Chapter 10
Israel in the Wilderness
  We hold uppermost before us this fact, that it is the Covenant-keeping God who is delivering His Covenant people. In the Passover, He had reaffirmed His Covenant. As they face the wilderness and its perils, they know that the covenant keeping God is with them. Now the institution of this Passover rite of God's covenant friendship with Israel through the promises made to Abraham, is to become a permanent rite in the nation. It is to be a memorial of their miraculous deliverance from Egypt as a covenant people. (Exodus 12:14-20; Exodus 12:43-13:16).
  God almighty speaks of this rite of the Passover as follows: "And it shall be a sign for thee upon thy hand and for a memorial between thy eyes, that the law of Jehovah may be in thy mouth; for with a strong hand hath Jehovah brought thee out of Egypt."
  In primitive times often when two men cut the covenant a blood stained record of the covenant was preserved in a small leather case worn about the arm, or about the neck of him who had won a friend forever in this sacred rite of blood friendship.
  Down through the generations, the Jews have been accustomed to wear upon their foreheads as a crown, and upon their arm as an armlet a small leather case as a sacred amulet containing a record of the Passover covenant between Jehovah and the seed of Abraham, His friend.

Exit with Great Substance
  Before the conflict with Pharaoh began, God had said to Moses: "I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, and it shall come to pass that when you go, you shall not go empty, but every woman shall borrow of her neighbor and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver and jewels of gold and raiment, and you shall put them on your sons and on your daughters: and you shall spoil the Egyptians."
  Many have misunderstood this scripture, and Exodus 12:35-36 because a mistake was made in the translation. The Hebrew word translated "borrow" means "ask," that is to entertain a request and graciously give. It was not a case of theft, borrowing with no thought of return. The Israelites asked these things. The question was whether or not the request should be answered or meet with angry refusal.
  God who made a covenant with Abraham and his seed intervened. He gave His people favor in the eyes of the Egyptians. They were looked upon by their enemies in a new light; and the Egyptians gave unto them. These were the spoils of a more glorious victory than any other conquering nation had ever known. In history the conquered have been spoiled, but never willingly. But here the Egyptians find joy in giving to those who under God had mastered them.
  God's covenant people had simply stood and waited for the salvation promised even to Abraham by the Covenant-keeping God. Now, these slaves, pass out adorned with the gorgeous raiment and jewels of those who had so long spoiled them.
  Hundreds of years previous to the event, their covenant God had predicted this triumph. In Genesis 15:13-14 He had said to Abraham that his seed should be a stranger and afflicted in a land not theirs, and that He would judge the nation whom they had served. With it He had given this promise: "Afterward, they shall come our with great substance."
  Here God had looked forward to the very spoiling of the Egyptians as the end of a sore travail in His people and a compensation for their bondage and slavery.

The Route of the Journey Is Changed
  On the second day's journey the Israelites followed the usual route to Palestine. This must have led them to the "edge of the wilderness." Across those sands and up along the Mediterranean Coast lay the nearest way to Palestine. A few marches onward, and they would have passed into the territory of the warlike Philistines.
  But here the route was suddenly changed. We are told that God led them not through the way of the Philistines, although that was near, for God said lest peradventure, the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt; but God led the people about, through the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea. Why then, we may ask, were they suffered to make a beginning, which looked as if they were to take the route more expeditious to the land promised to their fathers? Why was the change made in the route, so that they had on the third day to retrace their steps and march southward on the Egyptian side of the sea?
  We may at first be perplexed by the question. It does look as though God's plan had suddenly changed; but a little reflection will speedily unveil the Divine plan, and Divine wisdom. The whole is explained in these words, "they encamped ... at the edge of the wilderness" (Exodus 13:20).
  God had a two-fold purpose. Israel had to bend to the Divine will. Naturally, they at the outset, desired the shortest route. God suffered them to take it, and went with them so far as he often does in our willfulness. They are brought to the "edge of the wilderness" and then comes the reflection. There is nothing inviting in the aspect of that dreary expanse. They began to think of dreary days of plodding, thirsting, hunger, and through treeless, waterless, habitationless desert.
  Then they think of the embattled wall of fierce determined foe men through which a way must be forced after the desert has been traversed. There was no murmuring on the morrow when God said: "Speak unto the children of Israel, that they turn" (Exodus 14:2). This it would seem, brought relief to them.
  Israel's covenant keeping God also had another purpose. The king of Egypt was carefully watching their movements. God was not going to allow His Covenant people to pass with dishonor from the land of Egypt; they were not going to be allowed to run away. When God almighty delivers, it is not through human methods. His deliverance is glorious, in its fullness and in its beauty of holiness. Egypt herself will thrust Israel out and compel them to abandon the country. So the route is changed.

Crossing the Red Sea
  The Egyptians are left in their selfish greed and cruelty to misread the change in Israel's route to their own destruction. "For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, they are entangled in the land; the wilderness hath shut them in" Exodus 14:3.
  To Egypt this move seemed to be a revelation of unexpected weakness. There was no longer any God among them, and Egypt could now enjoy to the full the wild revenge for which it panted. They said: "I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil. My lust shall be satisfied upon them: I will draw my sword; my hand will destroy them." (Exodus 15:9)
  The thought that had sprung up in Pharaoh's bosom seems to have flamed up like an answering fire in the bosom of his people. The heart of Pharaoh and of his servants was turned against the people and they said, why have we done this, that we have let Israel go from serving us?
  It seems that all the troops that could be massed together took part in this pursuit. (Exodus 14:6-9) The elaborately disciplined standing army of Egypt was one of the marvels of the Ancient world. We can imagine the terror which must have laid hold of the hearts of the Israelites the moment they realized that his fearful engine was directed against them (Exodus 14:10). It seemed that for the moment in mad and hopeless despair, they forget the God of the Covenant. They cry bitterly unto Moses, for bringing them into this place of seeming death (Exodus 14:11-12). Then, we hear the words of faith from Moses, to fear not, because God would work on their behalf on that day (Exodus 14:13-14).
  Now, let us note what the miracle-working God performed. His reply to Moses is: "Speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward." Then this covenant man was bidden to prepare a strange pathway for them. He was to lift that rod which had hitherto brought judgment upon Egypt; it would command the forces of nature to work a salvation for the people of the Covenant.
  "And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon dry ground: and the waters were a wall upon their right hand and their left" (Exodus 14:21-22). The forces of nature obeyed His word.
  As we stand in the presence of this tremendous miracle we catch a glimpse into the far past, at the time when the first man walked in the realm of God's ability, with dominion over the works of his hands (Genesis 1:26). This dominion became lost by the fall. We can see glimpses of it now and then under the old covenant at such an instance as this, until the time comes when the second Adam walks with the father God with dominion over the forces of nature (1 Corinthians 15:45).

The Pillar of Cloud
  We have seen that the natural man is limited in his knowledge to that which he gains through his five senses of his physical body. God must manifest Himself to Israel; His presence can be known to them only through the physical senses.
  God revealed His presence to them by a pillar of a cloud which appeared on the second day (Exodus 13:21-22). They could see the cloud, and feel the warmth of this fiery cloud in the nighttime. This pillar of a cloud was not only a visible manifestation of His presence, but it was also a means of His caring for them.
  It became a strange protection from the intense heat of the desert in the day, and at night, it became a mammoth lighting and heating plant. It kept them cool during the day and warm during the cold bitter night. When this cloud moved, they knew it was time to break camp and journey on. When it stopped, whether it was day or night, they knew it was time to make camp and wait His further leading. This cloud was with them as a protection, a comfort, a guide, during the forty years of wandering in the Sinai desert.
  At the time that the Egyptians had pursued them, this strange cloud had moved from its position before them and stood behind them. It stood between the camp of the Egyptians and the Israelites. To the Israelites it was light and warmth, but to the Egyptians it was a thick darkness.

March Through the Desert
  Now the eventful period in Israel's history begins. The march through the desert is under way. The peninsula of Sinai is to this day a kind of no-man's land. Other regions have been coveted, and fought for, but no powers of either ancient or modern times have ever sought for possession of Sinai, until the recent seven day war between the Egyptians and modern Israel, when Israel secured Sinai by conquest from Egypt. What the future holds is speculative.
  Yet to this isolated despised district, three million slaves are taken. They have a slave spirit; they are untrained and full of criticism and bitterness. In this place the Covenant God is going to reveal Himself and His glory and build from this slave nation a free people with leaders and teachers.
  They are separated from idolatry; this nation which is to preserve the revelation of the one true God will learn to walk dependent upon Him.
  We now start with Israel on this momentous journey. They arrive at Marah where the water was bitter. They had been used to drinking the sweet water of the Nile, so famed in the East, and now in childish disappointment, they burst forth in childish, unrestrained complaint against Moses (Exodus 15:22-24).
  The Covenant God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, ever caring for His people, makes the bitter water sweet. Then He manifests Himself not only as the one who shall lead them, care for them, and protect them, but also as one who will permit none of the diseases of the Egyptians to come upon them. He makes Himself known to them, as the God that healeth them (Exodus 15:26-27).
  The Blood-covenant rights and privileges, all that He has, belong to Israel. His ability belonged to them, as manifested through Moses, His care, His protection, His healing were theirs.
  It is a remarkable fact that during the wilderness period while they walked in the covenant, no babies, no children, nor neither young men, nor young women died. No one died prematurely because of the power of disease. He was the God that made a covenant with Abraham, and in covenant promised to be the God of Abraham's offspring. God kept His promise.


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