Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Pharaoh with his forces pursues the Hebrews; they fear, and Moses strengthens them. Second, the angel in the pillar of cloud interposes himself between the Hebrews and the Egyptians, verse 19. Third, at verse 21, Moses with his rod divides the sea, and the Hebrews cross over. Fourth, at verse 29, the pursuing Egyptians are overwhelmed both by the angel and by the returning waters.
Vulgate Text: Exodus 14:1-31
1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 2. Speak to the children of Israel: Let them turn back and encamp before Phihahiroth, which is between Magdalum and the sea, over against Beelsephon; you shall pitch your camp before it, by the sea. 3. And Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel: They are hemmed in by the land, the desert has shut them in. 4. And I will harden his heart, and he will pursue you; and I will be glorified in Pharaoh and in all his army. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord. And they did so. 5. And it was reported to the king of Egypt that the people had fled; and the heart of Pharaoh and of his servants was changed regarding the people, and they said: What did we mean to do, that we let Israel go from serving us? 6. So he made ready his chariot, and took all his people with him. 7. And he took six hundred chosen chariots, and all the chariots that were in Egypt, and captains over all his army. 8. And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he pursued the children of Israel; but they had gone out with a high hand. 9. And when the Egyptians pursued after them, following their tracks, they found them encamped by the sea: all the horsemen and chariots of Pharaoh, and his whole army were at Phihahiroth, over against Beelsephon. 10. And when Pharaoh drew near, the children of Israel lifting up their eyes saw the Egyptians behind them; and they feared greatly, and cried out to the Lord, 11. and said to Moses: Perhaps there were no graves in Egypt, therefore you have brought us to die in the wilderness: what is this that you have done to us, to bring us out of Egypt? 12. Is not this the word that we spoke to you in Egypt, saying: Depart from us, that we may serve the Egyptians? For it was much better to serve them than to die in the wilderness. 13. And Moses said to the people: Fear not; stand firm and see the mighty works of the Lord which He will do this day: for the Egyptians whom you now see, you shall see them no more forever. 14. The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace. 15. And the Lord said to Moses: Why do you cry to Me? Speak to the children of Israel that they go forward. 16. And you, lift up your rod, and stretch forth your hand over the sea, and divide it, that the children of Israel may walk through the midst of the sea on dry ground. 17. And I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians that they may pursue you; and I will be glorified in Pharaoh, and in all his host, and in his chariots, and in his horsemen. 18. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall be glorified in Pharaoh, and in his chariots, and in his horsemen. 19. And the angel of God, who went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and with him likewise the pillar of cloud, leaving the front, stood behind them 20. between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel: and the cloud was dark, and illuminating the night, so that they could not come near one another during the whole night. 21. And when Moses had stretched forth his hand over the sea, the Lord took it away by a strong and burning wind blowing all through the night, and turned it into dry ground; and the water was divided. 22. And the children of Israel went through the midst of the dry sea: for the water was as a wall on their right hand and on their left. 23. And the Egyptians pursuing went in after them, and all Pharaoh's horsemen, his chariots and riders, through the midst of the sea. 24. And now the morning watch had come, and behold, the Lord looking upon the Egyptian camp through the pillar of fire and of cloud, destroyed their army: 25. and He overturned the wheels of the chariots, and they were carried into the deep. So the Egyptians said: Let us flee from Israel; for the Lord fights for them against us. 26. And the Lord said to Moses: Stretch forth your hand over the sea, that the waters may return upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and horsemen. 27. And when Moses had stretched forth his hand toward the sea, it returned at first dawn to its former place: and as the Egyptians were fleeing, the waters met them, and the Lord wrapped them in the midst of the waves. 28. And the waters returned, and covered the chariots and horsemen of the whole army of Pharaoh, who had entered the sea in pursuit: not so much as one of them survived. 29. But the children of Israel marched through the midst of the dry sea, and the waters were to them as a wall on the right and on the left. 30. And the Lord delivered Israel on that day from the hand of the Egyptians. 31. And they saw the Egyptians dead upon the seashore, and the mighty hand that the Lord had exercised against them; and the people feared the Lord, and they believed the Lord and Moses His servant.
Verse 2: Let them encamp before Phihahiroth, which is between Magdalum and the sea, over against Beelsephon.
This was the fourth station, or stopping place, of the Hebrews, in which they were hemmed in by the sea on their left, by the army of the pursuing Egyptians behind them, and by steep mountains before and to their right. Hence Pharaoh intended to catch them there like mice in a trap.
For "before Phihahiroth," the Septuagint renders apenantion tes epauleos, which Origen interprets as "before the winding ascent." Others translate it less well as "before the suburbs or farms," as though the Septuagint had taken the letter cheth for ain in Phihahiroth, and derived the name from 'ir, that is, a city; but the word Phihahiroth in Hebrew means "mouth of openings": for pe signifies "mouth," chur means "opening," so that Phihahiroth means the entrance into a cave enclosed by rocks and narrow; for "mouth" implies the narrows of an entrance. Likewise, "Magdalum" in Hebrew means "tower"; it was perhaps a fortress placed upon a mountain. "Beelsephon" in Hebrew means "house of the watchpost": all of which indicates that these places were steep and inaccessible. See the chorography of these places in the maps of Adrichomius.
Concerning the children of Israel — that is, about the children of Israel. So Virgil says: "Asking many things about Priam, many about Hector."
They are hemmed in. — In Hebrew, nebuchim, that is, they are perplexed, or confused; because clearly they are placed in a tight spot; and shut in on every side by rocks, the sea, and armed men, they will find no way out; and so I will destroy them by famine or by the sword, or rather I will reduce them to surrender and their former servitude.
Rabbi Solomon and the Hebrews fable that Beelsephon was a bronze dog, which by its barking betrayed the fleeing Hebrews, such as Abulensis testifies existed at Numantia in Spain.
Tropologically, for those striving from vices to virtue, from earth to heaven, a steep path must be trodden. So Origen.
"By the sea" — that is, at the sea, toward the sea, near the sea.
Verse 3: And Pharaoh will say.
When, having learned from scouts that the Hebrews were fleeing, and regretting having let them go, he will plan to pursue them in order to bring them back.
Verse 4: And I will harden his heart, and he will pursue you.
