Category Archives: Bible Interpretation

Bible Interpretation, Books of the Bible, Sunday School

Commentary on Exodus 19-20 (The Ten Commandments)

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At the beginning of chapter 19, the Israelites have finally reached the base of Mount Sinai, on the third day of the third month after the Exodus from Egypt (48 days).  The people of Israel would reside at Mount Sinai for a full year – the rest of the Book of Exodus, all of the Book of Leviticus, and the first ten chapters of the Book of Numbers all take place here.

In verses 3-6, God speaks to Moses and announces the covenant that He will make with Israel. God first reminds Israel that He brought them out of Egypt. He then tells them that if they will obey His commands, He will bless them as His special people – “Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” Note that this is a conditional covenant with Israel. They will only be blessed if they obey God.

Douglas Stuart, in his Exodus: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (New American Commentary), notes that this covenant “represents the separation of his chosen people from the general world population, or, stated in terms of the overall biblical plan of redemption, the beginning of the outworking of his intention to bring close to himself a people that will join him for all eternity as adopted members of his family.”

Additionally, “full monotheism is expressed in the words ‘although the whole earth is mine.’ This is one of the clearest early statements of monotheism in the Bible and certainly must have represented a sudden education for many of those present to hear Moses first relay these words to the people, since so many of them had grown up polytheists.”

In verses 7-8, the people agree to God’s covenant. Unfortunately, the remainder of the Old Testament conveys the sad truth that the Israelites were unable to hold up their side of the bargain.

God then tells Moses to prepare the Israelites for His coming in great glory on the mountain at Sinai. Moses warns the people to stay back from the mountain or they will be put to death. After three days of preparation, the people of Israel assemble at the foot of the mountain and God puts on an amazing display of pyrotechnics – thunder, lightning, fire, smoke, tremors. God again warns Moses that only he and Aaron are allowed to go up the mountain.

Once everyone has been assembled, God starts to speak to the Israelites and his first words to them are the Ten Commandments, or literally the “Ten Words.” The commandments are outlined in other parts of the Bible in different order, so they have been numbered in different ways by modern Jews and Christians. It seems that the best way to harmonize most of the biblical texts is the following:

Ex 20:2-6 – 1st commandment “You shall have no other gods before me.”

Ex 20:7 – 2nd commandment “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.”

Ex 20:8-11 – 3rd commandment “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.”

Ex 20:12 – 4th commandment “Honor your father and your mother.”

Ex 20:13 – 5th commandment “You shall not murder.”

Ex 20:14 – 6th commandment “You shall not commit adultery.”

Ex 20:15 – 7th commandment “You shall not steal.”

Ex 20:16 – 8th commandment “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.”

Ex 20:17a – 9th commandment “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house.”

Ex 20:17b – 10th commandment “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

Another popular way to delineate the Ten Commandments is to make verses 4-6 be the second commandment and to combine verses 17a and 17b as one commandment.

These ten commands from God are general moral instructions that can be applied to all sorts of specific situations. The many other laws found in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy are all applications of the Ten Commandments.

Following is a brief word on each commandment.

The 1st commandment is a straightforward command to worship only Yahweh, the God of Israel. The Israelites were surrounded by cultures where polytheism (worship of multiple gods) was the norm. God is teaching his people that they are to discard all of the other false gods that were worshipped in Egypt and that will be worshipped in Canaan.

The 2nd commandment is meant to teach the Israelites how they are to call on Him. They are not to presume upon Him, but to treat His name with dignity and respect befitting the Creator of the universe.

The 3rd commandment instructs Israel to rest every 7th day and to assemble in worship on that day, repeating the pattern of the creation week.

The 4th commandment reminds children, both young and old, that they are to respect and honor their parents for as long as the children live. Even after their parents have died, they are to honor the teachings and instructions of their parents. This command assumes that the parents taught correctly about God, so it is not a blanket command for children to blindly follow their parents, even when their parents are clearly wrong about God.

The 5th commandment repeats what God taught in Genesis 9:6, that one man is not to take the life of another man without proper justification.

The 6th commandment reiterates God’s restrictions on sexual intercourse. It is to occur between a man and a woman who are married.

The 7th commandment forbids taking what does not belong to you.

