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From: Jeff Harrison (Jeff@totheends.com)
To: heb_roots_chr@hebroots.org
Subject: To The Ends Of The Earth--Teaching Letter #8
TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH--Teaching Letter #8
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CROSSING THE RED SEA
By Jeffrey J. Harrison
In Egypt, the children of Israel lived in Goshen, along
the eastern edge of the Nile Delta about 100 km (60
miles) or so northeast of Cairo. East of Goshen stretches
the barren sandy desert of northern Sinai, one of the
most inhospitable deserts on earth. This is a sandy
desert, like those in the movies, with sand dunes moving
at the whimsy of the wind, sometimes burying tall,
standing palm trees, and then weeks or months or years
later moving on again.* The skies are often clear,
especially in the summer, and the temperatures soar.
Summer average monthly highs reach 41° C (106° F),
so hot an air-conditioned tour bus can only with difficulty
make it bearable. At night, especially in the winter,
the temperature can plummet below freezing.
* These dunes can reach a height of 27 m (90 feet).
This is completely unlike the deserts of Israel, which
are rock deserts, with little or no sand at all.
When the wind is from the east, it can come howling
across Sinai into Egypt, bringing all kinds of dust
and sand with it. This is the east wind mentioned
in the plague of locusts, the 8th plague that spread
dark clouds of hungry insects across the green fields
of Egypt (Ex. 10:13). This same east wind may also
have brought the 9th plague, the plague of darkness
that the Bible says could be "felt" (Ex. 10:21). One
of the soils found in the deserts of the Middle East
is called "loess," a very fine, dust-like soil, like
tan talcum powder. The wind can carry it thousands
of meters into the sky where it can remain for days.
If there's enough of it, it can turn the sky dark.
This may be what happened while Jesus was on the cross,
when the sky grew dark for three hours (Matt. 27:45).
The next plague, the 10th and last, was the plague
for which the children of Israel had to prepare a lamb
and put its blood on their lintels and doorposts--the
original Passover, pointing to a yet greater deliverance
at the cross.* That same night, a mourning Pharaoh
finally sent them out and they began their journey
to the promised land (Ex. 12:30,31,42).
* In Christian tradition, the pattern of the blood
on the lintel and doorposts was understood to make
the sign of the cross.
To get to Canaan (Israel), they had to cross the forbidding
eastern deserts of Sinai. This was no easy task, even
for the Bedouin who lived in the desert. Moses had
a huge group of a couple of million people with him--most
of whom had never been in the desert before. How would
they survive? How would they find food and water for
so many people--as well as the flocks and herds they
brought with them?*
* The tremendous logistical difficulties in crossing
Sinai are neglected by the recently re-popularized
theory of a Red Sea crossing into Arabia through the
branch of the Red Sea east of Sinai known as the Gulf
of Aqaba (The Gold of Exodus by Howard Blum; also the
books and tapes of Ron Wyatt). The relatively short
desert journey to the turqoise mines at Serabit el-Khadim--only
150 km (100 miles) east of Cairo--was undertaken by
the Egyptians only with trepidation and extensive provisioning.
How much more to enter the desert interior! Tremendous
miracles of provision would have been necessary--both
for the army of Pharaoh and the children of Israel.
But such miracles are mentioned only after the sea
crossing. This theory also abandons the clear chronology
of Exodus itself, that places the sea crossing after
three days of travel (Ex. 12-14, confirmed by Num.
33:5-8). A minimum of seven days was required to cross
northern Sinai along a coastal route well-provisioned
with water and supplies. Even more time would have
been necessary for the difficult crossing through central
Sinai, with no waiting provisions of food and water,
and assuming no hostilities were encountered from local
tribes (as Moses and the Israelites faced at the hands
of the Amalekites; Ex. 17:8-16).
In the spiritual realm, the start of their perilous
journey is parallel to the moment we accept Jesus as
our Messiah and are set free from the bondage of Satan.
At first, all we can see are the joy and the excitement
of our new-found freedom. But before long, we notice
that God is taking us a way we've never been before,
a foreboding, dangerous looking way. How will we eat,
how will we survive?
The shortest route to Canaan was the road along the
north shore of Sinai, near the Mediterranean Sea.
But this was well guarded with Egyptian forts and troops,
which would surely lead to war (Ex. 13:17). Nor could
they go straight east--that was the dangerous desert
of northern Sinai. The only other alternative was
southeast to Southern Sinai, where there was more water.
