PHARAOH PURSUES THE ISRAELITES WITH CHARIOTS AND HORSES, AND THE SEA COVERS THEM.
Of their use in battle we find very early mention. For example, in Exod. xiv. 6 it is mentioned that Pharaoh made ready his chariot to pursue the Israelites; and in a subsequent part of the same chapter we find that six hundred of the Egyptian chariot force accompanied their master in the pursuit, and that the whole army was delayed because the loss of the chariot wheels made them drive heavily.
Then in the familiar story of Sisera and Jael the vanquished general is mentioned as alighting from his chariot, in which he would be conspicuous, and taking flight on foot; and, after his death, his mother is represented as awaiting his arrival, and saying to the women of the household, "Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why tarry the wheels of his chariot?"
During the war of conquest which Joshua led, the chariot plays a somewhat important part. As long as the war was carried on in the rugged mountainous parts of the land, no mention of the chariot is made; but when the battles had to be fought on level ground, the enemy brought the dreaded chariots to bear upon the Israelites. In spite of these adjuncts, Joshua won the battles, and, unlike David, destroyed the whole of the Horses and burned the chariots.
Many years afterwards, a still more dreadful weapon, the iron chariot, was used against the Israelites by Jabin. This new instrument of war seems to have cowed the people completely; for we find that by means of his nine hundred chariots of iron Jabin "mightily oppressed the children of Israel" for twenty years. It has been well suggested that the possession of the war chariot gave rise to the saying of Benhadad's councillors, that the gods of Israel were gods of the hills, and so their army had been defeated; but that if the battle were fought in the plain, where the chariots and Horses could act, they would be victorious.
So dreaded were these weapons, even by those who were familiar with them and were accustomed to use them, that when the Syrians had besieged Samaria, and had nearly reduced it by starvation, the fancied sound of a host of chariots and Horses that they heard in the night caused them all to flee and evacuate the camp, leaving their booty and all their property in the hands of the Israelites.
Whether the Jews ever employed the terrible scythe chariots is not quite certain, though it is probable that they may have done so; and this conjecture is strengthened by the fact that they were employed against the Jews by Antiochus, who had "footmen an hundred and ten thousand, and horsemen five thousand and three hundred, and elephants two and twenty, and three hundred chariots armed with hooks" (2 Macc. xiii. 2). Some commentators think that by the iron chariots mentioned above were signified ordinary chariots armed with iron scythes projecting from the sides.