The 8th commandment stresses honesty and accuracy.

The 9th and 10th commandments forbid a person to passionately desire or yearn for that which belongs to his neighbor, whether that be his neighbor’s spouse, property, or wealth. In essence, any kind of covetousness is prohibited.

Bible Interpretation, Books of the Bible, Sunday School

Commentary on Exodus 16 (Manna and Quail)

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Following the crossing of the Red Sea, the Israelites continued to travel south in the desert of the Arabian peninsula. As they moved further away from Egypt, they simultaneously moved further away from civilization. They became more and more hungry because there were few plants and animals for them to eat. This is the situation when Exodus 16 picks up.

In verses 1-3, we discover that the Israelites have been in the wilderness for over a month, and they are grumbling about their situation. They complain to Aaron and Moses that they were better off in Egypt than they are now. At least in Egypt, they were eating. Douglas Stuart notes in his Exodus: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (New American Commentary), “This was the first time the Israelites made the ‘if only we had died in Egypt argument,’ but it would not be the last (see Num 11:4, 18; 14:2; cf. 20:3; Josh 7:7).”

God decides to test the faith of the Israelites by offering them a very unconventional food source, “bread from heaven.” The test is simple. The people of Israel are to gather food provided by God each morning, but only enough for that day. On Friday, the sixth day, they are to gather enough food for two days.

Stuart explains: “Moreover, God was teaching them a concept: that he was their ultimate provider, the one who from heaven gave them not necessarily what they expected but what they really needed. Thus his satisfying them with the bread of heaven becomes a theme of Scripture that not only refers to the manna described in this account (cf. Ps 105:40; Neh 9:15) but to the ultimate provision of eternal sustenance, Christ himself (John 6:31–58).”

In verses 6-11, Moses and Aaron remind the people that it is actually God they are grumbling against, not Moses and Aaron. But, they assure the people that God has heard their complaints and is going to provide meat in the evening and bread in the morning. Once they gather around the pillar of cloud, which is God’s presence among them, God reiterates what Moses and Aaron told them. What is the purpose of God miraculously providing this food? “Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.”

Douglas Stuart elaborates on God’s plans for the Israelites: “God was testing his people throughout the exodus events: leading them in odd directions without fully explaining why (14:1–4), surprising them with potentially destructive enemy attacks even after they had left Egypt (14:10ff.; cf. 17:8ff.), requiring them to walk into and through deep ocean water (14:15ff.), and taking them to locations that lacked the necessities of life (as in 15:23ff. and 16:2ff.). All of these challenges were part of a plan to develop a people’s willingness to trust him. Explaining everything in advance would have run counter to that plan. It was necessary for Israel to learn faith while confused, while afraid, while desperate—not just in theory but under pressure of actual conditions where survival was uncertain and faith was tested to the limit.”

The meat appears that very evening in the form of quail, and in the morning a bread-like substance appears which the Israelites have never seen before. They actually name the substance “What is it?” This translates into English as manna. Once the manna appeared, the Israelites gathered it as instructed, only gathering one omer per person. An omer is equal to about 2 quarts.

Moses gave an additional command, however. Nobody was to save the manna overnight. It must be eaten the same day it was collected. Why would God command this? To force the Israelites to rely on him daily for their food. Some Israelites, thinking they could hoard the manna, saved it overnight, but the next morning it was “full of maggots and began to smell.”

Recall that on the 6th day, each person was to gather 2 omers, or twice as much as the other days. Why is this? God explains in verse 23. “‘Tomorrow is to be a day of rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. So bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil. Save whatever is left and keep it until morning.” Every seventh day was to be a day of rest, so God did not want the people of Israel gathering food and cooking it on the day of rest, the Sabbath.

The daily giving of the manna was so important to God and the Israelites that God commanded them to set aside a single omer of manna and keep it as a reminder of God’s daily provision of food for the 40 years they spent in the wilderness. It wasn’t until they entered the Promised Land that the manna ceased to appear each morning.

Bible Interpretation

Does God Have Plans to Prosper You? Part 2

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

In part 1, we started looking at how we misread Jer 29:11 – “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” In part 2, we pick up with the second way we misread this verse.

