Episode 369 - "The LORD is present and before his people" - Exodus 13:17-22
Ex. 13:17 When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, “Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt.” 18 But God led the people around by the way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea. And the people of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt equipped for battle. 19 Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for Joseph had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones with you from here.” 20 And they moved on from Succoth and encamped at Etham, on the edge of the wilderness. 21 And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. 22 The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people.
Before I discuss this next section, I want to address an interpretation issue you may have heard about. The issue is concerning the body of water spoken of in Exodus, often translated “Red Sea.” When we look at the original Hebrew language, we understand that the translation is not correct. It’s actually the “Reed Sea” or “Sea of Reeds.” The mistranslation of the Red Sea occurred a few hundred years before the time of Jesus when Greek was a world language, thanks to the influence of Alexander the Great, and the Hebrew Scriptures were translated into Greek (called the Septuagint). Was this an intentional translation choice, meant to make the miracle of God’s parting of the water more amazing, since the Red Sea is so large? I don’t really know what led to this. It’s not really a problem. What becomes more problematic is what people want to do with that translation. Some, wanting to dismiss or downplay the miracle of the Hebrews’ escape and the drowning of Pharaoh’s army, suggest that the Sea of Reeds indicates a marshy area along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea through which the Hebrews made their escape. There are many problems with this view. First, Moses makes it clear that God did not lead them in that direction because it would have put them on the path to conflict with the Philistines. Second, that wouldn’t explain what happened to Pharaoh’s army. Certainly, they would not have drowned in a marshy area through which the Hebrew people had waded. Third, once we get to this miracle, the text makes it clear that this was a deep body of water and when the Hebrews passed through on dry ground, “the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.” (Exod. 14:22b) That doesn’t sound like a shallow, marshy area to me. Fourth, even if it were a shallow, marshy area, wouldn’t it still require a miracle of divine nature to part the water and for people to walk through on dry ground? It’s a ridiculous argument. Finally, the Hebrew term that gets translated Sea of Reeds does not appear to refer specifically to a specific body of water. It may have during the time of Moses and the conquest of the Promised Land. But in the Hebrew Scriptures it could mean the Gulf of Suez, the Gulf of Aqaba, which are both northern extensions of the Red Sea, or the Bitter Lakes north of the Gulf of Suez. In fact, many conservative scholars today believe that the Bitter Lakes is the likely body of water through which they passed. At the end of the day, the question comes down to whether one accepts the account that God worked an amazing miracle by delivering the Hebrews through a body of water on dry ground and destroying Pharaoh’s army pursuing them, or not. I will use the familiar term Red Sea, understanding that the LORD worked an amazing miracle as described in Exodus, with no concern for the precise location of this historical event.
This next section is a concise and interesting statement of what God did after Pharaoh let the people go. We might best sum it up by saying that the LORD led them via “the long way”, in a manner that left no ambiguity about his presence. But, as trivial as it may seem, I want to point out that the verb in Exodus 13:17 translated “let . . . go” is the same verb the LORD expresses through Moses in the many times he tells Moses and Aaron to tell Pharaoh, “Let my people go.” It’s almost like Moses is recording for his readers the fact that Pharaoh finally did what the LORD told him to do. Even if it wasn’t out of a heart of awe and worship. The LORD broke Pharaoh’s will, even if it was short-lived.
We are quickly informed that God’s way is not always the most direct path. The LORD knows that the Hebrews would quickly turn around and go back to what was familiar to them, even if it meant re-enslavement. I believe we can relate to this in terms of “enslavement” to our ways of life that are not aligned with God’s holiness and righteous ways. For example, people who have addictions and come to faith in the gospel of Jesus sometimes return to and struggle with those former addictions because it’s familiar and provides some distorted sense of pleasure, even if the person knows its destructive and controlling nature.
One might ask, “Well, if the LORD wanted to deliver the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt and into the land promised to Abraham and his descendants, couldn’t he just wipe out the Philistines and lead the people into the land without that challenge?” The answer is, “Certainly!” But the objective is not simply to move the people from Egypt to Canaan. The objective is to lead the people into a faithful covenant relationship with the LORD so they become a kingdom of priests, ministering the power and grace of the LORD to the nations. These people have a lot to learn. So, the LORD will use this journey to teach and test them. The LORD would not always cause the Israelites to avoid conflict. Plenty of that was to come. Even though they had not been warriors, they were equipped.
Joseph had trusted the LORD’s promise to Abraham and foretold that the LORD would deliver them out of Egypt. He would have no reason to want to be buried somewhere else if he didn’t believe the LORD was behind it and would fulfill his promise. Like his father Jacob, Joseph wanted to be buried in his homeland. Personally, I believe this conviction manifests the belief in resurrection and eternal life. I think the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob (Israel), and Joseph understood that the “everlasting” nature of God’s promise to them meant that they would experience it. Therefore, if they died (which they did), there must be a resurrection to eternal life. This seems to be what the author of Hebrews argues when he wrote, “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.” (Heb. 11:13-16) Moses and the people were sharing that faith when they took his bones from Egypt.
Finally, we are told that the LORD was always with them, ahead of them, and never departed from them. God doesn’t force people to follow him. But he makes his presence known to entice people to follow him.