sea should be sufficiently dry. Moses, 11bout go back by a strong eut wind. The LXX nightfall, descending to the water's edge, t.ro.nslnte " I\ strong south wind" ( Iv &vlµlf' stre1chC'd forth his rod over the ~·ayes, and, vdTq, fl,aiq,) ; but the Hebrew kadim is cer- an east wind at once springing up-accom- tl\inly "eru;t" rather than " south.'' It is not, however, "east" in the sense of duo panied perhaps by e. strong ebb of the tide- east, but would include all the rauge of the the waters of the gulf were parted in the compass between N.E. and S.E. If we sup- ,·icinity of the modem Suez, and e. dry space pose the Bitter Lo.kes to have been joined to left between the Bitter Lakes, which were the Red Sea by e. narrow and shallow chan- tr.en e. prolongation of the Gulf, and the nel, the action of a south-east wind, by driv- ing the water of the Lo.kes northwBl·d, may present sea-bed. The space may have b~en ha,·e easily produced the effect described in one of considerable width. The Israelites the text. A simultaneous ebb of the lower entering upon it, perhaps e.bont midnight, gulf would have further facilitated the pas- accomplished the distance, which may not sage. The waters were divided, Water re- have exceeded a mile, with all their belong- mained in the upper extremity of the Gulf, now the site of the Bitter Lakes, and also, of ·ings, iu the course of fiye or six hours, the course, below Suez. The portion of the see. dried pillar of the cloud withdrawing itself, as the up lay probably between the present southern last Israelites entered the sea-bed, and retiring extremity of the Bitter Lakes and Suez. after them like a rearguard. Thus protected, By the gradual elevation and desiccation of the they made the transit in safety, and morning region, it hos passed into permanent dry land. saw them encamped upon the shores of Asia.. Ver. 22.-The waters were a wall--i. e., a protection, a defence. Pharaoh could not at- Ver. 19.-'Ihe angel of God. The Divine tack them on either flank, on account of the Presence, which manifested itself in the two bodies cif water between which their pillar of the cloud, is called indifferently "the march lay. He could only come at them by Lord" (eh. xiii. 21 ; xiv. 24), and "the following after them. The metaphor has been Angel of God "-just as the appearance to by some understood literally, especially on Moses in the bnrning bnsh is termed both account of the expression in eh. xv. 8-" The •• God " and " the angel of the Lord " ( eh. iii. floods stood upright as an heap ; " and again 2). Which went before--i.e., "which or- that in Ps. lxxviii. 13--" He made the waters dinarily, and (so to speak) habitually pre- to stand as an heap." But those phrases, ceded the camp " ( eh. xiii. 21 ; Ps. lxxviii. occurring in poems, must be taken as poetical ; 14). And stood behind them. Took up a and can scarcely have any weight in deter- fixed station for the night, or the greater mining the meaning of " wall " here. We portion of it. must ask ourselves-is there not an economy Ver. 20.-It was a cloud and darkness to and a restraint in the exertion by God even of them, but it gave light by night to these. miraculous power ?-is more used than is Though there is nothing in the Hebrew needed for the occ!ISion ?-and would not all correspondent to the expressions " to them," that was needed at this time have been " to these," yet the meaning seems to have effected by such a division of the sea as we been rightly apprehended by onr translators. have supposed, without the fluid being con- (Sec the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan, verted into a solid, or having otherwise the the Syriac version, and among moderns, laws of its being entirely altered. Kalisch'! Knobel, Maurer, Rosenmiiller, and Kalisch.) statement, that the word " wall" here is " not Ver. 21.-lllloses stretched out his hand. intended to convey the idea of r,rotection, but As co=nded by God (ver. 16). Compare only of hardness and solidity,' seems to us the somewhat similar action of Elijah and the very reverse of the truth. Protection is Elisha, when they d.ivided the Jordan (2 at any rate the main idea, and any other is Kings ii. 8, 14) The Lord e&llBed the sea to secondary and subordinate.
HOMILETICS Vers. 19-22.-Godprotects his own, but in strcnge wnys.-The passage of the Red Sea was the crowning miracle by which God effected the deliverance of his people from the bondage of Egypt; and all its circumstances were strange and worthy of notice. I. THE PRESENCE OF THE LoRD, WHICH HA.D BEEN WONT TO LEAD THEM, REMOVED AJID WENT BEHL'\"D Tm;M. They had to enter the dark and slimy bed from which the sea had retired without the cheering sight of the Divine presence before their eyes beckoning them on. So there are occasions of trial in the life of every man, when God ~eerus to withdraw his presence, to remove himself, to "go behind us," ao that we ca1rnot liee him. Sometimes be withdraws himself in grief or iD anger; but rqore onep C!t. xtv. 10-22.J TllE BOOK OF EXODUS, 341