Exodus 14

Location uncertain. Some scholars break down the name to read “mouth of Hiroth,” possibly the name of an irrigation canal or a stream.

The word Migdol shows up in Egyptian writings to identify several military sites: watchtowers or forts. An Egyptian letter from Pharaoh Seti  II (reigned 1204-1198 BC) reports one in the Sinai desert near Wadi Tumilat, which ran by Succoth, one of the cities the Israelites passed through earlier (Exodus 12:37). A wadi is a desert stream bed that sometimes runs dry.

Baal-zephon was a Canaanite God. The reference here, some scholars say, likely refers to a location where this Canaanite God was worshiped in Egypt. Several such sites by that name have shown up in Egyptian records.  Scholars make educated guesses about where this was. Some put it along an escape route toward the Red Sea, and associate it with the wall-protected city of Arsinoe, modern Ardscherud, at the northern tip of the Red Sea’s Gulf of Suez. Some scholars make the educated guess that Baal-zephon was near Lake Sirbonis, along Egypt’s northern coast, beside the shortest route back to the Promised Land of what is now Israel and Palestinian Territories.

The song of deliverance that the Israelites will sing in the next chapter, Exodus 15, identifies the sea they cross as the “Reed Sea” (15:4). Many Bibles say “Red Sea.” But the Hebrew words are yam suph, “sea reeds.” Scholars usually track Moses and the Hebrews escaping Egypt by walking southeast, out of the Nile Delta fields and toward the Red Sea and the Sinai Peninsula. They would have passed through lake regions along what is now the Suez Canal, which connects the Red Sea’s Gulf of Suez to the Mediterranean Sea. These lakes and ponds reportedly had reeds growing along the banks, like the ones the Bible says grew along the Nile River and helped anchor Baby Moses in a basket (Exodus 2:3).

This is the king’s reaction to the Israelites turning back, as though they don’t know what they’re doing or where they’re going.

The Hebrew word for “angel” is malak. It can mean “messenger,” celestial or human. That would make it an angel or a neighbor. Some scholars say it can also refer to God himself. Some also suggest the phrase can refer to Jesus, in this case, more than 1,000 years before he took human form.

This is most often translated as a pillar of cloud. But it can also mean smoke, whether natural or supernatural. Since this is a pillar of fire at night, it might seem logical to presume it’s a pillar of smoke and fire in the day.

There is no known report of a natural occurrence like this. The northern tip of the Gulf of Suez can be affected by strong winds and tide, which push the water back from the shore. Then when the tide comes in with a strong wind pushing it, the water can rush back in surprisingly fast. A report in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, written by scientists specializing in meteorology and oceanography, theorize that a wind blowing 45 miles an hour (72 kph) for 10 hours could temporarily lower the depth of the Red Sea 10 feet (3 m) or more, pushing back the northern shoreline for about a mile (1.6 k). If the Israelites crossed on a raised sandbar, there could have been water on both sides of them—but not standing up as walls of water, which some scholars might suggest is an exaggeration. Another study, this one in the Bulletin of Russian Academy of Sciences, says there is a four-mile-long reef at the northern end of the Gulf of Suez. Two Russian scientists writing the article said an all-night wind could have pushed back the 10-foot-deep (3 m) water. And once the wind stopped, the ocean could have rushed back within half an hour. French general Napoleon, riding his horse there, reportedly almost drowned when the water rushed back too quickly. There’s a similar story from Mari, a town in Syria, about an army that escaped from a pursuing army by crossing a river at low tide. When the army chasing them came to the river, the tide had risen, they couldn’t go any further.

It seems difficult to tell if the entire Egyptian army died or if just that part of the army that waded into the sea died. But in the story of the great Exodus of the Hebrew people out of Egypt, this is the last we hear of the Egyptians.