“And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel: and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these: so that the one came not near the other all the night.”
It is singular that this blind king should so soon forget that there was a God in Israel, and that he was to come into collision again with that Being who had so often foiled, and finally, in the death of the first-born, had utterly crushed him.
But none are so blind or so heedless as the obstinate and the unbelieving. It will be seen that the battle that is soon to follow will end as before—in the defeat of Pharaoh, and, as some think, his death.
We have in this “angel of God” the same being that we have met so often before, who talked familiarly with Abraham and Jacob. He is the one who afterward came in the form of the flesh, and is called Christ.
This time His symbol was a cloud, and at night a pillar of fire. In such a large host as that of the children of Israel were at this time, it would be necessary that there be some elevated central object, so that those of the people scattered widely, in caring for the flocks and other like services, should not lose the location of the camp.
Some such arrangement was early found important in caravans crossing the deserts, so that it was customary to carry a round grate with fire, held aloft on a pole. The ancient Persians and some other nations carried a sacred fire in silver altars before their armies.
At night this cloud over the camp of the Israelites was illumined by some strong internal fire, so that the host dwelt amid the darkness of the desert as in a city brightly lighted. It was a marvelous miracle.
This cloud now changed its position as the Egyptians came near to the Israelites. It stood between the two hosts. Over the Egyptians it was a dense fog that cut off all their vision so that they could not tell what the Israelites were doing, while to the latter it was as though it had caught and held the rays of the setting sun, and poured a brilliant glory all over and through their encampment. The Egyptians, thinking that the rising sun will disperse the fog, wait for morning.
THE ISRAELITES ENTER THE RED SEA.
“And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.