Don’t trust in your wisdom, might, or riches, says Jeremiah (9:23-24); trust only in the Lord!
What a scene we have in Exodus 14! On one side, Pharaoh with his rapid-deployment charioteers, men of war from their youth, armed to the teeth. On the other, the children of Israel on foot, laden with the treasures of Egypt, leading their families and livestock. Oh, plus God! But couldn’t the army bear down on them? No. “The Angel of God…moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud went from before them and stood behind them. So it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel. Thus it was a cloud and darkness to the one, and it gave light by night to the other, so that the one did not come near the other all that night” (vv 19-20). How like the Cross—light to those who believe and darkness to those who refuse. Was it, as some say, not the Red Sea but the Reed Sea, a marshy spot easily dried by the wind? If so, what a God who could destroy the army in a few inches of mud! But it doesn’t say that! With the Egyptians blocked, “Israel went into the midst of the sea on the dry ground, and the waters were a wall to them on their right hand and on their left” (v 21). Thus they made it safely to the other side, but the moment God removed the barrier holding back the Egyptians, they rode into the trap they thought was set for Israel. At that point, the wheels came off—literally! “He took off their chariot wheels,…and the Egyptians said, ‘Let us flee from the face of Israel, for the Lord fights for them’” (v 25). But it was too late. God instructed Moses to raise his rod and, with one motion, “the sea returned to its full depth” (v 27) and the pride of Egypt’s army disappeared under the waves. “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses;” wrote David, “but we will remember the name of the Lord our God” (Ps 20:7).