Exodus 14 "A Red Sea pedestrian - and proud of it"

Exodus 14

Pharaoh has another change of mind – God does not lead the Israelites directly away from Egypt, but rather Pharaoh sees his cheap labour force apparently wandering aimlessly between the desert and the red sea.

Pharaoh has a habit of changing his mind, through the plagues he changed his mind when each plague stopped, he now regrets letting a huge labour force go, so he sends out the army to recapture the Israelites.

For the first time the Israelites start complaining that they would have been better off as slaves in Egypt.

Now comes a moment that is pivotal in the history of Israel, God instructs Moses, who stretches out his staff and a path is created through the sea.

The Israelites cross the sea on dry (ish) land but, when the Egyptian chariots follow them,it all goes horribly wrong. The chariots get stuck, the wheels come off and the 600 chariots basically get bogged down. 

It may be worth noting that chariots were the elite shock troops of armies at this stage in History, extremely powerful and fast they were the equivalent of tanks or possibly helicopter gunships in the modern army.

Moses stretches his hand again and the waters go back and drown the Egyptian army.

I heard a probably apocryphal tale of a sceptic and a believer talking about this – “It was a miracle” said the believer, “God led his people through the sea as on dry land.”

“You fool,” says the sceptic, “the sea there is only 2 feet deep”

“Well that is even more of a miracle”

If you have seen the film “Bruce Almighty” there is a moment there when Bruce realises he has the powers of God, at the time he is sitting in a diner with a bowl of tomato soup and there is "a parting of the red soup" moment.

I like to credit my sources and the title of this blog post comes from Monty Pythons Life of Brian. I happen to think it is very funny, if somewhat controversial (Even today).