Commentaria in Exodum
Where now, Pharao, are thy sceptres, thy chariots, thy camp? where thy pride, great dragon, who didst dwell in the midst of thy rivers, and devourest other nations? where thy voice: “I know not the Lord; the river is mine, and I made myself”? How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who didst rise in the morning? Thou didst despoil the Hebrews, now they despoil thee; thou didst drown their infants, now thou thyself art drowned in the Red Sea, drowned in thy blood: thou didst devour them, now the fishes devour thee, and thou art become food for the ravens and the peoples of the Ethiopians. But these are temporal and fleeting things: hear the eternal, to be lamented for ever: “Thy pride is brought down to hell: under thee shall the moth be strewed, and worms shall be thy covering”; thou hast descended into the depth of the pit with the damned, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not extinguished. The giants have met thee, “thou thoughtest kings were as we, thou art become like to us. Is this the man that troubled the earth,” that shook nations? behold now he is alone, naked and wretched, as we. The demons have cried out to thee: Come, Pharao, dwell with us in the devouring fire, in everlasting burnings, where the smoke of torments ascendeth up for ever and ever.
Hear these things, ye kings, hear, ye princes:
Learn justice, being warned, and not to despise the gods.
27. IT RETURNED AT THE FIRST BREAK OF DAY TO THE FORMER PLACE.—The Hebrew is, it returned to its strength, or to its force, that is, as the Chaldee renders, it returned to its vigour, that is, to its natural state and place, in which the sea as it were lives and thrives.
Note: God, that is, an Angel in God’s stead, or rather several Angels (for one could not have extended himself over six miles, the breadth of the Red Sea, and held all the waters there suspended), who had hitherto, namely till the Hebrews should pass over, held and held back the waters of the sea, now, they having crossed and the Egyptians entered, let them go again, that they might rush in with violent force into their former bed, in an ordered series, however: for first the waters were let go that were next the shore, and these first came together, then the following gradually farther; whence to the Egyptians fleeing and running back to their own shore the waters coming together in this order met them from afar: that their punishment and drowning might be the more terrible, the longer the dread and expectation had been that made it more fearful, since from afar, with prolonged gaze, they beheld the avenging waters in which they were to be drowned gradually coming together and approaching; for often “the very fear of war is worse than war.”
29. BUT THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL MARCHED THROUGH THE MIDST OF THE SEA UPON DRY LAND.—This is an anacephalaeosis (recapitulation); for before the Egyptians were drowned, the Hebrews had already crossed this sea: for Moses, standing on the other bank, and stretching his hands over and against the sea, as by this sign calling back the waters, had already brought them back when the Hebrews were already on the safe shore, but the Egyptians were being drowned in the sea. Moses here recapitulates, then, what was said before, to impress on the Hebrews the memory of so great a deliverance, and of so happy and marvellous a passage through the sea, that they might continually recall it and give thanks to God.
You will ask, whether the Hebrews crossed the sea transversely, so that they reached the opposite part, or opposite shore?
The Rabbis, Abulensis and Burgensis deny it, and think that the Hebrews in this passage made a semicircle, namely that they went round the mountain, or the rocks of the desert of Etham, which blocked the direct way by land into Chanaan and ran out into the Red Sea; so that they went round these rocks through the sea, and returned by a bent road to the same shore looking toward Egypt, by which they had entered the sea, but not to the same spot of the shore. They prove it first, because so vast a sea (which Adrichomius asserts to have, where it is widest, a space of six leagues in breadth), the Hebrews could not in so short a time, namely three or four hours, cross, going from one shore to the opposite, especially since among them were boys, old men, sheep and very many other impediments. Secondly, because the Hebrews after the passage saw the bodies of the Egyptians floating: but the Egyptians had not entered the sea so deep that they could be cast up on the opposite shore. Thirdly, Numbers 33, 6, the Hebrews after the passage of the sea are said to have come into the wilderness of Etham: but Etham was not beyond but on this side the sea; for there was the third halting-place of the Hebrews, as we have already seen chap. 13, verse 20. Nevertheless the contrary opinion is common, namely that the Hebrews crossed the whole breadth of the sea, passing from one shore to the other opposite; for this Josephus, Philo and Nyssen expressly teach. The same Scripture intimates, when it narrates that the waters of the sea were cleft, and that the Hebrews passed through the midst of the sea; for according to the opinion of the Rabbis this would not have been so much a passage as a circuit or gyration of the sea. Next, it is plain from the chorography: for in order to arrive from Egypt and the Red Sea at Sina, the Red Sea must be crossed; for this lies between Sina and Egypt; for although from Ramesses to Sina, and still more to Chanaan, there is a direct road on foot, which leaves the Red Sea at the side, yet this road is so fenced about on every side lengthwise by rocks, and so precipitous, that the camp could not pass by it, but, with God as leader, turned its journey through the Red Sea, which necessarily had to be crossed, as may be seen in the tables of Adrichomius, page 116. They err, therefore, who think otherwise. To the first I answer, that the Hebrews could have spent five hours in this passage; for from midnight at once they began to enter the sea, and toward dawn they reached the opposite shore. Again, they could cross 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 104, 37: “There was not among their tribes one that was feeble.” And indeed, to confess the truth, a swift passage of so many millions of men and animals, in so short a time, could not naturally take place without a miracle. Where we see so many other miracles, so manifest and illustrious, we ought not to wonder if there was a miracle also in the swiftness of the crossing.
To the second I answer, that the bodies of the Egyptians were driven and cast up on the opposite shore, because the sea on the other side met them fleeing and returning, and so drove them to the opposite part: Philo and Josephus add that this was effected 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 to the opposite shore on which the Hebrews were, and that for the greater exultation and consolation of the Hebrews, and that they themselves might strip the enemies of their spoils and enrich themselves with them.
To the third Cajetan answers that the desert of Etham was very vast. For in the same chap. 33 of Numbers the Hebrews are said to have journeyed three days in it; Etham extended itself, then, as well on this side the sea as beyond.
Otherwise Lyranus answers, namely that this desert was another from that of Numbers 33, yet both were called Etham. For so many cities and villages have the same names.
Finally the Hebrews hand down that in this going out of Egypt and passage of the Red Sea the neighbouring mountains, partly as if admiring so great a prodigy, partly congratulating the people of God, leaped and as it were danced; and that this is what the Psalmist means, Psalm 113, 3, when he sings: “The sea saw and fled: Jordan was turned back. The mountains skipped (in Greek, were moved from their place) like rams, and the hills like the lambs of the sheep. What ails thee, O thou sea, that thou didst flee? and thou, O Jordan, that thou wast turned back? Ye mountains, that you skipped like rams?” For as the flight of the sea, so also the exultation of the mountains, that is, the leaping and skipping, seems to be taken properly, not metaphorically. So the Hebrews, whom Cajetan follows, and Genebrard on Psalm 113, 9 and 6, and our Sanchez on chap. 64 of Isaias, verse 1. Others, however, with Jansenius, expound that place of Psalm 113 of the earthquake which happened at Sina when the law was given there, Exodus 19, 18. For the Psalmist is wont to join together various miracles done in various places and times, as if touching on them in passing. The credit of this miracle therefore rests with the Hebrews.