Crossing of the Red Sea

The event

Pharaoh's change of heart came almost as quickly as his release of Israel. With his labor force gone, he mobilized his chariots and pursued the Israelites, trapping them, or so it seemed, between his army and the sea. Israel's fear in that moment is recorded with unusual candor — "Is it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness?" (Exodus 14:11) — a complaint that would become a recurring pattern throughout the wilderness years.

Moses' response set the tone for the whole crossing: "The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent" (Exodus 14:14). That night, the pillar of cloud that had been leading Israel moved behind them, standing between the camps of Egypt and Israel, and God drove back the sea with a strong east wind, splitting it so Israel walked through on dry ground with walls of water on either side. When the Egyptian army followed them into the seabed, the waters returned, and Pharaoh's entire pursuing force was destroyed.

The event produced one of the oldest pieces of poetry in the Bible, the Song of Moses in Exodus 15, sung by Moses and the people and then echoed by his sister Miriam and the women with tambourines. It celebrates the LORD as a warrior who has triumphed gloriously, and later biblical writers return to it again and again — the Psalms recall it as proof of God's covenant faithfulness, and it stands throughout Scripture as the definitive Old Testament picture of salvation: a people trapped and helpless, delivered by God's power alone.

Dating

The crossing follows within days of the Exodus itself and shares its dating question (see "The Exodus from Egypt"). The Hebrew term yam suph, traditionally rendered "Red Sea," literally means "Sea of Reeds" and has generated genuine, respectful debate among evangelical geographers over whether it refers to the body of water now called the Red Sea, one of its northern arms such as the Gulf of Suez, or a marshier lake region further north near the Bitter Lakes — a question of geography, not historicity. Scripture is unambiguous that a real body of water was miraculously divided and that Pharaoh's pursuing army was destroyed in it.

Scripture references

• Exodus 14:1-31
• Exodus 15:1-21
• Psalm 106:9-11