Exodus 14:22 - Forerunner Commentary

Exodus 14:22

Commentaries:

No entry exists in Forerunner Commentary for Exodus 14:22.

Exodus 14:21-22
Excerpted from: The Wonderful Ordinance of Water Baptism

In addition to the miracle of the flood, one of the greatest miracles of the Old Testament was a forerunner and type of what true baptism pictures today. It was the Israelites' crossing of the Red Sea. When the Israelites fled Egypt and Pharaoh's army pursued them, Moses led the people through walls of water, mounting waves held back supernaturally.

Israel was "baptized" (or, as the word in the original Greek means, "immersed" or "plunged into") in the cloud and in the sea. The apostle Paul refers to this in:

Symbolically, the Israelites left their old lives in Egypt by going into what normally would have been a "watery grave." Anyone else on earth other than the Israelites would have been destroyed or killed in the waters of the Red Sea, as the Egyptians were.

In I Corinthians 10:11, God reveals that these Old Testament events occurred to be examples to Christians.

Israel had just come out of captivity in Egypt. God said that He was going to bring them up out of the land of oppression—that pagan land of strange customs and evil ways. So God sent Moses to deliver them from their bondage in the land of sin. Israel was in sin, living the wrong way. And God set His hand to deliver them.

After Israel's exodus from Egypt, God brought them to encamp beside Pi Hahiroth, before Baal Zephon. To Israel's amazement they found themselves trapped, with Egyptians closing in on them. The only way of escape was through the Red Sea.

When Israel saw Pharaoh's army pursuing them, they became filled with fear. However, Moses assured them of God's deliverance.

This type of "immersion" was a veritable grave for anyone who was not an Israelite at that time, and Pharaoh and his men all perished in it. Pharaoh was still in sin and therefore was doomed.

Israel went through the Red Sea, picturing the death of that former way of life—then, coming up out of the grave by God's grace, they were to enter a new way of life, a promised land.

And so in the New Testament God requires Christians to crucify the old man, the former way, and to come up out of a watery grave into a better way of life. We are to walk in newness of life. The Israelites were a type of that when they came through the Red Sea. After being baptized they came into a newness of life.

Israel's baptism was only a type. That baptism was under the Old Covenant, a physical agreement with physical ordinances and material rewards. But notice what God says about the New Testament Covenant.

Exodus 14:21-25
Excerpted from: Escape From Box Canyon

What this did was force both sides to go through with it: The Egyptians with attacking, and the Israelites with going across—just as God wanted to occur, so that His plan could move forward. There is also some symbolism in that the pillar was dark on the Egyptian side, which is an indication of wrath and judgment, darkness of death, and on the Israelite's side it was light. It says of Jesus, "In Him was light." Well, light stands for good, or favor. So He was comforting His people and giving the other side the willies. (You might want to write down Nahum 1:7-8—where it says that, in a nutshell, about His approach to the Assyrians.)

Now this stupendous miracle that occurred is unexplainable by natural means. If you go into a commentary and they start telling you, "Well, the wind did this, and. . ."—do not believe it, because there is no way a wind could pile up water on opposite sides of the people of Israel. That is what it says. It was a wall to their left and to their right. There is no wind in this world that could do it. Now, if it did, it would blow the Israelites and all their baggage to kingdom come. You have this 500,000 mile-per-hour wind, piling up water; and here are these Israelites yelling in terror and disaster. They would never make it.

But God piled that water up somehow on the one side, and He piled it up on the other; and then He sent a wind down the center, to dry the ground. And I think that the reason why Moses wrote it this way is because to them it looked like it was all one process. They could not explain it; but they felt the wind, drying the ground. So Moses stuck it in there, as whatever kind of an explanation he could come up with. He knew what it was though. The east wind made the sea into dry land.

At some point, God lifted the pillar of cloud; and the Egyptians pursued into the Red Sea. Now here (where most conservative scholars think the crossing was), the Red Sea was probably six to eight miles wide—at this point. So there was plenty of room to get quite a lot of Israelites (on the one end) and the Egyptian army (pursuing from the other end), and to get the entire Egyptian army between the walls of water before they came smacking down. This was a very large miracle that occurred. God had that water stand up in a heap, on both sides, for six to eight miles.

God causes the wheels of the chariots to fall off, and the Egyptians are stuck. So they begin to flee.

Exodus 14:20-22
Excerpted from: Baptized in the Sea

We see in verse 20 that at least part of the cloud came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel.

This is interesting too if you think of this as it being stretched over. The waters of the Red Sea were on their left hand and their right hand. So they were walking between water piled up, who knows how many feet high? But if this cloud went from before them all the way behind them, then they were also covered front, top, and rear with the cloud. So, in a way, it would be a type of total immersion in water—with liquid water on the sides, but gaseous water over the top, in front, and behind them. That is why I mentioned that other way in which the pillar of cloud could have gone. That seems almost to be Paul's understanding (when we get to I Corinthians 10).

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