What is the second way we misread Jer 29:11?

Herein lies the second way Western readers misread the passage: we unconsciously turn the us into me. We understand the object of the sentence, you, to mean “each one of you individually.” We then read Jeremiah 29:11 as, “I know the plans I have for you, Brandon.”

But remember that Israel was a collectivist culture. They understood the object of the sentence, you, to mean “my people, Israel, as a whole.” If God meant each Israelite individually, then the promise is nonsense before the words are fully out of God’s mouth.

We must teach every new student that the “plans to prosper you” involved the killing and enslavement of thousands of individual Israelites (2 Kings 24-25), who might dispute the promise “not to harm you.” Moreover, Jeremiah 29:4-7 indicates that God’s blessing extended to Israel’s enemies, the nations in which the Israelites were living as exiles.

Yet through all this, God prospered Israel. He didn’t spare them from exile. He prospered them in spite of their condition of exile. Certainly many individuals languished without prospering, without the prospect of a bright future. Enslavement and suffering were their plight. The promise may not apply to me, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t apply to us.

Given the context, it’s clear that Jeremiah is not promising each individual Israelite that they would not suffer. He is promising something different. What is the third mistake?

Third, we Westerners tend to microwave this verse. That is, we fast-forward the outcome. God does indeed prosper his people. About seventy years later, they are returned to the land with blessing.

Most Western Christians who quote this verse would not be happy to acknowledge that the plans God has for his people may not be clear for two generations. Worse, the two intervening generations may endure all manner of hardship. To acknowledge this is to admit that the payoff doesn’t include me and renders the text irrelevant to me. It also offends our sensibility, discussed in a previous chapter, that promises (rules) must apply to everyone equally all the time.

So how should we apply this verse to our lives today? The authors offer an answer to that question:

To avoid misapplication, we should determine what the text meant then before we try to apply it to ourselves now. We suggest a better interpretation of Jeremiah 29 runs something like this: even though Israel is in the condition of exile, God will prosper them by prospering those who enslave them (Jer 29:7). Someday he will deliver them from exile, but that will happen well in the future. Until then, Israel is to rest assured that God is at work for their deliverance, even when he does not appear to be.

The application of this interpretation is broader and profounder than our typical misreading. Remember that the New Testament describes Christians as living in a state of exile. We are “foreigners and exiles” (1 Pet 2:11), members of “the twelve tribes scattered among the nations” (Jas 1:1), whose “citizenship is in heaven” (Phil 3:20). Like the Israelites in Jeremiah 29, the church is “God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout” the world (1 Pet 1:1).

A more likely application of Jeremiah 29:11, then, is that God is working to prosper his church. Though at times it appears the church cannot resist its enemies—whether hostile governments or worldviews or the unfaithfulness of its own people—God is committed to making it grow, like the mustard seed. He has promised the total consummation of his church. But until that day, we labor faithfully, knowing that God is working his purposes for his church, of which each of us is a part but not the focus.

Bible Interpretation

Does God Have Plans to Prosper You? Part 1

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

One of our favorite verses is Jeremiah 29:11. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Unfortunately, we typically wrench this verse totally out of its original context and misapply it to ourselves.

E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien attempt to set us straight with a careful analysis of this verse and its context. Below is their extended discussion of this verse from their book Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible.

The context of the passage is undisputed. The inhabitants of Jerusalem were on the brink of disaster. The Babylonians were knocking at the door. Death and slavery were best-case scenarios. God had miraculously delivered Jerusalem from the Assyrians about a hundred years earlier: “That night the angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies!” (2 Kings 19:35).

Some self-proclaimed prophets were predicting God would do this sort of thing again. God sent Jeremiah to set the nation straight, to break the bad news. There would be no miraculous rescue this time. Even so, God did add that he had plans to ultimately prosper and not to harm his people. That is usually as far as our students get.

So what is the problem? Didn’t God have plans that he did indeed accomplish?

Your authors are 100 percent certain that God had plans and he accomplished them, just as he intended. The passage itself reminds the reader, “Surely these things happened to Judah according to the Lord’s command” (2 Kings 24:3). But we think that this verse is commonly misread in three ways.