It is sufficiently clear from the preceding deliberation, verses 2 and 3, that Pharaoh freely hardened and steeled himself to pursue the Hebrews; yet God is also said to have hardened him, as I explained at chapter 7, verse 3, because without God's permission and certain providence, Pharaoh would never have hardened himself; for God, to whom all the orders of all things are subject, had established this order and course of events for Pharaoh, by which He foreknew that when these things presented themselves, Pharaoh would freely and of his own accord harden himself. For whatever in any way flows from God's providence, in the Hebrew idiom God is said to do; and Scripture frequently uses this expression, in order to commend in God the most profound and far-reaching providence over all things (to which even the wills of the impious are subject, and by which they are governed and directed, wherever they themselves choose to go).
But here there was also another particular reason for God's hardening of Pharaoh, namely, that God had led the Hebrews into these narrow places, indeed for His own purpose that the Hebrews might cast all their hope upon God, but from which He foresaw that Pharaoh would conceive a new occasion and desire to pursue them, arising from his former malice, tyranny, and obstinacy; God did not intend this evil will of his, but only positively willed to permit it, and this for the purpose of drawing Pharaoh by this means to the Red Sea, and there punishing and drowning him for his past crimes and rebellions. By a similar military stratagem, soldiers, to draw out the enemy and lure them into hidden ambushes, send out a few men who show themselves to the enemy — the enemy pursues them in squadrons; they gradually give way, and draw the enemy into the ambush: then an ordered battle line emerges, which surrounds and destroys the enemy; just as those few soldiers who drew out the enemy are said to have deceived him and dragged him into the ambush, when in fact they neither properly dragged him into the ambush nor deceived him, but only provided an occasion by which the allured enemy pursued them, and so by their own fault they were deceived, and they deceived themselves: in a similar way God acted here with Pharaoh, and therefore He is said to have hardened him to pursue the Hebrews.
God therefore hardened Pharaoh here by the command He gave to Moses, at verse 2, namely, that they should encamp at the Red Sea, before Phihahiroth among rocks and mountains; hence "and I will harden" amounts to saying: and so I will harden his heart; for God knew that Pharaoh, when he heard that Moses and the Hebrews had not merely gone on a three-day journey to sacrifice, but had fled outright, and that they were now hemmed in by the sea and rocks, would immediately return to his old nature and former intention of dominating the Hebrews, and therefore with hardened and steeled resolve would pursue them, because he would firmly persuade himself that he would overtake them, and that they could not escape his hands.
Secondly, God presented this occasion to Pharaoh both through messengers and through Himself, by placing before his imagination thoughts — in themselves indifferent — about the present situation, concerning the multitude of the Hebrews, their flight, and the ease of bringing them back, from which He knew Pharaoh would harden himself to pursue the Hebrews; and God permitted this because He had determined by this means to lure him to the Red Sea and there to drown him; for it was already entirely resolved with God that Pharaoh should be punished and put to death, and the sentence of death had already been pronounced against him by God; and in order to carry out this sentence conveniently, God used the aforesaid occasion, by which He drew him to the place of punishment; therefore in this passage "hardening" in God signifies nothing other than God's judgment and vengeance upon Pharaoh, by which He lured him to the slaughter at the Red Sea.
See here in Pharaoh how true is the maxim number 42 in the Sayings of St. Augustine: "Nothing is more unhappy than the happiness of sinners, by which criminal impunity is fostered, and the evil will, like an interior enemy, is strengthened."
And I will be glorified in Pharaoh — when I drown him, lured to the Red Sea, together with his entire army; for then my glorious power, justice, and vengeance will be manifest to all.
And the Egyptians shall know — both those present who were about to be drowned, as is clear from verse 25, and the rest who remained in Egypt, who were so stunned and stricken by the slaughter of their people and by fear of the God of the Hebrews, that each one called upon his own god because of the tasks that detained him on that day from following Pharaoh, and thus from being drowned with him, as Apollonius the Abbot says in Palladius's Lausiac History, chapter 52.
Verse 5: The heart of Pharaoh was changed regarding the people.
That is, the will and resolve of Pharaoh was changed against the people of the Hebrews, especially since the spoliation of the Egyptians inflamed his anger; for they now saw themselves stripped of the things they had only lent to the Hebrews.
Verse 7: And he took six hundred chariots.
For in ancient times they fought with scythed chariots, and from chariots; for the chariots with their scythes mowed down men, animals, and crops; and the soldiers fighting in the chariots themselves were carried along and charged against the enemy: the most ancient and earliest chariots of which we read are these of Pharaoh.
Tropologically, the chariots of Pharaoh are the chariots of vices, about which see St. Bernard, sermon 39 on the Song of Songs, where comparing Pharaoh with the devil, and Egypt with the world: "There," he says, "the people were led out of Egypt; here man is led out of the world. There Pharaoh is overthrown; here the devil. There the chariots of Pharaoh are overturned; here carnal and worldly desires, which war against the soul, are overthrown. Those in the waves, these in weeping. Those were of the sea, these are bitter. I think that even now the demons cry out, if perhaps they happen to encounter such a soul: 'Let us flee from Israel, for the Lord fights for him.'" Then he describes the princes and chariots of Pharaoh, that is, of the devil, thus: "For malice has its chariot consisting of four wheels: cruelty, impatience, boldness, shamelessness. For this chariot is very swift to shed blood; it is not stopped by innocence, nor slowed by patience, nor restrained by fear, nor checked by shame; and it is drawn by two exceedingly swift horses, ready for every destruction: earthly power and worldly pomp; two charioteers preside over these two horses: pride and envy; and pride indeed drives the pomp, while envy drives the power." In like manner, he says, the four wheels of lust are: idleness, softness of clothing, gluttony, and desire; the two horses are prosperity of life and abundance of things; the charioteer is the torpor of laziness and treacherous security. Similarly, the four wheels of avarice are: pusillanimity, inhumanity, contempt of God, forgetfulness of death; the two horses are tenacity and rapacity, with their charioteer, who is the passion for possessing; "for avarice alone, since it does not allow the hiring of more, is content with a single servant": thus far St. Bernard. The same, in his Sentences, says: "In Scripture, three chariots are found. The first is the exaltation of temporal power, whose charioteer is the swelling of presumption and boldness, having as its horse self-confidence. Its wheels are the headlong fickleness of vanity, and the fortunate succession of prosperity. This is the chariot of Pharaoh, in which he dies. The second is the height of conduct and life. Its charioteer is the word of divine admonition, having as its horse the vow of perseverance. Its wheels are the dreadful terribleness of punishments, and the wonderful delightfulness of rewards. This is the chariot in which the Eunuch rides with Philip, Acts 8. The third chariot is the loftiness of contemplation and grace. Its charioteer is the love of the heavenly homeland, having as its horse the desire for blessedness and life. Its wheels are the disapproval of worldly glory, and reverence for the divine majesty. This is the fiery chariot in which Elijah is caught up into heaven."
