NOTES for Exo 14:28-29
Freedom! This is the main miracle that took place at the Red Sea: behind the Israelites ended the fertile land of slavery, and ahead opened the desert of freedom. More than once they will regret choosing this path, because freedom and death always walk side by side. All the other miracles - the pillars of fire and smoke, the journey through the sea on dry land, and everything that awaits Israel in the desert - are only testimony that God is near.
This will not keep them from doubting and grumbling at any convenient moment. But it is precisely in this, in the very possibility of believing or not believing (God, not miracles), that salvation from slavery is realized, where everything before had been reliable and constant.
But now before Moses and his companions there is only desert and sky: ideal conditions for understanding much and deciding much. God invites us also to make this step from slavery to freedom, from certainty to faith.