First, Western readers tend to ignore the context. The city of Jerusalem was captured, looted and burned. The king, Zedekiah, didn’t fare better. “They killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. Then they put out his eyes, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon” (2 Kings 25:7).

It may be that we ignore the context because it doesn’t apply to us. We noted above that we are prone to ignore passages we consider irrelevant to us. What could be less relevant than the fate of Zedekiah and his sons? Surely we shouldn’t expect a similar fate. The general context of exile, too, seems irrelevant.

To us, the context of Jeremiah 29:11 feels like little more than a plot detail or filler to highlight the main point, which is a direct promise to us. And this promise is indeed most relevant. For what is it that we want? We want direction: wisdom in choosing a career or finding a spouse or handling an unruly child or an uncooperative colleague.

I (Randy) bought a house just months before the housing collapse. My wife and I prayed about it. Surely, God has a plan to prosper us and our (underwater) house.

So the first problem is that we read this verse in isolation instead of in the context of the surrounding passage. As Greg Koukl likes to say, “Never read a Bible verse!” Always read the passages that come before and after, in addition to the single verse you want to read.

We will look at the second and third ways we misread this verse in part 2. We will also find out how we should apply this verse to our lives today.

Bible Interpretation, Books of the Bible

What Was Dividing the Corinthian Church?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

We’re all familiar with the verses in 1 Cor 1:10-12:

I appeal to you, brothers and sisters,in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.”

Most of us assume that the Corinthians were following particular personalities or dividing over a theological issue. The authors of Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible suggest another possibility.

Paul begins his first letter to the Corinthians with a plea for unity. “I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, . . .” he writes, “that all of you agree with one another . . . and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought” (1 Cor 1:10). We might ask ourselves what caused the divisions in Corinth.

All we know is what Paul tells us: “One of you says, ‘I follow Paul’; another, ‘I follow Apollos’; another, ‘I follow Cephas’; still another, ‘I follow Christ’” (1 Cor 1:12).

What likely goes without being said for us is that the church was divided either theologically or over devotion to different personalities. These are two common causes of church divisions in the West. We tend to fall out along doctrinal lines or because we are drawn to one charismatic pastor over another. It is possible, though, that the divisions among the churches in Corinth were not theological.

If not theological, then what?

We may be failing to note ethnic markers that Paul sprinkled all over the text. Apollos was noted as an Alexandrian (Egyptian) Jew (Acts 18:24). They had their own reputation. Paul notes that Peter is called by his Aramaic name, Cephas, suggesting the group that followed him spoke Aramaic and were thus Palestinian Jews. Paul’s church had Diaspora Jews but also many ethnic Corinthians, who were quite proud of their status as residents of a Roman colony and who enjoyed using Latin. This may explain why Paul doesn’t address any theological differences. There weren’t any. The problem was ethnic division: Aramaic-speaking Jews, Greek-speaking Jews, Romans and Alexandrians.

To me, this is a fascinating and quite plausible take on 1 Cor 1. Something for the church to consider.

Bible Interpretation, Difficult Bible Passages

Why Did Paul Tell Women to Cover Their Heads?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

In 1 Cor 11:5-6, the apostle Paul tells the Corinthians that a woman should cover her head when praying or prophesying at church assemblies. Some churches today still adhere to this command, but should they? What was the context of Paul’s statement?

Authors E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien provide a possible answer to this question in their book Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible.  They write:

Paul tells women in Corinth that they must have their head covered when they worship (1 Cor 11:5-6). It is not immediately clear to us what the problem is, so we may assume something went without being said, which is a good instinct.

So perhaps we assume that a woman’s hair was somehow sexually alluring to ancient people and that therefore a Christian woman needed to cover hers. We may then reason that since hair today is not a sexual turn-on, it is okay for a Christian woman to wear her hair down.

We are correct that something went without being said, but we are wrong about what that was.

If Paul was not talking about sexual modesty, what was he talking about?

Paul is indeed talking about modesty. In our culture, if male ministers are talking about what a Christian woman should be wearing, we are almost always discussing sexual modesty or the lack thereof, so we typically assume that’s what Paul is doing here. We feel affirmed when Paul mentions that it is disgraceful if a woman doesn’t cover her head (1 Cor 11:6).

Likely, however, Paul was admonishing the hostess of a house church to wear her marriage veil (“cover her head”) because “church” was a public event and because respectable Roman women covered their heads in public. These Corinthian women were treating church like their private dinner parties. These dinners (convivia, or “wine parties”) were known for other immoral activities including dinner “escorts” (1 Cor 6), idol meat (1 Cor 8–10), adultery (1 Cor 10) and drunkenness (1 Cor 11).

The issue was modesty, but not sexual modesty. These women were co-opting an activity about God for personal benefit. They were treating church as a social club.

Thus Paul was interested in a broader kind of modesty than sexual modesty. He didn’t want the Corinthian women treating the worship assembly like their private dinner parties, dinner parties that typically went along with being wealthy. Economic modesty at church gatherings was also an important issue for Paul.

Since covering a woman’s head is no longer a cultural indicator of economic or class status, this command by Paul no longer applies to us (in the 21st century America). However, there are certainly other ways that Christians signal their economic and class status that Paul would equally frown upon today.

Church is not a place to emphasize class and economic status. It’s not a country club. It’s a place to worship God.

Bible Interpretation, Difficult Bible Passages

What Did Jesus Mean by Hot, Cold, and Lukewarm?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

One of the most familiar passages in Scripture is Rev 3:15-16, where Jesus addresses the Laodicean church:

“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”

Many Christians interpret Jesus to be saying something like, “I wish you were passionate for me (hot) or spiritually dead (cold), but instead you are somewhere in the middle. Because you are neither on fire for me or spiritually dead, I am very displeased with you.”

Now, this interpretation never really made much sense to me. I could see why Jesus wanted people to be passionate for him (hot), but I could never understand why Jesus would prefer a person be lost or spiritually dead (cold) instead of somewhere in the middle between the two.

Authors E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien provide a possible answer to this question in their book Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible. Richards and O’Brien explain:

In the summer of 2002, however, standing there among the then-unexcavated ruins of Laodicea, another interpretation of that famous passage presented itself. Several miles northwest of Laodicea, perched atop a small mountain, is a city called Hierapolis. At the base of Hierapolis is an extraordinary geological formation produced by the natural hot springs that surface around the city. Even today, the city is known for its steaming mineral baths.

Over the centuries, the subterranean springs have created a snow-white calcium deposit known in Turkish as Pamukkale, or “cotton castle,” that cascades down the slopes like ice. From our vantage point in Laodicea, Hierapolis gleamed white like a freshly powdered ski slope.

About the same distance from Laodicea in the opposite direction is Colossae. The city was not yet excavated in 2002, so we couldn’t see it; but it is almost certain that in the first century, you could have seen Colossae from Laodicea. Paul’s colleague Epaphras worked in Colossae, as well as in Laodicea and Hierapolis (Col 4:13). It was a less notable city than Laodicea, but it had one thing Laodicea didn’t: a cold, freshwater spring. In fact, it was water—or the lack thereof—that set Laodicea apart.

Unlike its neighbors, Laodicea had no springs at all. It had to import its water via aqueduct from elsewhere: hot mineral water from Hierapolis or fresh cold water from Colossae. The trouble was, by the time the water from either city made it to Laodicea, it had lost the qualities that made it remarkable. The hot water was no longer hot; the cold water was no longer cold.

The Laodiceans were left with all the lukewarm water they could drink. Surely they wished their water was one or the other—either hot or cold. There isn’t much use for lukewarm water. I suspect that the meaning of the Lord’s warning was clear to the Laodiceans. He wished his people were hot (like the salubrious waters of Hierapolis) or cold (like the refreshing waters of Colossae). Instead, their discipleship was unremarkable.

So, for Jesus, hot and cold were both genuinely good conditions, and only lukewarm was a bad condition. In other words, in these verses hot and cold are used as synonyms to refer to strong, passionate, remarkable faith. Lukewarm refers to unremarkable faith.

Lukewarm is not some spiritual condition in between hot and cold at all. Lukewarm stands in opposition to both hot and cold, and that is most likely how the Laodiceans would have heard Jesus’s message to them.

To me, this interpretation of the verses makes a lot more sense. It’s amazing how a little geography and historical context can clear things up!