This was a much longer route. But it was the only
realistic way to go (13:18).*
* The proposal by some of a northerly route for the
Exodus must be rejected in light of God's explicit
instructions to Moses to avoid the northern route (the
"way of the land of the Philistines"; Ex. 13:17), not
to mention the difficulty of travel through the northern
sandy desert if they set out cross-country. Central
Sinai, a rock desert, was more passable, as can be
seen by the Darb el-Hajj route used by Egyptian pilgrims
to Mecca. But these pilgrims were unencumbered by
flocks and herds, for whom there is no pasturage in
this desert wasteland. Only to the south would the
children of Israel find adequate, though sparse, pasturage
for the extensive flocks they brought with them. Historical
support for this route can be found in Papyrus Anastasi
V, a record of other Egyptian slaves who escaped in
this same southerly direction.
The first day's journey took them about 20 miles southeast
to Succoth, near the modern city of Ismailia (12:37).
This wasn't so bad. It took them through a desert
to be sure, but they started and ended the day in well-watered
areas: Succoth is in the Wadi Tumilat--the last section
of inhabited land before the deep desert, the desert
of Shur, like a wall protecting Egypt on the east.
The next night they camped in Etham, right at the edge
of the desert (13:20). If they continued east, there
would be no water for days. Here, at Etham, is the
first mention of the pillar of cloud and fire, a sign
of God's presence with them--sorely needed in the face
of the barren desert ahead (13:21,22).
But instead of continuing straight into the desert,
God instructed Moses to circle back to Pi-hahiroth,
at the western edge of the Bitter Lakes ("the sea,"
14:1-3).* If you look at this area on a satellite
map, God's strategy makes perfect sense: it follows
the only tiny strip of watered land going south. But
to Pharaoh, this doubling back looked like they had
become lost and were wandering aimlessly, or were frightened
of the desert.**
* The Bitter Lakes is the name of a two-lobed lake
that today is part of the Suez Canal. Other suggestions
for the Red Sea (actually "reed" sea in Hebrew) are
nearby Lake Timsah, which seems too small, and the
northern tip of the Gulf of Suez (the traditional site),
which has recently been revived through experiments
with a scale model of the seabed and a hair dryer.
But the tiny channel opened up in the experiment was
anything but "dry land" and probably too narrow to
fit the story (see below)--not to mention that the
Gulf lacks the necessary reeds. ("Sea" in Hebrew can
be used for any sizeable body of water.)
** Camping on the western side of the Bitter Lakes
certainly make them appear trapped: to the east was
the lake, to the south was a desert mountain, Baal-zephon,
to the west another desert. This made it look easy
for Pharaoh to capture them (14:6-9). But in fact,
God was preparing a trap of his own.
You can just imagine how the Israelites felt: in the
distance they could see the ascending dust of their
old slave master and his army (14:10). After only
three days of freedom, their past was about to catch
up with them to destroy them. They began to think,
and to say, that it would have been better never to
be set free--to stay a slave in Egypt--rather than
face a fight with the enemy's army (14:11,12).
Sure it's too hard, because we can't win against Satan
in our own strength. If we only look at our own ability
and Satan's ability, we might as well give up. But
there's someone else involved here, whose ability is
infinitely greater than our ability. As Moses put
it, "Don't fear! Stand strong and see the salvation
of the LORD" (14:13). Or as Paul says in Eph. 6:14:
"Stand, therefore." Resist the devil and he will
flee (James 4:7). Or as Moses goes on to say: "The
LORD will fight for you while you keep silent" (Ex.
14:14).
When God struck Egypt with the plagues, all they had
to do was put the blood of the lamb on the doors of
their homes. Just like us, when we mark our lives
with the blood of the Lamb, God sets us free. But
that's not the end of the war. It's only the first
battle, when we make Satan our enemy. Later, he comes
to attack us in full force, when we're still a little
weak, a little uncertain, when we're facing the unknown.
That's when we need to stand strong and see the salvation
of the Lord.
The people weren't the only ones worried. Moses must
have been crying to God, too, since God says to him,
"Why are you [singular] crying out to me?" (Ex. 14:15)
Moses had faith that God would deliver them. But
he had not yet stepped out, trusting in that deliverance.
"Tell the sons of Israel to go forward" (14:15).
They had to step out in obedience to God. And that's
when God started to move.
Verses 19 and 20 tell us that "the angel of God" and
the pillar of cloud moved behind them, between them
and the Egyptians. This is the first we hear that
the Angel of the Lord is with them. In Ex. 23:20,21,
God says that the angel going before them has the power
to judge them ("obey his voice; do not be rebellious
toward him, for he will not pardon your transgression")
because God's name, that is to say his authority, "is
in him."
