That is how He presents Himself in many occasions. He is the warrior King of Israel. I mean, how clear can it get when Moses says in Exodus 15,
And not only that, when you get to the Psalms, David writes in Psalm 18:34, which also appears in II Samuel 22:35, that God teaches my hands to make war.
It is one of the most frequent images of Him in the Old Testament, and it is among the oldest images of God in the whole Bible. And unlike the progressive commentators, we need to understand this subject properly because it provides us insight into His righteous character, as well as His position over Israel, and not just Israel, but the church and the whole world in actuality. And as we will see in a moment, it should increase our godly fear because He is not a God to be opposed. And you know what? He never loses. When He goes to battle, He always wins, and you do not want to be on the wrong end of that.
It is for this very reason that we see in chapter 14 that in Exodus 15, verse 3, Moses said, The Lord is a man of war. He saw Him at work, and he praised Him in this song of Moses as the great Warrior of Israel, who would fight for them and give them victory.
Now, this episode in Exodus 14 sets down several of the common factors that occur when God acts as a warrior. It is kind of a little template, we could call it, about how God works. And we will go into the reasons in a minute.
But oftentimes, as in this one, God allows His people to get into a situation that they cannot overcome, or maybe put it another way, where only He can overcome the situation. And then He promises to fight for them and tells them not to fear. Don't worry, I'm here. I can fight your battles for you.
And He watches over His people. He is very mindful of them. He makes sure that they do not come to harm and gives them proper instruction. And then He leads the enemy into a trap that He springs, and He miraculously decimates them. And after that, His people come out on the other side essentially unscathed and free to carry on without fear of their enemy because they have been totally destroyed. He does this time and time again.