More thoughts on Moses

 

            Ok, let's be truthful here.  What I'm doing is rewriting a Sunday School lesson book.  I'm doing it because it stinks. (Read my first writing on Moses entitled "A thought or two about Moses" it explains why I'm not crazy about Sunday School in general.)

            After I wrote that piece I continued to read thru the Sunday School lesson book and as a result the Lord started showing me things.  He does that to me.  I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm some kind of Prophet because I can hardly ever open a Bible, a commentary, or a Sunday School article without the Spirit doing his "calling all things to remembrance" number on me.  He starts pointing me down paths of investigation that lead me to new perspectives and insights on subjects I've heard about for years and before I know it I have a new revelation into the mind of God.

            Moses is an interesting guy.  He's just like us.  Hard to believe huh?  He isn't a Superhero with "powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men".  He was just this Hebrew guy that God chose to do a job.  As such Moses had a problem with getting himself out of Gods way.  (Paul had the same problem, read Hebrews.)  Like I said, these guys were just like us.

            After the night of the Passover, when all the firstborn in Egypt died without the covering of the lamb's blood, the Hebrew nation fled the land of their enslavement.

            God was leading them to freedom, but first he had to finish with a man who dared to challenge the creator of the universe.

 

            In Exodus 14 we see that God wasn't keeping what he had in mind secret. 

 

Exo 14:1  And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

Exo 14:2  Speak unto the children of Israel, that they turn and encamp before Pihahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, over against Baalzephon: before it shall ye encamp by the sea.

Exo 14:3  For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, They are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in.

Exo 14:4  And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, that he shall follow after them; and I will be honoured upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host; that the Egyptians may know that I am the LORD. And they did so.

 

            Now I have to wonder.  Did Moses do what he was supposed to do in telling children of Israel what God was doing and why? (see 14:1) Or, Did he just go ahead move them without telling them?  I don't know, but I find the next passage curious if he did.

 

Exo 14:10  And when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians marched after them; and they were sore afraid: and the children of Israel cried out unto the LORD.

Exo 14:11  And they said unto Moses, Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt?

Exo 14:12  Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians? For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness.

 

            The position that God had put them in was tactically foolish, yet if they understood that they were "entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in" by the following the plan of God maybe they would not have been "sore afraid"?

            It's one thing to go about your work-a-day life and when you find yourself trapped in some Earthly snare to turn to God for help, but to go where he tells you to, knowing that it was for the purpose of bringing "honour" (14:4) to himself, where do we get off complaining about it?

            I get the sneaking suspicion that Moses, once again, didn't do things exactly like God told him to.

 

            The next verse bear this out.

 

Exo 14:13  And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever.

Exo 14:14  The LORD shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.

 

            This is the Cecil B. De Mille version of what happened on the shore of the Red Sea, and like the movie, the Sunday School lesson that I hold in my hot little hand jumps from vs 14 to vs 22.  But that isn't what happened.

            Once again Moses was trying to second guess God.  Just think about it.  If God had done what Moses wanted and killed the Egyptian army there on the shore of the Red Sea who would have gotten the credit for it?  The Hebrews under the leadership of Moses, that's who.

            God wanted there to be no doubt who had destroyed the Egyptian army.  It wasn't his plan to have the people "stand still".  Let's look at the missing verses.

 

Exo 14:15  And the LORD said unto Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto me? speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward:

 

            That's a pretty telling statement.  "Why are you crying to me?"  (To paraphrase) "...didn't I tell you to speak to the children of Israel?"

            Now God gives him some more instructions. 

 

Exo 14:16  But lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it: and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea.

 

            I find it interesting that in the writings of Josephus it says that Moses, after payer, SMOTE the water of the Red Sea and it opened.  I really don't know if it makes a difference or not but Moses strikes me as more of a smiting type of guy.  He had a thing for hitting stuff.

            Like I said, it may not matter.  Suffice it to say, he got the job done.

 

            I would like to interject something here that I know may concern some people.  I mention Josephus a lot, and let me make it clear that I DO NOT consider his histories to be inspired by God, they are not the word of God but they are a good source of information.

            He wrote down the histories that were passed down from father to son, mother to daughter, for centuries.  It was something that the Hebrew people did rather faithfully, and it was one of the virtues that God saw in Abraham.  I believe that, for the most part, his histories are correct, and they can help open our eyes as to how, when, where, and with the leading of the Holy Spirit WHY, God did the things he did.  Now, back to the lesson.

 

            Joesphus says that when Moses led the Hebrews into the pathway created by God that he "...gave thanks to God for this so surprising a deliverance which appeared from him."

            Maybe Moses was learning.  God can do greater things with your faith than your abilities. (Where did that come from?  That's a great saying right there.)

 

            I want to leave Moses at this time to look at the Red Sea miracle itself.  As I've stated before, we have this Cecil B. De Mille version of what happened , and it has become most people's vision of the truth.  While I can appreciate what DeMille did he was constrained by budgets, he couldn't do it justice.