Captains. — In Hebrew, schalischim, that is, triumvirs (groups of three). Hence also the Septuagint translates "tristatae"; from this it appears that in that ancient time, three men were customarily appointed, and they were commanders in the army and in the courts of princes. Hence St. Jerome on Ezekiel chapter 23: "Tristatae," he says, "who are also called 'three standing together,' is the name of the second rank after royal dignity; of whom it is written, 2 Kings 23:19: 'He did not attain to the first three' (for David had three most valiant soldiers and commanders), who were chiefs of cavalry and infantry alike, and also of tributes, whom we call magistrates of both branches of the military, and prefects of the grain supply." Gregory of Nyssa in the Song of Moses, and the Greek Scholiast, say otherwise: The ancients, he says, made large chariots to hold three men, of whom one was the charioteer, and the other two were fighting soldiers; these are called tristatae, or they call tristatas the strong men, and those who could stand against three. Heavehius, however, says: Tristata is a royal bodyguard, because he hurled three javelins. Others say: Tristata is the same as a triarius [third-rank soldier].
Tropologically, the tristatae, or groups of three standing together, are demons who stand in all the paths of this life, in order to drive men to sin either in deeds, or in words, or in thoughts. So Origen.
Verse 10: And they feared greatly.
For they were not accustomed to battle and swords, but to burdens and the yoke: even though they were six hundred thousand armed men; for thus a hundred thousand peasants are easily dispatched by ten thousand trained soldiers.
And they cried out to the Lord — they burst forth into despairing cries; whence the unbelieving ones so harshly remonstrated with Moses: for they expected nothing but death or slavery, as follows. Therefore it does not seem true what Josephus says, that the Hebrews prepared themselves for battle, to engage with the Egyptians. For he repeatedly adds such things to the history that redound to the honor of his nation.
Verse 13: Fear not.
Moses gently answers the obstinate and unbelieving people, mindful of God's calling and of the salvation of the people rather than of insults.
Josephus says that Moses calmed and encouraged the tumultuous people with this speech: God willed that you be shut into this narrow place, so that here He might show His care and power toward you: this place, therefore, should rather excite you to hope; for God is most present in difficulties, when the least hope remains. He called you out of Egypt, He will give you the way and the exit; He Himself can turn these mountains into a plain, and this sea into dry land.
Mighty works. — In Hebrew, yeshuah, that is, salvation.
Verse 14: The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.
You shall rest, idly and pleasantly watching this battle and combat of God on your behalf.
Morally, see here how firmly we ought to hope in God in dire straits and invoke Him, and how fearlessly we ought to follow Him when He calls, through trackless and pathless ways, and believe against hope in hope with Abraham, that He Himself will protect us and lead us to a happy outcome. So the Psalmist, Psalm 26:3: "Though a host should encamp against me," he says, "my heart shall not fear; though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident." And Job, chapter 13, verse 15: "Even if He should kill me, I will hope in Him." Rightly St. Augustine in the Soliloquies, chapter 15: "In difficulties and straits, believe steadfastly in God, and commit yourself entirely to Him, as much as you can; so also He Himself will not cease to lift you up to Himself, and He will permit nothing to happen to you except what benefits you, even if you do not know it." So the Psalmist, Psalm 4:10: "In peace," he says, "in the selfsame I will sleep and I will rest: for You, O Lord, have singularly established me in hope." For hope does not confound; because God, who commands great things to be hoped from Him, is faithful, and greater and more generous than all our hope. Hence Sirach, chapter 2, verse 11, declares: "Know that no one has hoped in the Lord and been confounded." And Isaiah, chapter 40, verse 31: "Those who hope in the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not grow weary, they shall walk and not faint." And Habakkuk, chapter 3, verse 18: "But I will rejoice in the Lord, and I will exult in God my Jesus." For God, because He is magnificent, does not wish to be surpassed by our hope, but rather to exceed it: hence He surpasses the merits and the desires of those who supplicate.
Now the whetstone and foundation of this hope is a good conscience: "For if our heart does not reproach us, we have confidence toward God, and whatever we ask, we shall receive from Him," says St. John, 1 Epistle, chapter 3, verse 21.
Again, carefully note here and learn that the singular remedy against all temptations and tribulations is this: if one in these things does not become fainthearted, nor murmur, but generously resigns himself to God, and gives Him thanks. Hear the Holy Abbot, in the Lives of the Fathers, treatise On Fortitude: "A certain brother," he says, "was in his cell, and temptation came upon him, and if anyone saw him, he would neither greet him nor receive him into his cell; and if he needed bread, no one would lend him any; and if he came from the harvest, no one, as was the custom, would invite him to eat. But once he came from the harvest in the heat, and had no bread in his cell; and in all these things he gave thanks to God. And God, seeing his patience, took away the war of temptation from him. And behold, someone immediately knocked at the door, bringing a camel loaded with bread; and when that brother had seen this, he began to weep, saying: Lord, I am not worthy even to be afflicted a little. And when his tribulation had passed, the brothers would keep him in their cells and give him rest." You, then, who are despised, who suffer hatred, who are mocked, who are distressed, who are afflicted — follow and try this practice, give thanks to God: God will change hearts, and will make all people well-disposed toward you, and will remove the temptation. I know those who have experienced this very thing in reality, and not just once. Rightly therefore St. Chrysostom, volume 5, wrote a homily with this theme: "That the greatest gain in tribulations is the giving of thanks."
Finally, see here in the Hebrews how true is that saying of Isaiah 30:15: "In hope and silence shall be your strength." What is silence? How valuable is taciturnity? Hear John Climacus, step 11: "Taciturnity is the mother of prayer, the recall from captivity, the guardian of the fire of divine love, the diligent inspection of thoughts, the lookout against enemies, the friend of tears; the producer of the memory of death, the indicator of judgment, the spouse of quiet, the addition to knowledge, the secret progress toward God, the hidden ascent." I shall say more about silence at Isaiah 30.
Verse 15: And the Lord said to Moses: Why do you cry to Me?
Scripture, in the Hebrew manner, passes over the preceding event in silence, namely that Moses had prayed before God with a fervent elevation of mind to Him, and had spoken those things which he had said to the Hebrews a little before, at verses 13 and 14; and therefore God, hearing him, says: "Why do you cry to Me?" — not reproving his prayer, but gently consoling him, teaching and stirring him up to hope for and to attempt the following miracle, namely the crossing of the Red Sea. For among the Hebrews the interrogative form often has this force, as that of Christ to His mother: "What is it to Me and to you, woman?" — it is not a rebuke, but a testing of hope that sharpens it. So in Genesis 47:49, the Egyptians say to Joseph: "Why should we die before your eyes?" And the Lord to Moses, Exodus chapter 4, verse 2: "What is that you hold in your hand?"
