“And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon dry ground: and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left.”
While the Egyptians were thus waiting, the Israelites were busy; they were making the best use of their time. They were making their escape by the way last of all thought possible—even the bottom of the sea!
The crossing was made in the neighborhood of what are now called the Bitter Lakes. This was then most probably the head of the Red Sea.
It was at a time of the year when the tide would help the action of the wind. If there were shoals or flats at the place where the crossing is supposed to have occurred, as there are now at Suez, the wind and the tide clearing a passage there would leave deep water on both sides of the passage-way, and this most probably is the meaning of the expression that the waters were a wall to them on either side.
“They were a defense; not necessarily perpendicular cliffs, as they were often pictured. God could make the water stand in precipices if He should so choose, and such a conception is more impressive to the imagination, but it is certain that the language of the text may mean simply that the water was a protection on the right and on the left flanks of the host. Thus, in Nahum 3:8, No (Thebes) is said to have the sea (the broad Nile) for the rampart and a wall—that is, a defense, a protection against enemies. It is true that in poetical passages the waters are said to have stood ’as a heap’ (Exod. 15:8; Psa. 78:13); but so they are also, in the same style, said to have been ’congealed in the heart of the sea,’ and the peaks of the trembling Horeb are said to have ’skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs’ (Psa. 114:4). Of course these expressions are not to be literally and prosaically interpreted.”
The wind thus prevailed all night, to keep the passage open until all the Israelites had crossed and the pursuing Egyptians had got well into the sea.
THE ENEMY FOLLOW CLOSELY.
“And the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them to the midst of the sea, even all Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots and his horsemen.
“And it came to pass that in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians.