他们敬畏耶和华 They Feared the LORD

出埃及记 Exo 14:19–31

The featured image is from Gospel Images.
Artist is Jan van ‘t Hoff, Netherlands 荷兰.

News

Hook

Have you ever seen the movie “The Ten Commandments” (1956, Cecile B. DeMilles)?

Four hour long, but a great movie!

These slides are the posters from 1956.

Try to see if you know what part of the Exodus story these scenes depict.

There were probably tens, if not hundreds of thousands, of soldiers in Pharaoh’s army.

But Israel’s army has just ONE soldier: YHWH!

YHWH is the one who does all the fighting, Israel just had to stand still and watch.

Passage

Click here for English passage

English Passage

Outline

Section 1 回顾 Review

Review of 1st part of Exodus 14:

1. Israel finally escaped the clutches of Egypt.
2. God took them by the long way, so as to set a trap for Pharaoh.
3. God wants to gain honour from Pharaoh (Exo 14:18). Soli Deo Gloria: This is a Latin phrase, “Glory to God Alone.”
   The composer Jean Sebastian Bach signs all his pieces SDG. We should do the same in our lives, Glory to God Alone.
4. The sea is in front, Pharaoh’s mighty army is in back, what are they to do? Nothing!
   They are to “stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord.” (Exo 14:13).
5. Today, we’ll see the salvation of YHWH.

Lessons

Section 2 结构 Structure

---

This is a possible chiasm in Exo 14:13–30.

It’s a more complex pattern, involving two centre verses: Exo 14:18b and Exo 14:25b.

The two centres show the main themes of this entire passage:
(1) The Egyptians will know who is YHWH; and
(2) They Egyptians will acknowledge that YHWH fights for Israel (i.e., Egypt has no chance).

We won’t spend too much time on the verses, because we know the story so well.

We’ll point out some important or interesting things along the way, then proceed to the lessons we learn from the crossing of the Red Sea.

Section 3 终夜不得相近 Whole night kept apart

Pillar of cloud and pillar of fire both went behind the Israelites.

One side has light, the other is darkness. Which side do you think has light?

So the Egyptians and Israelites were separated the entire night.

This is a simple diagram of the situation.
Pharaoh’s army on the left.
In front of them are the pillars of cloud and fire (YHWH’s presence).
Then the Israelites.
And in front of the Israelites is the sea.

Israelites walked on the bottom of the sea, on dry ground.

Do you think they have faith as they walked there?

Wall appeared over 130 times in the OT, nearly always describing a city wall. This (and one other time) is the only time when it’s describing water.

So the water is like a wall on either side of them.

This is from Niagara Falls. That’s the feeling of walking alongside two walls of water.

We’re not sure if Pharaoh went down with his army, so we don’t know if he survived or not.

Section 4 从云火柱中观看 Looking down from the pillars

“Morning watch”: From 6pm to 6am, there are 3 watches of ~4hrs each:

18:00–22:00

22:00–02:00

02:00–06:00

Here we see that both the cloud and fire pillars went behind the Israelites.

It’s not so obvious in the CUV, but the verb should be “looking down” upon the Egyptians.

Their chariots don’t have four-wheel drive!

Notice what the Egyptians said. They now know:

…YHWH’s name

…It’s all YHWH’s doing

…They can’t do anything

There is still one more lesson…

Section 5 海水仍旧复原 Water returned

YHWH asked Moses to lift his staff, it’s like Moses doing the work, but it’s clear that it’s YHWH.

For the Egyptians, what’s so special about morning?

Their greatest god, Ra, the Sun god, is useless!

It’s YHWH who is the creator (not Ra).

It’s YHWH who gives life (not Ra).Here’s Wikipedia article on Ra, Ancient Egyptian sun god.

This is like retribution for what Pharaoh did, killing Hebrew baby boys.

A repeat of the earlier phrase, part of the chiastic structure.

Section 6 敬畏耶和华 They feared YHWH

YHWH’s salvation.

There are three pairs of “Egypt—Israel.” 2 of them in this slide, last one on the next.

With this 3-fold emphasis on Egypt—Israel, Moses wants us to compare the different results between Egypt and Israel:

Whom do they believe, whom do they obey?

Salvation is from whom?

Who is the only true God of the universe?

Who is the creator of the universe?

Here it mentioned Moses “his servant,” i.e., YHWH’s servant.

There are only a tiny handful of people in the OT who are called YHWH’s servant:

1. Abraham (Gen 26:24)
2. Moses (Exo 14:31; Deut 34:5)
3. David (2 Sam 7:5; 7:8)
4. Isaiah (Isa 20:3)

It’s interesting what these people represent:

1. Israel, God’s chosen people, his firstborn.
2. Mediator between YHWH and the people.
3. King
4. Prophet

Who is the ideal firstborn, the ideal mediator, the ideal king, the ideal prophet? Jesus!

So What?

What does all this have to do with me?

1. Applications?
   • What is your Red Sea experience? NO, not a proper application!
   • We all have our “Egypt” from which we need to be freed. NO, another bad application!
2. The Bible tells us about God, who he is, he saved us, we need to know how to give thanks, how to serve him.
3. God saved the Israelites from the bondage of Egypt, this is just a type, a model.
   In the same way, God saved us from the bondage of sin, an even more ultimate release.