Furthermore, "a cry," says St. Bernard, sermon 16 on Psalm 90, "in the ears of God is a vehement desire"; by contrast, a slack intention is a muffled voice. So St. Augustine, Question 52, and St. Jerome on Psalm 5, and St. Chrysostom, in his homily On the Canaanite Woman, where he beautifully teaches how everywhere, even while we are engaged with others, we ought to cry to God with our mind. Truly did he say: "With God, what avails is not a great cry, but a great love." And Cassiodorus on Psalm 16: "His prayer is perfect, whose cause cries out, and his tongue, and his action, and his speech, and his life, and his thought." And St. Augustine in a sermon: "When you pray," he says, "cry not with your voice, but with your mind. For God hears even the silent, nor is a place required, so much as feeling. Jeremiah is strengthened in prison, Daniel exults among lions, the three youths dance in the furnace, Job naked on the dunghill triumphs, the thief finds paradise from the cross: there is no place where God is not."
Verse 16: That the children of Israel may walk through the midst of the sea.
Through the deep and vast sea itself; "midst" here therefore does not mean precisely the middle; as that poet says: "In the midst of the waves we shall thirst."
Verse 17: And I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, that they may pursue you.
For I will place before their eyes and minds your footprints (and you crossing the sea on dry foot), which they will follow confidently and boldly, not knowing that a snare is being prepared for them there. Furthermore, God here took from the Egyptians the apprehension and fear of walking through the bed of the Red Sea; hence they entered through it as boldly as through dry land, to pursue the Hebrews. Thus, therefore, God blinded and hardened them, so as to lure them into this trap, catch them, and overwhelm them.
Verse 19: And the angel of God, who went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them, and with him likewise the pillar of cloud.
"The angel," namely, hiding in the pillar of cloud and showing himself in it: for the Hebrews did not see the angel in his own essence, or clothed in human or any other form, but only moving in the appearance of a cloud. So Rupert. Hence the Hebrew has: The angel set out, and with him the pillar of cloud set out.
From this you may conclude with Cajetan that these things happened during the day: for the pillar of cloud appeared only by day, just as the pillar of fire appeared only by night.
Furthermore, by this spectacle — namely, that the angel with the pillar, which had been going before the camp, transferred himself to the rear of the camp and followed it, and thus interposed himself between the camp of the Hebrews and that of the Egyptians — God was signifying that He bore a solicitous care and protection over His people, and so closed the ranks of the Hebrews as to protect them all from the Egyptians, in the manner that follows.
Note: Although the pillar here followed the camp from behind, nevertheless it simultaneously sent forth certain rays from itself far ahead before the first line of march, to show the way by which they should proceed to the Red Sea: for the Hebrews were continuously advancing, as God had commanded at verse 15.
In a similar way, an angel led the armies of Christians who were wandering astray in the Holy Land. For in the year of our Lord 1144, when the army of Christians, surrounded by ambushes and driven into the direst straits, was retreating from besieging Bosra, the metropolis of Arabia, led by a heavenly messenger they all returned safely to their own lands. When, therefore, they had fallen into unavoidable dangers, and all were wandering astray, off the road and not on it, and were hemmed in by the narrowness of the terrain, about to be cut down by attacking enemies, and had no leader to go before the columns and who would have knowledge of the places through which they were to pass: behold, suddenly a certain unknown soldier, riding a white horse, carrying a red-colored banner, wearing a coat of mail with sleeves short to the elbows, was going before the army. This one, as if the angel of the Lord of hosts, following the shortcuts of the roads, taught them to make camp at previously unknown springs of water in suitable and convenient stations: and when he had led them all the way to Jerusalem, having accomplished this admirable ministry, he soon vanished from the eyes of all. So William of Tyre, book 16 of the Holy War, chapter 12, and from him Baronius, at the year of Christ 1144.
Verse 20: And the cloud was dark; and illuminating the night, so that they could not come near one another during the whole night.
That is to say, this pillar of cloud, on the side facing the Egyptians, so thickened and spread itself out like a dense cloud, that the Egyptians could neither see nor approach the Hebrews; yet they followed the pillar of cloud going before them: the same pillar, however, on the side facing the Hebrews, had the appearance of fire, illuminating their camp, so that they could set out and cross the Red Sea; for the Hebrews were continuously advancing throughout this night, as I have already said.
Hence the Chaldean [Targum] translates: there was a cloud, and darkness for the Egyptians. But for Israel there was light the whole night. Behold how by the same pillar God protects His own and strikes His enemies. So tropologically, says Rupert, the same virtue that gives light to the pious, blinds the impious; so the cross of Christ is power for believers, but a stumbling-block for the Jews.
Verse 21: And when Moses had stretched forth his hand over the sea, the Lord took it away by a strong and burning wind blowing all through the night, and turned it into dry ground.
Having first invoked God, says Josephus. Some think, as St. Basil in the Catena, that this division of the sea was accomplished by the burning wind, either driving and pushing out the waters, or drying them up and consuming them; but this is scarcely credible, for the same wind could not have both driven or dried up the waters and at the same time held them back from flowing down into the empty channel. Secondly, even granting that this could have happened, nevertheless as soon as the wind ceased, the elevated sea waters would have flowed back into their former, and so deep, channel; and the wind did cease while the Hebrews were crossing, since otherwise it would have made their passage most difficult.
Therefore, when Moses stretched out his rod over the sea, immediately not the wind but the angel divided the sea, so that on both sides the water rose up like a wall and stood firm, leaving a path in the middle by which the Hebrews could cross; the wind, however, was sent by God only for this purpose: to thoroughly dry and solidify the channel that was already divided and emptied of water, by removing whatever remained in it of moisture and mud.
The division of the sea, therefore, across such a great breadth, was done suddenly by the angel; but the drying of the sea floor by the wind was done gradually, says Cajetan. So also Abulensis and Pererius.
Note: This division of the sea was immense, both in breadth (for the Red Sea has a span of six leagues in width, as Adrichomius teaches) and in length; for the entire camp of the Hebrews, which besides chariots and pack animals, easily numbered three million persons, had to cross through it in the space of one night, indeed of only half a night: therefore the length of this cleft in the sea had to be enormous, so that very many rows of people and animals could enter and cross through it simultaneously: for if they had crossed one after another, they would have spent in the crossing many days, and even weeks.
