NOTES for Exo 13:17-14:31
When reading today’s passage, our attention is drawn first of all to the description of the sea waters parting (Ex 14:19–22). Yet this miracle, like all the miracles of the Exodus, could if desired be explained by entirely natural causes, as critically minded commentators have repeatedly done. God does not impose Himself, and miracles become miracles only for those who wish to see God’s hand in historical events. For those who do not, there remains only the natural course of events. Indeed, a strong wind from the desert could quite well have driven the water out to sea and made impassable places passable. The Hebrew text speaks not of the Red Sea proper but of the “Sea of Reeds,” which lay in the region of the Bitter Lakes (the Suez Canal now runs through this territory). The Bitter Lakes formed a system of lagoons connected with the Red Sea, so that a wind from the desert, driving the water out to sea, temporarily exposed the bottom and enabled the Hebrews to escape into the desert. Perhaps, however, the most important thing is connected not even with the miraculous crossing of the Sea of Reeds, but with God’s very presence accompanying the people on their way from Egypt to Sinai (Ex 13:21–22; 14:19–20). From then on, this presence would accompany God’s people throughout their subsequent history, appearing in different forms and situations. It is precisely this presence that makes God’s people the people of God. The parted waters are only one miracle, one example of God’s intervention in a situation when His people needed help. No nation on earth is worthy in itself to become God’s people. Only God’s immediate presence—His direct action, so to speak—can make worthy the nation He chooses to make His own. Yet even after being chosen, the chosen people remain chosen only so long as they remain faithful to the One who chose them. Therefore every generation will have to answer God’s call again and again, for there is no election without a real, living relationship with God. Such a relationship cannot be inherited and does not establish itself through some special “right of the chosen.” This is true of the Church of the Old Testament; it is all the more true of the Church of Christ.