The Biblical interpretation of this angel and the pillar
appears in Revelation 10. Here John sees a mighty
angel clothed with a cloud, whose feet are like pillars
of fire (Rev. 10:1).* The imagery in Revelation clearly
identifies this angel as divine: a rainbow appears
over his head as in Eze. 1:28 (compare Rev. 4:3 where
the rainbow appears over the throne of the Father);
and also identifies him as Jesus: his face shines
like the sun as at the Transfiguration (Matt. 17:2),
he is clothed with a cloud as Jesus prophesied he would
be at his return ("coming in a cloud," Luke 21:27),
and he roars like the Messianic Lion of Judah (Gen.
49:9). It's Jesus: the Son, the arm, the angel of
the Lord--whose name means "Salvation."** And now
he starts to do his thing! The angel and the cloud
(the Holy Spirit) keep Pharaoh away so Moses can obey
the Lord and prepare their escape. The angel together
with the cloud are the "mighty hand and outstretched
arm" by which God sets his people free (Deut. 4:34,
5:15)!
* The two pillars are the pillar of cloud by day and
the pillar of fire by night (Ex. 13:21), symbols of
the Holy Spirit.
** "Yeshua" in Hebrew. This is one of the many pre-incarnate
appearances of the Son of God in the Hebrew Scriptures
(the Old Testament).
When Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, the
wind began to blow--an east wind, coming from the desert
(Ex. 14:21). It blew all night long and actually blew
the water out of the lake bed, which is what the words
of verse 21 actually say: "he made the sea dry land."
There is no mention of a narrow pathway through the
sea as we often picture it in religious art and movies.
The simple logistics of the crossing tell us that
for a couple of million people to file through in a
single or even several lines would have taken days
if not weeks. Only if the gap was at least 5 km (3
miles) wide could they have crossed in a single night.*
* This according to a report attributed to the Quartermaster
General of the Army. Vs. 22 says "the waters were
a wall to them on their right and on their left."
It gives no indication of how far apart these walls
of water were. The verse can also, and probably should,
be translated "the waters were a wall to the south
and to the north of them." The meaning may be that
the blown back waters protected them (like a wall)
by preventing Pharaoh's army from going around to the
north or south of the lake bed.
Although this was a fantastic miracle, it's not the
only time this has ever happened here. There are also
modern reports of the wind blowing back the water of
these lakes (Ali Shafei, Bulletin de la Societe royale
de Geographie d'Egypte, XXI, p. 278 in K. Kitchen,
"Red Sea" article in The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia
of the Bible, 1976).
But some have rejected the Bitter Lakes as the site
of the crossing, claiming the water levels were too
low. This is difficult to prove, since the water levels
of lakes in arid regions can vary dramatically from
year to year and season to season. But it wasn't the
depth of the water that killed them--surely some of
them knew how to swim! It was the force of the sediment-laden
flood waters as they rushed back into the lake bed,
creating deadly undertows and whirlpools as they washed
together--as in much more recent floods around the
world that have destroyed homes and lives.
The "morning watch" when God began to act against the
Egyptians was the last watch before dawn, from about
3-6 am (14:24,25). By sunrise all the army of Pharaoh
was destroyed (14:27,28). Wow! What an experience
of deliverance for the children of Israel!
Paul uses this experience as a picture of Christian
baptism (1 Cor. 10:1-2)--an experience that, as we
have seen, was a faith-testing "baptism of fire," with
complete victory over the enemy! In the early years
of Christianity this is exactly how they understood
baptism: as an empowerment to live a sinless life,
with total victory over Satan!
For the Israelites, it was a resurrection experience,
going from what seemed like certain death at the hands
of Pharaoh to total victory! So, too, Paul says, we
are baptized into Jesus' death in order to rise up
in his victory over the flesh (Rom 6:3-7). We're dead
to the slavery of Egypt. Now we've risen to follow
the Angel of God into the desert. This is a new kind
of life, in which our own strength is not enough.
But with him leading the way, we will have more than
enough. If we keep our eyes on ourselves, we'll be
defeated. But if we keep our eyes on Jesus, and keep
moving forward by faith, we'll make it all the way
to the Promised Land.
Stand strong! And see the salvation of God!
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Copyright c 2000 by Jeffrey J. Harrison. All rights
reserved.
If you know anyone else that would be interested in
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Articles section on the Classroom page.
To The Ends Of The Earth Ministries is sponsoring a
study tour to Israel in June 2001! Pastor Jeff Harrison,
who will be leading the tour, has studied with some
of the top Israeli archeologists and Christian scholars
in Jerusalem and led study tours full time while living
in Jerusalem. He now continues to lead tours to Israel
about every other year. This will be a rich time of
study of the Jewish roots of Christianity and the life
of Jesus in the Land of Israel. For more information,
visit the Tours page on our web site at www.totheends.com,
or e-mail us at Jeff@totheends.com
To The Ends Of The Earth is a Messianic/Christian teaching
ministry bringing you information from Israel on the
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