Israel is brought out of slavery, and the water that opens for the people closes over Pharao’s army. The Church reads the crossing as the figure of Baptism and proclaims it at the Easter Vigil.
The passage · Douay-Rheims
And the Lord said to Moses: Why criest thou to me? Speak to the children of Israel to go forward.
But lift thou up thy rod, and stretch forth thy hand over the sea, and divide it: that the children of Israel may go through the midst of the sea on dry ground.
And I will harden the heart of the Egyptians to pursue you: and I will be glorified in Pharao, and in all his host, and in his chariots and in his horsemen.
And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall be glorified in Pharao, and in his chariots, and in his horsemen.
And the angel of God, who went before the camp of Israel, removing, went behind them: and together with him the pillar of the cloud, leaving the forepart,
Stood behind, between the Egyptians' camp and the camp of Israel: and it was a dark cloud, and enlightening the night, so that they could not come at one another all the night.
And when Moses had stretched forth his hand over the sea, the Lord took it away by a strong and burning wind blowing all the night, and turned it into dry ground: and the water was divided.
And the children of Israel went in through the midst of the sea dried up; for the water was as a wall on their right hand and on their left.
And the Egyptians pursuing went in after them, and all Pharao's horses, his chariots and horsemen, through the midst of the sea.
And now the morning watch was come, and behold the Lord looking upon the Egyptian army through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, slew their host.
And overthrew the wheels of the chariots, and they were carried into the deep. And the Egyptians said: Let us flee from Israel; for the Lord fighteth for them against us.
And the Lord said to Moses: Stretch forth thy hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and horsemen.
And when Moses had stretched forth his hand towards the sea, it returned at the first break of day to the former place: and as the Egyptians were fleeing away, the waters came upon them, and the Lord shut them up in the middle of the waves.
And the waters returned, and covered the chariots and the horsemen of all the army of Pharao, who had come into the sea after them, neither did there so much as one of them remain.
But the children of Israel marched through the midst of the sea upon dry land, and the waters were to them as a wall on the right hand and on the left:
And the Lord delivered Israel in that day out of the hands of the Egyptians.
And they saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore, and the mighty hand that the Lord had used against them: and the people feared the Lord, and they believed the Lord, and Moses his servant.
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The four senses
Literal sense
What does the sacred text record at the sea, and what did it mean for those who saw it?
11 writers
Clement of Rome, in his letter to the Church at Corinth, one of the earliest Christian writings outside the New Testament, recalls the drowning of Pharao and his host. He gives the hardening of their hearts as the cause. It bears on the literal sense: the army perished after many signs had been wrought.
Pharaoh with his army and all the princes of Egypt, and the chariots with their riders, were sunk in the depths of the Red Sea, and perished, for no other reason than that their foolish hearts were hardened, after so many signs and wonders had been wrought in the land of Egypt by Moses the servant of God.
Aphrahat, a Syriac Father of the fourth century, treats the Red Sea in his first Demonstration, on faith. He describes the waters divided by faith and standing like cliffs at God’s command. It bears on the literal sense: a prodigy wrought through faith, with the waters held back.
This is wonderful, my beloved, and a great prodigy that Moses did in the Red Sea, when the waters were divided by faith, and stood up on high like mountains or like mighty cliffs. They were checked and stood still at the commandment; they were closed up as in vessels, and fast bound in the height as in the depth.
Later in the same Demonstration, Aphrahat sets the crossing in the words of the Psalms: the pillar of fire lighting the camp, the people passing over by faith, judgment wrought on Pharao and his host. It bears on the literal sense, joining pillar, night and sea in one account.
The foundations (hidden) from the ages of the world were revealed, and that which from the beginning had been liquid suddenly became dry. The gates lifted up their heads and the everlasting gates were lifted up. The pillar of fire entered and illuminated the entire camp. The people passed over by faith. And the judgment of righteousness was wrought upon Pharaoh and upon his host and upon his chariots.
Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria and Doctor of the Church, writes in a Festal Letter, sent yearly to announce Easter, that the sea was divided by God’s command and not by Moses’ power. He says the same of the sun standing still at Gibeon. It bears on the literal sense: God is the author of the miracle, Moses his servant.
For although the Red Sea was divided before by Moses, yet it was not Moses who did it, for it came to pass, not because he spoke, but because God commanded. And if the sun stood still in Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon, yet this was the work, not of the son of Nun, but of the Lord, Who heard his prayer.
Ambrose, bishop of Milan and Doctor of the Church, cites the opening of the Red Sea in Exposition of the Christian Faith as an instance of God’s goodness. The same waters were walls to the faithful and overwhelmed the unbelievers. It bears on the literal sense of the event.
Is He then not good, Who hath shown me good things? Is He not good, Who when six hundred thousand of the people of the Jews fled before their pursuers, suddenly opened the tide of the Red Sea, an unbroken mass of waters?—so that the waves flowed round the faithful, and were walls to them, but poured back and overwhelmed the unbelievers.
Augustine, bishop of Hippo and Doctor of the Church, asks in his Expositions on the Psalms how the sea was “rebuked” when no voice is recorded. He answers that the rebuke is the divine power, hidden from men, to which even things without sense obey. It bears on the literal sense: the miracle is an act of God’s will over creation.
We do not read that any voice was sent forth from Heaven to rebuke the sea; but he hath called the Divine Power by which this was effected, a rebuke: unless indeed any one may choose to say, that the sea was secretly rebuked, so that the waters might hear, and yet men could not. The power by which God acteth is very abstruse and mysterious, a power which He causeth that even things devoid of sense instantly obey at His will.
Aquinas, Doctor of the Church, cites the drowning of the Egyptians in the Summa Theologiae, in the treatment of vengeance, as an example of vengeance taken on a whole multitude that sinned. His concern is justice, not the manner of the miracle. It bears on the literal sense: the end of the host as a just punishment.
When the whole multitude sins, vengeance must be taken on them, either in respect of the whole multitude—thus the Egyptians were drowned in the Red Sea while they were pursuing the children of Israel (Ex. 14), and the people of Sodom were entirely destroyed (Gn. 19)—or as regards part of the multitude, as may be seen in the punishment of those who worshipped the calf.
Bellarmine, Jesuit cardinal and Doctor of the Church, takes “the sea saw and fled” in his commentary on Psalm 113 literally of the Red Sea retiring from its bed, as the Jordan was turned back. He argues the waters stood long enough for a great multitude to pass. It bears on the literal sense of the crossing’s duration and scale.
But, to come to particulars, “The sea saw and fled.” The Red Sea, frightened, as it were, at the sight of the Lord, retired from its natural bed and fled. “Jordan was turned back.” In the book of Josue it is stated that “the waters that curve down from above stood in one place, and, swelling up like a mountain, were seen afar off;” but David gives us to understand that the water was not only raised up but that it was turned back, which is most probable, as the time necessary for many hundred thousand persons to pass over must have been not inconsiderable.
Bellarmine, in his commentary on Psalm 77, explains “he made the waters to stand as in a vessel” of the sea held upright on both sides while Israel passed, and pairs it with the water from the rock. It bears on the literal sense: the psalm confirms the walls of water in the Exodus account.
“He made the waters to stand as in a vessel;” means, that God made the waters of the sea to stand up at both sides, as perpendicularly as if they were shut up in a vessel, while the children of Israel were passing through. “And gave them to drink as out of the great deep;” means, that when the rock was struck, as great a quantity of water issued from it as if the rock had been turned into a deep lake or a great ocean of water.
Lapide, commenting on the opening of the tenth chapter of First Corinthians, identifies the cloud with the pillar that shaded Israel by day and shone as fire by night, and says an angel guided it. It bears on the literal sense of the cloud standing between the camps.
This cloud was the pillar which overshadowed the Hebrews in the daytime as a cloud, and shone at night as a fire, which led them for forty years through the wilderness, which settled over the ark and went before their camp, and protected them from the heat by spreading itself over the camp. Its mover and charioteer, so to speak, was an angel.
Haydock’s annotation on the hardening of the Egyptians’ hearts observes that a natural ebb would have ended at its time, and that the pursuers wrongly trusted the walls of water to last. It bears on the literal sense: the sea’s standing was a miracle, not a tide.
If the retiring of its waters had been owing to any natural cause, this wise nation could not be ignorant but that, at the stated time, the ebbing would cease, and consequently that they would be overtaken by the waters. But the waters stood up like walls on both sides, and they were so infatuated as to suppose that the miracle would be continued for their protection.
Haydock’s annotation on the east wind explains that it dried the sandy, muddy channel of the sea. It keeps to the natural means the sacred text names and bears on the literal sense of how the dry ground came about.
Ver. 21. Wind. This served to dry up the sandy channel of the Red Sea, which was mixed with mud and weeds. It blew from the east, Kodim, or from Arabia.
Haydock’s annotation on the morning watch explains how the Hebrews divided the night, which places the Lord’s looking down on the Egyptian host near dawn. It serves the literal sense as a point of time and custom.
