The Pulpit Commentary — Exodus — Volume 1 — Section 327

HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vers. 5-10.-The pttrS'/J,it " It was told the King of Egypt tha.t the people :fled," etc. Consider :- I. THE MOTIVl!:S OF THE PUllSUlT. The motives were va.rious. 1. Pharaoh had alrea,dy repented of hauing let the pecple go (ver. 5). Their departure was a sore humiliation to him. Wounded pride wa.s aggravated by the sense of material loss. "As serfs and bondagers, the Israelit.es were invaluable, and to let them go waa to annihila.te the half of Egypt's industry n (Hamilton). Pharaoh and his servants, a.ccordinaly were ready to adopt any plan which promised them revenge. 2. Pharaoh found"'' a; e::i:ctJMjor pursuit, in the allegation that the Israelites had "fled,." Fugitives, in the ordina.ry sense of the expression, the Israelites were not. Pharaoh having to the last refused to let them go to hold the required feast in the wilderness, God had taken the matter into his own ha.nds, and had given them their freedom. 'l'he only sense in which they were " fleeing" was, that, fearing treachery, they were making all the haste they could to get beyond Pharaoh's ren.ch. 'l'hey had left Egypt, unfettered by any stipulation to return. Return, indeed, after what had happened, was out of the ques- tion. When Pharaoh and his people thrust the Hebrews out from their midst (cbs. xi. 8; xii. 31-34), they neither desired nor expected to see their faces more. But now that the king had changed his mind, and wished them back again, it suited him to represent their withdrawal into the solitary regions by the Red Sea as a "flight "-a breach of good faith. God had forced him to relax. his grasp, and while his hand was open, the nation had escaped, like a bird escaped from the snare of the fowler. As reasonably might the fowler complain that, the bird, thus escaped, does not voluntarily return to its old quarters. 3. The determining 'l'Mtive of the pursuit was the news that Israel was u entangled in the land." This decided Pharaoh. Almost would it seem to him as if, by permitting the escaped people to make this huge blunder in their move- ments, their Deity designed, to give them back t.o his hand. As Saul said of David- " God hath delivered him into mine hand, for he is shut up, by entering into a town that hatb gates and bars " (1 Sam. xriii. 7). II. lTs FORMIDABLE CHARACTER. Probably a pursuit of escaped slaves was never organised with greater chances of success. 1. The e:,;ped,ition Wall popular. "The heart of Pharaoh and of his servants was turned against the people" (ver. 5). Court sentiment is not always a reliable index to the feelings of the commonalty; but it is probable that the movement to pursue Israel commanded a wide measure of pop~ar support. The griefs and humiliations they had sustained would fill the E~t1ans with hatred of the lsraelitisb name, and would make them willing co-partners in any ecbeme to inflict injury on the fugitives. They also, by this time, would be begin~ing to realise how great e. loss, fin.a.ncially and industrially, they had sustained, bj the with- drawa.l of so vast a body of labourers. 2. The wMle availab"le military force c/ Egypl Cl!. XIV. u-10.J THE BOOK OF EXODUS. 323