The last of the Hebrews had crossed to the far shore. The night of walking through the divided sea was over, and the morning watch had come. The pillar of cloud that had stood between the two camps through the darkness lifted, and the Egyptians saw the path that the Lord had made. The walls of water still stood on either side. The dry ground of the sea floor still stretched before them. And the chariots of Pharaoh plunged into the deep in pursuit of the slaves who had humiliated their king.
The Egyptians pursued and went in after them to the midst of the sea. All the horses of Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen, thundered down the same path that the children of Israel had walked. The commanders urged their steeds forward. The charioteers cracked their whips. The army of the most powerful nation on earth was doing what armies do. They were pursuing. They were attacking. They were refusing to admit that the battle was already lost.
But the Lord looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud and troubled the host of the Egyptians. The same God who had sent the plagues, the same God who had killed the firstborn, the same God who had divided the sea, now turned his attention to the army that had dared to follow his people into the deep.
The Wheels Came Off
He took off their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily. The wheels that had rolled smoothly across the desert sand now sank into the mud of the sea floor. The ground that had been dry for the feet of the Hebrews was softening under the hooves of the Egyptian horses. The mud gripped the wheels and held them fast. The chariots that had been instruments of speed and power became anchors, dragging in the wet earth, slowing the advance to a crawl.
The Egyptians looked at their chariots and saw the hand of the Lord against them. The wheels were coming loose. The axles were breaking. The mud was swallowing the wheels whole. The finest military technology of the ancient world was useless in the face of the God who controlled the sea and the dry land.
“Let us flee from the face of Israel. For the Lord fighteth for them against the Egyptians.”
The cry rose from the army of Pharaoh. The soldiers who had pursued with such confidence were now desperate to retreat. The charioteers who had cracked their whips were now struggling to turn their horses around. The commanders who had led the charge were now shouting orders to fall back. But it was too late. The Lord had drawn them into the sea, and the sea would not let them go.
The Return of the Waters
The Lord spoke to Moses on the far shore. “Stretch out thine hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen.”
Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea. The same rod that had divided the waters now summoned them back. The walls that had stood through the night began to tremble. The deep that had been held back by the wind of the Lord began to move. The sea returned to his strength when the morning appeared.
The waters came crashing down. The walls on the right hand and on the left collapsed with a roar that drowned out the screams of the Egyptians. The path that had been dry ground was swallowed by the returning sea. The chariots and the horsemen and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them were covered by the waters. The soldiers who had pursued the Hebrews with swords and spears were swept away like twigs in a flood.
There remained not so much as one of them. The entire army was destroyed. The chosen chariots that had thundered out of Egypt lay at the bottom of the Red Sea. The horses that had strained at their harnesses were drowned. The captains who had commanded the pursuit were silent. The power of Egypt had been broken at the same place where the power of the Lord had been revealed.
The Bodies on the Shore
The children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea, and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand and on their left. Thus the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians. And Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore. The bodies of the soldiers who had pursued them were washed up on the sand. The chariots that had been instruments of oppression were shattered and broken. The horses that had carried the pride of Egypt were still and silent.
The people saw the great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians, and they feared the Lord and believed the Lord and his servant Moses. The fear that had driven them to cry out against Moses at the edge of the sea was replaced by the fear of the Lord. The doubt that had made them long for the graves of Egypt was swallowed up in faith. They had seen the salvation of the Lord, and they believed.
The chariot wheels had clogged in the mud. The waters had returned. And the slaves who had walked through the sea on dry ground were slaves no longer. They were free, and their enemies were dead, and the Lord had won the victory.