Bible Interpretation, Difficult Bible Passages, Miracles

Did the Israelites Cross a Reed Sea or Red Sea?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

Many Hebrew scholars have noted the words for “Red Sea” (yam suph) can also be translated as “sea of reed” or “reed sea.” This leads to the question of whether the Israelites merely crossed a marsh rather than a deep body of water. A marsh of reeds, after all, would cause the Egyptian chariot wheels to get stuck, and maybe this is how the Israelites escaped.

By looking at the rest of the Old Testament, we can see what other biblical authors thought. Robert Bergen, in the Apologetics Study Bible, notes that the

biblical text states that the waters were deep (Is 63: 13), but that God split them and made them stand “like a wall” (Ps 78: 13) on either side of the fleeing Israelites (Ex 14: 22, 29). When the waters returned to their original position they covered the Egyptians’ chariots, horses, and soldiers (v. 27; 15: 1; Dt 11: 4; Jos 24: 7; Ne 9: 11; Ps 78: 53), thereby killing all the enemy (Ex 14: 27-28, 30; Ps 106: 11).

Bergen also notes that in the NT, “three times the body of water is referred to as a sea (Ac 7: 36; 1 Co 10: 1; Heb 11: 29).”

The bottom line is that regardless of whether it is translated “Red Sea” or “Reed Sea,” all of the biblical authors understand it to be a deep body of water east of Egypt and adjacent to the Sinai Peninsula.

Bible Interpretation, Books of the Bible, Sunday School

Commentary on Exodus 14 (Parting of the Red Sea)

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

In chapters 12 and 13, the Israelites escaped from Egypt due to the mighty hand of God, and have traveled some distance to the southeast, but not out of Egyptian territory. Chapter 14 begins the account of one of the most famous miracles performed by God for the Israelites, the parting of the Red (or Reed) Sea.

In verses 1-4, God tells Moses to stop their progress and turn back. They are to park themselves right on the coast of a sea. The purpose for their turning around, traveling back the way they had come, and then stopping, is to make Pharaoh believe that they are confused and unwilling to travel into the desert (which is the only way for them to escape Egyptian territory). This will cause Pharaoh to pursue them with his army.

The exact location of the Israelite encampment by the sea is unknown. The very northern tip of the Gulf of Suez, which is part of the Red Sea, could be where the Israelites camped and crossed, or the other options are Lake Balah or Lake Timsah, which are two larger bodies of water further north. In any case, from the text it is clear that it is a body of water that is deep enough to drown men.

God’s purpose is to invite Pharaoh to attack Israel so that, once again, God can demonstrate his power over Pharaoh and the Egyptian gods. “The Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.” The Egyptian gods don’t exist, and the Egyptians must come to understand that the God of the Hebrews is the only true God.

In verses 5-9, Pharaoh does exactly what God said he would do. Pharaoh and his officials regret the fact that they have lost the Hebrew slaves, and so they decide to dispatch chariots to bring the Israelites back to Egypt. At least 600 chariots are sent and this hastily gathered army quickly catches up to the Israelites who have stopped their progress by the sea.

Why would Pharaoh chase after the Israelites after witnessing the ten plagues brought on by God? Is he crazy? Douglas Stuart, in his Exodus: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (New American Commentary), explains:

The answer requires appreciating Egyptian religion in its ancient Near Eastern context. To all the ancients (except those Israelites who were beginning to understand the only true God) the gods and goddesses that controlled the world were arbitrary and capricious, quick to change their actions and attitudes, constantly vying with one another for power, not omnipresent but manifesting themselves at given locations and then leaving those locations unpredictably. . . . Likewise, the Egyptians’ gods were considered beings who might not always be present among their people. Accordingly, Yahweh knew that it would be natural for Pharaoh to think that he, Yahweh, after having expended great effort to demonstrate his power to the Egyptians, might now no longer be directly involved in helping the Israelites so that he, Pharaoh, could once again assert his power over them unhindered.