St. Hilary, imitating this confidence of Moses, performed a similar miracle at sea. For when surrounded by pirates, while all were trembling, he smiled and said: "O you of little faith, why do you tremble? Are they more numerous than the army of Pharaoh? Yet they were all drowned at God's will." And stretching out his hand against those approaching: "It is enough that you have come this far" — and immediately the pirates, however much they rowed, were driven back to the shore, says St. Jerome in his Life.
By a strong and burning wind. — In Hebrew it is: with a strong east wind. Now the east wind is hot and burning. The Septuagint and Philo think it was the south wind, and consequently that the sea was brought back by the opposite wind, namely the north wind, when it overwhelmed the Egyptians; for just as the south is reckoned with the east, so also the south wind is reckoned with the east-southeast wind. See what was said at chapter 10, verse 13.
Note: The Hebrews approached the sea at the beginning of the night, and of the first watch: immediately Moses struck the sea, and the angel at once divided it, and at once brought in a strong and burning wind, which blowing continuously from the beginning of the night until midnight and beyond dried the channel: once the channel was dried and the wind had ceased, the Hebrews after midnight, in the third watch, entered the bed of the sea, and around the middle of the fourth watch, they all emerged on the other shore: the Egyptians, however, around the end of the third watch, pursuing the Hebrews, entered the sea; but as morning approached in the fourth watch, when the Hebrews had already crossed the sea, and all the Egyptians were in the midst of the sea, that is in the sea's channel, immediately when Moses struck the waters with his rod, they returned to their former place, returning to the channel, and covered and overwhelmed Pharaoh and all the Egyptians.
Josephus reports that Moses prayed thus: "This sea is Yours, O Lord, this mountain that shuts us in is Yours: if You will, it can at Your command be opened, and the sea turned into land; we can even escape through the air on high, if it pleases You to save us in that way."
The whole night. — Not that this wind blew the whole night, but that it blew for the greater part of it, namely until the entry of the Hebrews into the sea, which took place after midnight; for before dawn they had not only entered but also crossed the bed of the sea, the wind having already ceased. For after the Hebrews crossed the sea, the Egyptians pursuing them were submerged in the morning watch.
And the water was divided. — The Hebrews relate, followed by Origen here in homily 5, and Genebrardus on Psalm CXXXV, that the Red Sea was divided into sections or parts, so that the 12 tribes walked through it with equal pace: for each tribe walked in its own section. And they prove this from Psalm CXXXV, verse 13, where it says: "Who divided the Red Sea into divisions"; therefore there were more, namely 12, for that was the number of the tribes.
But this tradition is uncertain, for there is no mention of it in Scripture, which would not have been silent about so memorable a thing; rather, Philo, Theodoret, Abulensis, Lyranus, and Euthymius on Psalm CXXXV, and others, teach that there was only a single division of the sea. And Scripture sufficiently indicates this when it says the water was divided, where the Hebrew has iibbakeu hammaim, and the Septuagint dieschisthe to hydor, "the water was split," just as we split wood when we cut it into two parts. Then in verse 22, it says the water was a wall on the right of the Hebrews and on their left, and that they walked through the middle of the channel: therefore there was one division, not twelve. Also supporting this view is what is said in Psalm CV, verse 9: "He led them in the deep as in a desert," that is, by a very wide road, such as are found in the desert, for example in the heathlands of Campania; therefore there was only one division of the sea, and that a very wide one.
To the passage from Psalm CXXXV, I respond: One division is called "divisions," partly because one was equivalent to many, says Lyranus; partly because "divisions" is used for things or parts that are divided; and these were indeed more than one, that is, two: for the Hebrews have the same plural and dual number, whence they call two things "many." "Divisions" here therefore means the two sides of the divided sea, which stood like two walls on either side, providing a passage through the middle for the Hebrews. Moses explains these divisions here when he says that God so divided the sea that the waters were as a wall for the Hebrews on the right and on the left.
Verse 22: And the children of Israel entered through the middle of the dry sea.
With Moses going before them, says Josephus. The tradition of the Hebrews is that the tribe of Judah and its leader Aminadab, while the others hesitated, were the first to enter the sea, and that therefore the tribe of Judah was afterwards the first and leader of the others, and deserved the kingship; and that this is alluded to in Canticles chapter VI, verse 11: "My soul troubled me because of the chariots of Aminadab." And Hosea chapter XI, last verse: "But Judah descended as a witness with God, and is faithful with the saints"; although St. Jerome there calls this tradition a fable.
Note the word "dry": for the bottom of the sea was not dry as sand is dry, but dry as a field is dry through which travelers walk pleasantly with dry feet. For this is what the Wise Man says in chapter XIX, verse 7: "In the Red Sea a way without impediment, and a field sprouting from the exceeding deep"; although Jansenius explains this figuratively, as if to say: The Hebrews crossed through the bed of the sea as pleasantly as if they had crossed through a field blooming with foliage and flowers; yet our Joannes Lorinus there, and Pineda on Job chapter XXVI, verse 5, more correctly take it literally. For Pliny reports, book XIII, chapter XXV, that the bed of the Red Sea is grassy, fertile in olive and laurel. Our Gaspar Sanchez adds, on Isaiah chapter LXIII, verse 53, that God, just as He dried and leveled the bed of the Red Sea for the Hebrews by a miracle, so also by a miracle caused that same bed to suddenly sprout and bloom like a most pleasant field, for the consolation and delight of the Hebrews. For the Wise Man there celebrates not the works of nature, but the miraculous works of God.
See here the goodness and power of God toward His own: "If you obey His will, if you follow His law, He will compel even the elements, even against their own nature, to serve you," says Origen. So He made fire serve the three youths in the Babylonian furnace, so that it sent them a gentle breeze and, as it were, a cooling wind of dew, while it burned the impious Chaldeans. So He made the waters of the flood serve Noah, carrying and preserving him in the ark, while drowning the impious. So He made the lions serve Daniel in the den; the sun serve Joshua for pursuing victory, Joshua X, 13; the Jordan serve the Hebrews for crossing into Canaan, Joshua III, 46; the thunder serve Samuel, 1 Kings XII, 18; the ravens serve Elijah, to bring him bread; the bears serve Elisha, to tear apart the boys who mocked him. So for Christ and the Apostles there served fire in Pentecost; the air and winds, when at His command they fell silent; the sea, when He walked upon it, and when at His command it gave Peter the fisherman an abundance of fish; the earth and rocks, when they were split at the Passion; the Angels, when they gave the star indicating the birth of Christ to the Magi, and when they sang: Glory to God in the highest. So the fish and birds served St. Francis, when they applauded and sang at his preaching, and at his command again fell silent. So the Satyrs and Fauns showed St. Anthony the way to St. Paul, and lions dug with their claws the grave in which to bury St. Paul. So a mountain served Gregory the Wonderworker, moving from its place so that he could build a church; likewise the river Lycus, contracting itself so as not to flood the fields. So the winds served the pious Emperor Theodosius, turning the weapons of the enemy back upon themselves, in the battle against the tyrant Eugenius. So the spiders served St. Felix of Nola, weaving their webs over him suddenly, so that he would not be found by his pursuers. His feast is celebrated on January 14th.
