When the Pharaoh realized that the great stone temples and pyramids of Egypt might never be finished, he was afraid because he had let the slave people go. So he ordered out his horses and chariots and drove hard after them till he caught them in camp beside the Red Sea. The frightened Hebrews began to cry and accuse Moses of deceiving them and leading them out into a great trap, to be killed like a million helpless sheep, by Pharaoh’s army.
But Moses told the wailing crowds not to be afraid. Before the king’s horses and men caught up with them a strong east wind came up and kept the tide from running in, thus leaving a bare sand bar right in front of them across that arm of the Red Sea. Moses commanded the people to march over as on dry land, an order which they lost no time in obeying. Then the Pharaoh and his horsemen came up behind and drove hard after them upon the sand bar. But the heavy chariots stuck in the mud beneath the sand, and when the Egyptians reached the middle the wind changed, and the tide, which had been held back so long, rushed in and drowned Pharaoh and his army. Then Miriam and Moses and Aaron led these million freed slaves in a grand victory chorus of song about their hairbreadth escape.
But the people were always scolding and complaining against Moses, the dear, gentle leader who had saved them from their cruel bondage. It was his patient love for his thankless people, while through forty years they wandered in the wilderness, that gave Moses the name of being the meekest man that ever lived.
At Mount Sinai Moses received from God and gave to the people the Ten Commandments, written on two tablets of stone. He spent his time during the long years of wandering in the wilderness in planning the laws and religion for his beloved people. He himself never entered the Promised Land, but died in the wilderness, somewhere on a mountain called Nebo. The Bible makes this statement of his death:
“So Moses the servant of the Lord died there. And he buried him in a valley, but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.”