Exodus 14:23-28

Meanwhile the waters formed a wall on the right, and on the left. According to Psalm 78:13, the Lord 'made the waters stand up like a heap.'

Sometime during the morning watch, the Lord looked down. In Scripture, this look is never just visual, but a demonstration of some wrath or mercy on God's part. From the pillar of fire and cloud, the Lord looked down at the Egyptian army as they began to pursue Israel across the recently formed valley in the sea, and threw it into confusion.

'God is not the author of confusion,' so the confusion came from the Egyptians themselves, whose minds became terrified leading to their confused state. God troubled the Egyptians with panic attacks. The army panicked, and became disarrayed, when God's presence became apparent, and they realized that they were up against a superior Challenger, and an overwhelming force.

This look of God took on concrete proportions, because the pillar of fire must have suddenly lit up the sky, with such a flash in the darkness that the chariots careened against one another. The horses were probably one on top of the other, as they scrambled to get away, and the chariots were probably tipping over. Meanwhile there was also unleashed such a spectacular display of thunder, lightning, rain, and earthquake, that the boldest and most arrogant of Egypt's charioteers were struck with terror.

By this time, the thoroughly distracted Egyptians had another problem: God made the chariot wheels come off, or jam against one another, so that the Egyptians had difficulty driving. They had enough, and were willing to forget about Israel altogether, but it was too late.

The Lord had begun His fight against Egypt as was promised. Israel had nothing to do at this point other than stand still and watch the victory won on their behalf; because with the upraised hand of Moses, the walls of water cascaded toward each other to resume their place, just as dawn broke.

Pharaoh lost all the men and chariots that he had committed to that engagement. The text never says that Pharaoh himself died here, even though Psalms 136:15, records that God "overthrew Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea."It leaves some doubt as to whether he was actually killed, or not. I have a note in my Bible, from the class at Ambassador College, Old Testament Survey; it says that Pharaoh lived for sixteen years after the destruction of his army. So, it is questionable, it is not firmly a fact, of whether he lived or not, but it appears in history that he lived for another sixteen years. But, when you look at Psalm 136:15, it seems to indicate that everyone died. Either way, he got the point that God is Sovereign.

Exodus 14:23-28

So while the Israelites walk across this dry causeway, God stays behind to harry the Egyptians, to slow them down, to keep them from plunging into the sea after the stragglers. He made their chariots hard to drive, and some commentators think that perhaps God allowed some of the water to start seeping back in along the road that they were taking—the dry causeway was now getting wet again—and it was causing them to drive in mud. And the mud, being sticky and all that way mud is when it starts to get deep, they could not drive their chariots quickly and it would very easily allow the wheels to pop off the axles.

He could have done it another way, that is just what they are thinking, to try a naturalistic way of working. It might have been that He just went down there with a bunch of angels and said, "Hey, start popping wheels," and all these chariots just fell down in the dirt and could not go anywhere. They were sleds now. Maybe, maybe not. But it is interesting that He went back there and He kind of had fun confusing that Egyptian army. He was going to show them, each individual Egyptian in that army, that he was at God's mercy at any time because He was in control of this situation.

He made the horses rear and balk. He put fear into the men and they soon became aware that pursuing Israel was a bad idea, but they were already between the walls of water, and when they came to this decision that they needed to get out of there, they turned and they fled as fast as they could back toward the western shore. But the Hebrew says that when they turned to flee back west, that the water began coming back in from the west, in their faces, so that they were here marching east, God harries them, they turn around to face the west to get out, and they could see the walls of water just bending in over there fellows who were in front of them, and the wave came right at them, in their faces. There was no escape. So it says there none lived to take the news back to the capital city, that the entire army was dead. "Snap" just like that. All those beautiful 600 chariots, all the other ones that were not as beautiful, all the horseman, all the horses, all the soldiers, everyone dead, not a one left standing, gone.