The false Moses of Crete pretended to wish to imitate this miracle of Moses, in the time of Emperor Theodosius, around the year of the Lord 433. Hear Socrates, book VII of his History, chapter XXXVII: "A certain Jewish impostor," he says, "pretended to be Moses, and said he had been sent from heaven, to lead the Jews who inhabited the island of Crete through the sea to the mainland, to the promised land: for he was the same one, he said, who had once preserved Israel by leading them through the Red Sea. When the day appointed by him arrived, he went ahead, and all followed. He led them therefore to a promontory overhanging the sea: from there he commanded them to throw themselves into the sea. The first ones did so; and some were killed by the fall, others perished drowned in the water; and many more would have perished had not Christian fishermen and merchants pulled them out, and prevented others who wished to throw themselves in. When the false Moses was sought, he could not be found: whence the opinion arose that he was a demon. Afterwards many Jews were converted to Christ."
Orosius reports, book I, chapter X, that the traces of this entrance and crossing of the Hebrews, and the tracks of chariots and the ruts of wheels, remain and are always divinely renewed, both on the shore and in the Red Sea itself (where he adds that around this time the burning of Phaethon also occurred). Diodorus in the Catena, who was the teacher of St. Chrysostom, indicates the same, and adds that the Gentiles attributed this dry-foot crossing of the Hebrews through the sea not to a miracle, but to the ebb and flow of the sea. The people of Memphis said the same, according to Eusebius, book IX of the Preparation, last chapter; indeed even Josephus doubts whether this division of the sea was miraculous or natural. "For under the leadership of Alexander the Great," he says, "the Pamphylian Sea also yielded and opened a way, since God had decided to use his efforts for the destruction of the Persian empire."
But it is most clear that this division of the sea was a great miracle: for no ebb and flow of the sea splits the sea so that in the middle of it there is a very wide road for crossing, as happened here; for the ebb of the sea only bares the shores of water, or places near the shores. Again, no ebb of the sea causes the waters on either side to rise up like a wall and stand motionless until the people have passed, and then roll back upon the enemies pursuing them.
What Josephus says about the Pamphylian Sea, that it yielded to Alexander, is a fable; for, as Strabo teaches, book XIV, Alexander did not cross it by penetrating and traversing it, but only by skirting along its shore, and he crossed with his men only up to the navel; yet he had good fortune in this audacity of his, in that, crossing it in winter, he was not overwhelmed by the returning waves.
Note: Similar to this division of the sea was the division of the Jordan, made under Joshua, through which the Hebrews penetrated into Canaan; yet it differed from the former in several ways. First, the division of the sea was made through Moses, extending his rod over it, while the division of the Jordan was made through the presence of the Ark of the Lord. Second, in the divided sea the waters stood like walls on both sides; but in the Jordan the lower part flowed down into the Dead Sea, while the upper part stopped and swelled continually with the inflowing waters; and when the Hebrews had crossed, it did not suddenly but gradually subsided and flowed away, lest it overwhelm the banks and fields, and in this respect the division of the Jordan was more marvelous than that of the Red Sea. Third, in the sea the Egyptians were submerged; but no one was drowned in the Jordan. Fourth, in the sea God sent a wind to dry the muddy bottom; but He did not do this in the Jordan, because its bed is small and sandy.
From this it is clear that the division of the sea was far greater and more marvelous than that of the Jordan. Hence the Canaanites and other Gentiles, upon hearing of it, were astonished and fainted, as is evident from Joshua II, 11, and Judith chapter V, verse 12.
Allegorically, the Apostle says in 1 Corinthians X: "Our fathers were baptized in Moses in the cloud and in the sea." They were baptized, namely in type and in figure, as the Apostle himself says there; for the crossing of the Hebrews through the Red Sea signified that Christians, through baptism and the blood of Christ contained in baptism, cross over into a new life of grace; the cloud signified the sanctification of the Holy Spirit, Moses signified Christ, the rod the cross, Pharaoh the devil and sin, the manna the Eucharist. So say Theodoret, Origen, and Ambrose, book II On the Sacraments, chapter VI; Augustine, sermon 90; Prosper, part I of the Predictions, chapter XXXVIII; Tertullian, book On Baptism, chapter IX; Cyprian, epistle 76 to Magnus, and others.
Tropologically, Gregory of Nyssa beautifully teaches in the Life of Moses how we must drown vices with their weapons. "For the horsemen of the Egyptians," he says, "the foot soldiers and chariots, are the passions of the soul, by which man is subjected to servitude. For what does unbridled anger, unrestrained pleasure, immoderate grief, the foulness of avarice differ from that Egyptian army? Is not the force of anger like a trembling spear? Do not excessive pleasures torment the soul like unbridled horses pulling a chariot here and there? There were also officers in the chariots, namely three warriors in each, by whom we believe is understood the tripartite power of the soul, namely the rational, the concupiscible, and the irascible — these three powers corrupted." Then he teaches that all these things are drowned in baptism, and when we emerge from it, we must draw nothing from them, but leave everything submerged in the water.
Verse 24: And now the morning watch had come, and behold the Lord looked down upon the camp of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire.
The word "looked down" signifies that the pillar of cloud, as it were, opened itself, so that the Angel hidden within it might show himself through a flashing light, and look upon the camp of the Egyptians, and immediately hurl upon them thunder, lightning, stones, or fiery missiles, by which he dislodged the wheels and threw the riders from the chariots, as is said. Hence also the Egyptians said: "Let us flee from Israel, for the Lord fights for them against us." So say Lyranus and others. Hear also Josephus: "There came also," he says, "rains from heaven, and harsh thunder with lightning flashing together; bolts of lightning were also hurled down; and nothing at all was lacking of those things that an angry God is accustomed to send upon men for their destruction. For a night exceedingly dark and gloomy overtook them, and thus that entire army was destroyed, so that not even a messenger of the disaster returned home." Hence also here, in verse 28, it is said: "Not even one of them survived." See here how true is that saying: "Fortune is glass; while it shines, it breaks."
