The Sea Divides

When Moses had said this, he led them to the sea while the Egyptians looked on, for they were within sight. But the Egyptians were so worn out by the labor of their pursuit that they thought it best to put off the fighting until the next day. When Moses reached the shore, he took his staff and prayed to God, calling on him to be their helper and defender. He said: “You know, Lord, that it is beyond human strength and human cleverness to escape the difficulties we are in now. It must be wholly your work to bring deliverance to this army, which left Egypt at your command. We despair of any other help or plan; our only refuge is the hope we have in you. If there is any way your providence can offer us escape, we look to you for it. Let it come quickly, and show us your power. Raise this people, who have sunk into hopelessness, to good courage and hope of deliverance. We are in a helpless place, but it is still a place that belongs to you. The sea is yours; the mountain that shuts us in is yours too. This mountain will open if you command it, and the sea, if you command it, will become dry land. We could even escape by flying through the air, if you decided that we should be saved that way.” [a]

When Moses had spoken to God in this way, he struck the sea with his staff. At the blow it parted, drew its waters back into itself, and left the ground dry, as a road for the Hebrews to escape by. When Moses saw this appearance of God, and the sea leaving its own place and laying bare dry land, he went into it first of all. He told the Hebrews to follow him along that divine road, rejoicing at the danger their pursuers were heading into and giving thanks for so astonishing a deliverance from God’s hand. [b]

The Hebrews made no stop but pressed eagerly on, led by God’s presence with them. At first the Egyptians thought they had gone mad and were rushing headlong to certain death. But when they saw them go a long way without harm, meeting no obstacle or difficulty on the way, they hurried after them, hoping that the sea would be calm for them too. They put their cavalry in front and went down into the sea themselves. Meanwhile, as the Egyptians were putting on their armor and losing time over it, the Hebrews got ahead of them, escaped them, and were the first across to the land on the other side, unhurt. That gave the Egyptians fresh heart, and they pursued more boldly, expecting that no harm would come to them either. But the Egyptians did not realize that they were going into a road made for the Hebrews and not for others — a road made to deliver people in danger, not for those eager to use it to destroy them. So as soon as the whole Egyptian army was inside it, the sea flowed back to its own place, came down in a torrent whipped up by storm winds, and closed over the Egyptians. Rain poured down from the sky, with terrible thunder and lightning and flashes of fire, and thunderbolts were hurled down on them. There was nothing of all that God sends on men as signs of his wrath that did not happen then, for a dark and dismal night came down on them. So all these men perished, and not one was left to carry news of the disaster to the rest of the Egyptians. [c]

The Hebrews could not contain their joy at their wonderful deliverance and the destruction of their enemies. Now at last they thought themselves truly free, since those who would have forced them into slavery were destroyed, and they had found God so plainly their protector. Having escaped their danger in this way, and seeing their enemies punished as no other men in any record have ever been punished, they spent the whole night singing hymns and celebrating. Moses also composed a song to God in hexameter verse, full of his praises and of thanks for his kindness. [d]

As for me, I have told every part of this history as I found it in the sacred books. No one should wonder at how strange the story is, if men of old, who knew nothing of wickedness, found a way of escape even through the sea — whether it happened by the will of God or of its own accord. For the men with Alexander, king of Macedonia, who lived comparatively only a little while ago, the Pamphylian Sea drew back and gave them a passage through itself when they had no other way to go — I mean when it was God’s will to destroy the empire of the Persians. All who have written about the deeds of Alexander agree that this is true. But on these matters let everyone decide as he pleases. [e]

The next day Moses gathered up the weapons of the Egyptians, which the current of the sea and the force of the winds against it had carried to the camp of the Hebrews. He judged that this too had happened by divine providence, so that they would not be left without weapons. So he ordered the Hebrews to arm themselves with them, and led them to Mount Sinai, to offer sacrifice to God there and to make thank offerings for the people’s deliverance, as he had been charged to do beforehand.