Ver. 24. Watch. About four o'clock. The Hebrews divided the night into three equal parts, (Calmet) or four, consisting each of three hours, (Menochius) which varied in length as the night was longer. (Haydock)
Haydock, annotating Wisdom where it recalls the crossing, gives Pliny’s witness that the Red Sea is full of wood, yet the Hebrews passed as easily as through open pasture. It reads a later sacred retelling of the event and bears on the literal sense of the dry and easy passage.
Pliny ([Natural History?] xiii. 25.) attests, that "the Red Sea, and all the eastern ocean, are full of wood." The Hebrews passed with as much ease as in a desert, (Psalm cv. 9., and Isaias lxiii. 13.) or place of pasture, while the sea seemed to be in quest of other channels. (Calmet) (Genesis i. 9.) (Haydock)
Each is quoted in full and is here because the commentary above, or the text itself, ties it to the key passage.
1 Corinthians 10:1-6
Chrysostom, Lapide and Aquinas (allegorical sense) read Paul’s “baptized in the cloud and in the sea” as the figure of Baptism, and the Epistle for Septuagesima Sunday (moral sense) sets the passage before the faithful as a warning.
1For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud: and all passed through the sea.
2And all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud and in the sea:
3And did all eat the same spiritual food:
4And all drank the same spiritual drink: (And they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them: and the rock was Christ.)
5But with most of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the desert.
6Now these things were done in a figure of us, that we should not covet evil things, as they also coveted.
Haydock (literal sense, on Wisdom 19:7) draws on this verse for the dry ground and the green field that appeared where the sea had been.
6For every creature, according to its kind was fashioned again as from the beginning, obeying thy commandments, that thy children might be kept without hurt.
7For a cloud overshadowed their camps and where water was before, dry land appeared, and in the Red Sea a way without hindrance, and out of the great deep a springing field:
8Through which all the nation passed which was protected with thy hand, seeing thy miracles and wonders.
9For they fed on their food like horses, and they skipped like lambs, praising thee, O Lord, who hadst delivered them.
Bellarmine (literal sense, on Psalm 113) explains how the sea saw and fled, and Augustine on Psalm 114 (anagogical sense) reads the same event as fulfilled in the last times.
1When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a barbarous people:
2Judea was made his sanctuary, Israel his dominion.
3The sea saw and fled: Jordan was turned back.
4The mountains skipped like rams, and the hills like the lambs of the flock.
5What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou didst flee: and thou, O Jordan, that thou wast turned back?
Ambrose (allegorical sense, On the Holy Spirit) quotes the Song of Moses, Pius XII (moral sense) recalls it as the people’s song of praise, and Haydock on Apocalypse 15 (anagogical sense) joins it to the canticle of the Lamb.
1Then Moses and the children of Israel sung this canticle to the Lord, and said: Let us sing to the Lord: for he is gloriously magnified, the horse and the rider he hath thrown into the sea.
2The Lord is my strength and my praise, and he is become salvation to me: he is my God, and I will glorify him: the God of my father, and I will exalt him.
3The Lord is as a man of war, Almighty is his name.
4Pharao's chariots and his army he hath cast into the sea: his chosen captains are drowned in the Red Sea.
5The depths have covered them, they are sunk to the bottom like a stone.
6Thy right hand, O Lord, is magnified in strength: thy right hand, O Lord, hath slain the enemy.
7And in the multitude of thy glory thou hast put down thy adversaries: thou hast sent thy wrath, which hath devoured them like stubble.
8And with the blast of thy anger the waters were gathered together: the flowing water stood, the depths were gathered together in the midst of the sea.
9The enemy said: I will pursue and overtake, I will divide the spoils, my soul shall have its fill: I will draw my sword, my hand shall slay them.
10Thy wind blew and the sea covered them: they sunk as lead in the mighty waters.
Pope Francis in Desiderio Desideravi and the Catechism at paragraph 1220 (allegorical sense) tie the passage through the Red Sea to Baptism into Christ’s death.
3Know you not that all we who are baptized in Christ Jesus are baptized in his death?
4For we are buried together with him by baptism into death: that, as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life.
Haydock (anagogical sense, on Apocalypse 15:2-3) reads the sea of glass and the canticle of Moses and of the Lamb as the victory of the saved.
2And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had overcome the beast and his image and the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, having the harps of God:
3And singing the canticle of Moses, the servant of God, and the canticle of the Lamb, saying: Great and wonderful are thy works, O Lord God Almighty. Just and true are thy ways, O King of ages.
4Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and magnify thy name? For thou only art holy. For all nations shall come and shall adore in thy sight, because thy judgments are manifest.