He destroyed the army — a part of the army; it is a synecdoche: for another part, terrified by this heavenly slaughter of their own, while preparing to flee, was swallowed up by the returning waters.
Note here that this disaster from heaven, inflicted by the Angel, occurred before the sea was rolled back by Moses; for after the Angel's destruction, the terrified Egyptians fled, and as they fled the waters of the sea returning to their channel met them, now recalled by Moses, and by these waters the remaining part of the army, surviving the earlier destruction, was swallowed up and drowned, as is evident from verse 26 and following.
Josephus writes that in this disaster there perished in all two hundred thousand Egyptian shield-bearing infantry, and fifty thousand cavalry. Pharaoh himself also perished, but last of all, if we believe the Hebrews and Abulensis, so that he might first behold the slaughter of all his men before he himself perished by the same fate, and thus be tortured longer and more grievously. Eusebius in his Chronicle calls this Pharaoh Cenchres.
Verse 25: And He overturned the wheels of the chariots.
The Septuagint translates, "he impeded" or "bound the wheels of the chariots." Hence they seem to have read, instead of vaiasar, that is, "he removed, cast off, overturned," the word vaiatser, that is, "he constrained," so that they could not advance. Hence also Vatablus translates, "he constrained the wheels of the chariots, and led them with difficulty," as if to say: The Egyptians drove their chariots with great difficulty, as chariots are wont to be driven with great difficulty when the wheels are constrained or removed. But the Hebrew has vaiasar, and so read the Chaldean, our Vulgate, and others.
And they were carried into the deep. — For the chariots, previously raised up by their wheels, now with the wheels thrown off, were pressed down together with the wheels into the deep, that is, into the very channel of the sea already emptied of water and soon to be filled again. In the Hebrew it is, he drove them, namely the wheels, "into heaviness," that is, into the deep; it is a metalepsis, because heavy things tend toward the bottom and the deep: hence "heaviness" is called depth itself.
Morally, learn here first how true is that saying from Wisdom: "The life of every power is brief," and especially, "the life of every tyranny is brief." Behold Pharaoh, warned by Moses, and despising those warnings: when he most fiercely oppresses the Hebrews in brick and mortar, after one month he is stripped of life and kingdom. Julius Caesar, usurper of the empire, after three years was stabbed to death by senators in the senate house. Cyrus reigned only three years from his monarchy, that is, from the capture of Babylon, and was slain by Tomyris, queen of the Scythians; his head was cut off and thrown into a bag full of blood, and she, taunting him, said: "Sate yourself, Cyrus, with the blood for which you so greatly thirsted." Alexander the Great ruled as sole monarch only six years after the death of Darius. Wherefore Apelles painted him as a thunderbolt, because just as it suddenly appears, so also it quickly vanishes.
Second, how true is that saying of the Poet:
To the son-in-law of Ceres (to Pluto, to Orcus), without slaughter and bloodshed few
Descend as kings, and tyrants die a dry death.
For God's just vengeance watches over tyrants, so that those who stripped others of life and goods are themselves violently stripped of the same by others. So Pharaoh, so Caesar, so Cyrus, so Alexander were removed by violent death. So the tyrants Diocletian and Maximian swore they would utterly destroy the Christians or lay down their power: wherefore, since they could not destroy the Christians, on the same day they indignantly laid down their power; and shortly after, Maximian, wishing to resume power, was driven to the noose at Marseilles by Emperor Constantine; Diocletian was consumed by wasting disease and rot sent by God. So the Emperor Aurelian, persecutor of Christians, after a year was captured by the king of Persia and became the laughingstock of the world: for the king used him as a footstool when mounting his horse; Tamerlane, king of the Tartars, did the same to Bayezid, tyrant of the Turks. So Julian the Apostate, after two years of rule, was struck down by a heavenly weapon. So Valens the Arian, persecutor of the orthodox, was burned in the marshes by the Goths in a hut to which he had fled in defeat. So Anastasius, the heretical and impious Emperor, was struck by God with lightning and cast into the underworld. So Nero, unable to kill himself due to weakness, was slain by his own eunuch. So Decius, Maxentius, Domitian, Otho, Galba, Vitellius, and very many other tyrants perished by swift and violent death.
Third, learn here the vanity of kingdoms and the pageantry of the world. What is human life? It is a comedy, in which one plays the role of a king, another of a soldier, another of a peasant, another of a counselor, another of a citizen. At death this comedy is finished; then each one puts aside his role, which he played, his garments, his titles. Marcus Antonius, as Seneca reports, book VI On Benefits, chapter III, when he saw his fortune passing to another, to Caesar, and that nothing was left to him except the right to die, said: "I have whatever I have given away." Augustus Caesar himself, who reigned 52 years in such felicity and glory, when dying summoned his friends and asked them: "Have I played my part well enough?" — meaning in his rule, as if in a comedy; and when they nodded: "Farewell then," he said, "and applaud"; and drawing back the curtains, the wretched man breathed his last, bound for the underworld.
Where now are the chariots, horsemen, and eagles of Augustus? Where are his pageants? Where his triumphs? Where his pleasures? Where his lusts? Oh, how Augustus would now prefer never to have been Augustus: how he would prefer to have been a poor Christian peasant! "There remain in the world," says St. Ambrose on Luke XII, "all the things that belong to the world: virtue alone is the companion of the dead." Ask the wicked man at death: The kingdoms and riches that you acquired, whose will they be? He will answer: Alas, they will no longer be mine, but others'. Ask the just man: What you acquired, whose will it be? He will answer: It will be mine forever. "For their works follow them"; I transferred perishable goods through virtue, through the poor, into heaven; I made temporal things eternal. Hear finally the epitaph of Pharaoh.
Where now, Pharaoh, are your scepters, your chariots, your camps? Where is your pride, great dragon, you who dwelt in the midst of your rivers and devoured other nations? Where is your voice: "I do not know the Lord; the river is mine, and I made myself"? How you have fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, you who rose in the morning! You despoiled the Hebrews, now they despoil you: you drowned their infants, now you yourself are drowned in the Red Sea, drowned in your own blood: you devoured them, now the fish devour you, and you have become food for crows and the peoples of Ethiopia. But these things are temporal and paltry: hear the eternal things, to be mourned forever: "Your pride has been dragged down to hell: beneath you the moth is spread, and worms are your covering"; you descended into the depths of the pit with the damned, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not extinguished. The giants, kings, and tyrants met you, saying and congratulating: "You too are wounded as we are, you have become like us. Is this the man who troubled the earth," who shook the nations? Behold, he is now alone, naked, and miserable, like us. The demons cried out to you: Come, Pharaoh, dwell with us in devouring fire, in everlasting flames, where the smoke of torments ascends forever and ever.
