Sunday, October 4, 2026 · Pentecost 19
Exodus 14:5–7, 10–14, 21–29
5 When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, the minds of Pharaoh and his officials were changed toward the people, and they said, “What have we done, letting Israel leave our service?” 6 So he had his chariot made ready and took his army with him; 7 he took six hundred elite chariots and all the other chariots of Egypt with officers over all of them.
10 As Pharaoh drew near, the Israelites looked back, and there were the Egyptians advancing on them. In great fear the Israelites cried out to the Lord. 11 They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, bringing us out of Egypt? 12 Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, ‘Let us alone so that we can serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.” 13 But Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today, for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again. 14 The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.”
21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and turned the sea into dry land, and the waters were divided. 22 The Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left. 23 The Egyptians pursued and went into the sea after them, all of Pharaoh’s horses, chariots, and chariot drivers. 24 At the morning watch the Lord, in the pillar of fire and cloud, looked down on the Egyptian army and threw the Egyptian army into a panic. 25 He clogged their chariot wheels so that they turned with difficulty. The Egyptians said, “Let us flee from the Israelites, for the Lord is fighting for them against Egypt.”
26 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, so that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and chariot drivers.” 27 So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at dawn the sea returned to its normal depth. As the Egyptians fled before it, the Lord tossed the Egyptians into the sea. 28 The waters returned and covered the chariots and the chariot drivers, the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea; not one of them remained. 29 But the Israelites walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left.
Notes
You've heard of public-private partnerships, but what about a human-divine partnership? The parting of the Red Sea might be the best example in the Bible. Why doesn't God just have the sea parted and waiting when the Israelites arrive? Instead, Moses stretches out his hand over the sea, and then the Lord drives the sea back. (The lectionary skips verses 15–20, where God says, "Why do you cry out to me? Tell the Israelites to go forward." I wrote a whole essay on that turn last month, Misused Scripture: Exodus 14:14, "The Lord Will Fight For You", so I won't repeat it all here.)
Notice too that the sea doesn't part instantly. "The Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night." God could have split the water with a word. Instead a wind blows for hours in the dark while the people wait. Nature cooperates as well. The sea doesn't just part: Moses responds to God, the wind responds to Moses, and the Israelites move forward. The Hebrew word for that wind is רוּחַ (ruah), which also means breath and spirit, and it has blown over water before. In Genesis 1:2, "a wind from God swept over the face of the waters," and a few verses later God says, "let the dry land appear" (1:9). In the flood story, where the lectionary started this fall, "God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided" (Genesis 8:1). Here the Israelites walk through the sea "on dry ground," בַּיַּבָּשָׁה (bayyabbashah), the same word as the dry land of Genesis 1. I'm pretty sure whoever shaped this story wanted us to hear creation in it.
I also want to linger with Pharaoh for a moment. After the last plague, he summoned Moses and Aaron in the night and told them, "Rise up, go away from my people.... Go, serve the Lord, as you said" (12:31). Now he hears they're gone, and "the minds of Pharaoh and his officials were changed." The Hebrew is more vivid: וַיֵּהָפֵךְ לְבַב פַּרְעֹה (vayyehafekh levav par'oh), "Pharaoh's heart was overturned." It's the same verb God used when the Nile was turned to blood (7:17). He goes from "Get out" to "What have we done?" in about two chapters.
Listen to how they describe the loss: "letting Israel leave our service." "Letting leave" is שִׁלַּחְנוּ (shillahnu), the verb behind yesterday's demand, "Let my people go" (5:1). "Our service" is מֵעָבְדֵנוּ (me'ovdenu), from the same root as the Hebrew word for slave. Even the NRSVue's "officials" are עֲבָדָיו (avadav), Pharaoh's servants, so Pharaoh's servants are upset about losing their own servants. The fight in Exodus has always been over whom Israel will serve. God's demand was "Let my people go, so that they may serve me in the wilderness" (7:16). Pharaoh wants them serving him.
Pharaoh isn't the only one looking back. When the Israelites see the chariots coming, they turn on Moses: "What have you done to us, bringing us out of Egypt?" Better, they say, "to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness" (vv. 11–12). There's that word again. The two complaints even match in Hebrew. Pharaoh asks, מַה־זֹּאת עָשִׂינוּ (mah-zot asinu), "What is this we have done?" Israel asks Moses, מַה־זֹּאת עָשִׂיתָ לָּנוּ (mah-zot asita lanu), "What is this you have done to us?" Pharaoh wants his workers back. The workers, staring down Pharaoh's chariots, want the only life they've known.
Have you ever been through a rough time, gotten out of it, and then, foolishly, wished you could go back? It happens more than we'd like to admit. The old misery was at least familiar. It had walls and a schedule, and the wilderness has neither. Israel will feel the pull again on Wednesday, when they get hungry (16:3).
Questions for reflection
Moses lifts his hand, and then a wind blows all night. Why do you think God works through a human arm and an east wind instead of just parting the water?
When have you caught yourself missing a hard season you'd already escaped? What made it look better from the other side?