Seeing the Egyptian army advancing upon them, the Israelites, in verses 10-12, cry out to Moses that he should have never brought them out of Egypt to die at the hands of Pharaoh’s chariots. They were better off as slaves. Douglas Stuart notes that

this was the first of the postexodus declarations by Israelites that they should have stayed where they came from. The others (e.g., Num 14:1–4; Josh 7:6–9) share considerably the theme of this one: when hardship is encountered, the miserable past suddenly looks like the good old days.

Moses, however, is confident that God will save them. God tells Moses, in verses 15-18, “Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground.” God promises that the Egyptians will follow them so that God “will gain glory through Pharaoh and all his army.”

In order to give the Israelites time to break camp and prepare themselves for crossing the sea (the remainder of the day and almost the entire evening were used in the process of getting the Israelites out of their camp and across the sea), the angel of God, who was in the form of a pillar of cloud, moved from the front of the Israelites to the rear, as a barrier between the Egyptian army and the Israelite camp. The Egyptians cannot attack with the angel of the Lord protecting the Israelites.

When Moses held out his staff, God caused a strong east wind to blow back the waters and clear a dry path for the Israelites to cross the body of water. There were walls of water on the right and left of the people as they advanced.

In verses 23-28, as God predicted, the Egyptian chariots, with the angel of God no longer impeding their progress, followed the Hebrews into the sea. God, however, caused the chariot wheels of the Egyptians to get stuck and come off, throwing their drivers into confusion and chaos.

Douglas Stuart elaborates on the problems with the chariot wheels:

The sea floor was soft and sandy/silty so that even though it was dry, it was not a suitable surface for narrow, metal-bound chariot wheels bearing the weight of a chariot and two or three armed men. The horses pulling the chariots, like the Israelite goats and sheep, would have been able to get through satisfactorily; the chariot wheels, however, effectively sliced deep into the soft ground and bound so that the horses could not pull their own weight and that of the fully loaded chariots.

Once the army of chariots had advanced far enough into the sea, God instructed Moses to stretch out his hand over the sea, and the walls of water collapsed and drowned the army of Pharaoh. Not one of them survived.

Verses 30-31 summarize the lesson the Israelites learned that day: “That day the Lord saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore. And when the Israelites saw the great power the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.”

Bible Interpretation

How Long Did the Israelites Live in Egypt?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

Verse 40 in chapter 12 of Exodus looks like it’s saying that from the time Jacob brought his family to Egypt to live with Joseph in Gen 46, to the time of the Exodus, 430 years passed. In fact, this is the traditional view, but it may not be correct.

There are three ancient texts from which scholars translate the Book of Exodus into English: the Masoretic Hebrew text, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Septuagint. These three texts appear to contradict each other when it comes to verse 40 in Exodus 12.

According to Robert Bergen in the Apologetics Study Bible, the

Hebrew text used as the basis for English translations of this verse states literally that ‘the dwelling of the sons of Israel which they dwelt in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years.’ The Samaritan Pentateuch, on the other hand, states that the Israelites spent 215 years in Egypt. . . . The Septuagint . . . expands the reading found in the Hebrew text, stating that ‘the dwelling of the sons of Israel, and of their fathers, which they dwelt in the land of Canaan, and in the land of Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years.’

What are we to make of these different readings? Is it 215 or 430 years? It seems that the answer depends on when you start counting the Israelites as being in Egypt. The Septuagint and Samaritan Pentateuch start the clock when Abraham first journeys to Egypt in Gen 12 (not when Jacob brings his family to Egypt in Gen 46), whereas the Hebrew text is ambiguous.

Bergen, however, claims that the New Testament supports starting the clock with Abraham in Gen 12. Bergen writes,

The NT provides conclusive evidence that the chronological clarifications in the Samaritan Pentateuch and Septuagint are accurate. In Gal 3:17 the apostle Paul noted that the Law was given to Israel 430 years after God’s covenantal promise had been delivered to Abraham. The first-century Jewish historian Josephus (Antiquities 2:15:2) accepted this number, as did many significant voices in Christian history prior to the twentieth century (e.g., Tertullian, Origen, Augustine, Bishop James Ussher). When the NT evidence is considered together with that of the OT, it seems clear that 430 years elapsed from the time of Israel’s first entrance into Egypt, and that the reckoning began with Abraham’s dealings with Pharaoh (Gen 12: 10-20).