            Let's look a what really happened there.  Let's ask, and answer a few questions.  Then maybe we can be truly "wowed" by what God did.

 

1.         First of all, how many Hebrews left Egypt?

            Ans: No one really knows but a widely accepted number is somewhere around six million.  Did that include women and children?  Maybe not.

           

 2.        Next, how much space does that many people take up? 

            Ans: People smarter that I have calculated that the encampment of the Hebrew nation covered about 25 square miles.  That's about an area of 10 x 12 feet per person.

 

3.         How wide is the Red Sea?

            Ans: We really don't know exactly where the Hebrew nation crossed the Red Sea but based upon some of the logistics of moving a crowd like this we can make some assumptions.

            We can pretty much rule out the main body of the Red Sea because it is about 30 mile across and they wouldn't have made it in one night.

            It has become commonly accepted that the crossing was in the area of what we now call the Suez Canal.  This area is still considered part of the Red Sea, and is only 4 or 5 miles across.

 

            Just as an aside here.  Why doesn't the Egyptian histories tell us where this happened?  Well, once again I would refer you to Josephus.  He says "And thus did all these men perish, (the Egyptian army) so that there was not one man left to be a messenger of this calamity to the rest of the Egyptians." Nuff said.

 

            Now let's look at what happened and crunch some numbers in the process. (And please feel free to adjust anything you think is unrealistic, I don't think it will matter much.)

            I would believe it is safe to assume that each person would require a little more room for traveling than sitting still.  An area of 10 feet by 20 feet should allow them to move efficiently.

            Remember these people had everything they owned on carts, camels, or their backs.  

            If the people were to move in a column 1050 people abreast they would take up about 2 miles.  (1050 x 10 feet = 10500 feet.  10500 / 5280 ft ~ 2 miles) 

            This would mean the column would be about 5600 ranks of 1050.  (5600 x 20 feet = 112,000 feet or about 112,000/ 5280 ~21 miles long) 

            The fact that they had all those flocks and cattle etc might have made it a little longer than that.

 

4.         So how long would it take to move this group thru the Red Sea?

            Ans: If the crossing point is 4 miles across, and the Hebrew column is 21 miles long that would mean the poor slob riding drag, (a little cattle drive lingo there, he's the guy that eats the dust and follows everyone else to make sure they all get thru.)  would have to cover 25 miles before he got over. 

            If the column moved at a steady 4 miles per hour it would take him 6hrs and 15min to get to the other side.  (Figure 8 hrs total.  Remember the cattle and flocks)

            So this tells us that 6 million people COULD cross in one night.

 

            Now let's look at what God did. 

            If the Hebrew column was 2 miles wide the Red Sea had to open up at least 3 miles wide.  Why?  Because I wouldn't want to walk next to a 100 foot wall of water, would you?  Neither would they.  I have to believe that God opened the sea up enough to allow a degree of comfort for his people.  If the wall of water was about ½ mile away on each side it would still be striking to behold but far enough away so as not to terrify.

                       

            Ponder this for a second.  The Egyptian army was quite a bit smaller than the number of Hebrews.  They only numbered about 100,000.  More than enough to kill 6 millions slaves.

            As such their column was nowhere near as wide as that of the Hebrews.  For the sake of argument lets say the Egyptian column was a mile wide that means the wall of water on either side was about a mile away.  Think about it...a 100 foot wall of water a mile or so away doesn't look all that impressive.  It is a matter of perspective.  At that distance the ratio of distance to height is about 50:1.  Do you doubt what I'm saying?  Go back and look at the videos of the tsunami that hit Thailand a couple of years ago.  That wall of water was 20 feet high and people stood on the beach looking at it until it was only a couple hundred feet away before they started running.

            By the time the Red Sea hit the Egyyptians it was traveling at close to a hundred miles per hour and struck with the force of two pieces of concrete crashing together.  It was impressive, to say the least.  It was accompanied by wind, thunder, and lightening.  (Josephus tells us this but we can also look at Psalms 77)

 

Psa 77:14  Thou art the God that doest wonders: thou hast declared thy strength among the people.

Psa 77:15  Thou hast with thine arm redeemed thy people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. Selah.

Psa 77:16  The waters saw thee, O God, the waters saw thee; they were afraid: the depths also were troubled.

Psa 77:17  The clouds poured out water: the skies sent out a sound: thine arrows also went abroad.

Psa 77:18  The voice of thy thunder was in the heaven: the lightnings lightened the world: the earth trembled and shook.

Psa 77:19  Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and thy footsteps are not known.

Psa 77:20  Thou leddest thy people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

 

            We saw earlier how Moses didn't quite understand what God had in store, but we know that it simply blew away anything he could have done.  He saw what God was capable of.

            I believe he learned a great lesson here, and I hope we do too.

            While God may choose you for your talents and knowledge he will use you for your faith.  Like I said before.  God can do greater things with your faith than your abilities.