Hear these things, O kings; hear them, O princes:
Learn justice, being warned, and do not despise the gods.
Verse 27: It returned at first dawn to its former place.
In the Hebrew it is, "it returned to its strength," or "to its vigor," that is, as the Chaldean translates, "it returned to its natural vigor," that is, to its natural state and place, in which the sea, as it were, lives and thrives.
Note: God, that is, the Angel acting in God's place, or rather several Angels (for one could not extend himself across six miles, the width of the Red Sea, and suspend all the waters there), who had until now suspended and held back the waters of the sea until the Hebrews crossed, now that they had crossed and the Egyptians had entered, released them again, so that they would rush with violent force back into their former channel — yet in an ordered sequence: for first the waters nearest the shore were released by them, and those came together first, then the following ones gradually further on; hence, as the Egyptians fled and ran back to their shore, the waters closing in this order met them from afar: so that their punishment and drowning would be all the more terrible, as it was made more frightening by the longer fear and expectation, since they could see from afar, with prolonged gaze, the avenging waters gradually closing in and approaching, by which they were to be drowned; for often "the fear of war is worse than war itself."
Verse 29: But the children of Israel went through the middle of the dry sea.
This is a recapitulation; for the Hebrews had already crossed through this sea before the Egyptians were drowned. For Moses, standing on the other shore and stretching his hands over and against the sea, as if by this sign recalling the waters, had already brought them back, while the Hebrews were already on the safe shore and the Egyptians were being drowned in the sea. Moses therefore recapitulates here what was said before, in order to impress upon the Hebrews the memory of so great a deliverance and of so fortunate and miraculous a crossing through the sea, so that they might perpetually remember it and give thanks to God.
You ask whether the Hebrews crossed the sea transversely, so that they reached the opposite side, that is, the opposite shore?
The Rabbis, Abulensis, and Burgensis deny this, and think that the Hebrews in this crossing made a semicircle, namely that they went around the mountain or cliffs of the desert of Etham, which blocked the direct route to Canaan by land and jutted out into the Red Sea; so that they went around these cliffs through the sea and returned by a curved route to the same shore facing Egypt, through which they had entered the sea — though not to the same point on the shore. They prove this first because so vast a sea (which Adrichomius asserts has, where it is widest, a breadth of six leagues), the Hebrews could not have crossed in so short a time, namely three or four hours, penetrating from one shore to the opposite one, especially since among them there were children, old people, sheep, and other many encumbrances. Second, because the Hebrews after the crossing saw the bodies of the Egyptians floating: but the Egyptians had not entered the sea so deeply as to be cast upon the opposite shore. Third, in Numbers XXXIII, 7, the Hebrews after the crossing of the sea are said to have come into the wilderness of Etham: but Etham was not across, but on this side of the sea; for it was the third encampment of the Hebrews, as we have already seen in chapter XIII, verse 20.
But the contrary opinion is the common one, namely that the Hebrews crossed the entire breadth of the sea, passing from one shore to the opposite one; for Josephus, Philo, and Gregory of Nyssa expressly report this. Scripture too indicates the same when it narrates that the waters of the sea were split and the Hebrews crossed through the middle of the sea; for according to the opinion of the Rabbis, this would not have been so much a crossing as a going around or circling of the sea. Furthermore, this is clear from the geography: for in order to reach Sinai from Egypt and the Red Sea, the Red Sea must be crossed; for it lies between Sinai and Egypt. Although there is a direct overland route from Ramesses to Sinai, and even more so to Canaan, which leaves the Red Sea to the side, yet this route is so blocked by cliffs on every side for a great distance, and so precipitous, that the Hebrew camp could not have passed through it, but under God's guidance they turned their route through the Red Sea, which necessarily had to be crossed, as can be seen in the maps of Adrichomius, page 116. Therefore those who think otherwise are mistaken.
To the first objection I respond that the Hebrews could have spent five hours on this crossing; for immediately after midnight they began to enter the sea, and by dawn they reached the opposite shore. Furthermore, they could have crossed the sea at that part and place where it is narrower and less wide. Add that the Angel strengthened them and urged them to hasten. Hence it is said, Psalm CIV, 37: "There was not among their tribes one who was weak." And indeed, to speak truthfully, so swift a crossing of so many millions of people and animals in so short a time could not have happened naturally, without a miracle. For where we see so many other, so manifest and illustrious miracles, we should not be surprised if there was also a miracle in the speed of the crossing.
To the second I respond that the bodies of the Egyptians were driven and cast upon the opposite shore because the sea from the other side met them as they fled and turned back, and thus propelled them to the opposite side. Philo and Josephus add that this was accomplished by the force of the winds. There is no doubt that the Angel, whether by himself, or by the wind, or by the sea, drove the Egyptians toward the opposite shore where the Hebrews were, and this for the greater exultation and consolation of the Hebrews, and so that they could strip the spoils from their enemies and enrich themselves.
To the third objection Cajetan responds that the desert of Etham was very vast. For in the same chapter XXXIII of Numbers the Hebrews are said to have journeyed in it for three days; Etham therefore extended both on this side and on the far side of the sea.
Lyranus responds differently, namely that this desert was different from the one in Numbers XXXIII, but both were called Etham. For many cities and villages have the same names.
Finally, the Hebrews relate that in this departure of the Hebrews from Egypt and crossing of the Red Sea, the neighboring mountains, partly as if admiring so great a wonder, partly congratulating the people of God, leaped and, as it were, danced; and that this is what the Psalmist means, Psalm CXIII, 4, when he sings: "The sea saw and fled: the Jordan was turned back. The mountains leaped like rams, and the hills like lambs. What ails you, O sea, that you fled? O mountains, you leaped like rams?" For just as the flight of the sea, so also the leaping of the mountains, that is, the bounding and jumping, seems to be taken literally, not metaphorically. So the Hebrews, followed by Cajetan and Genebrardus on Psalm CXIII, 5 and 6, and our Sanchez on Isaiah chapter LXIV, verse 1.
Others however, with Jansenius, explain that passage of Psalm CXIII as referring to the earthquake that occurred at Sinai when the law was given there, Exodus XIX, 18. For the Psalmist is accustomed to join together various miracles performed in various places and at various times, as if touching on them briefly. Let the faith in this miracle, therefore, rest with the Hebrews.