe and reverence owed to overwhelming power, and shades into obedience. 'Believed' likewise means trusted or relied on, rather than accepting a set of statements as true.

Read Exodus 14