Pharaoh’s Army Drowning in the Red Sea

The movie epic, “The Ten Commandments” by Cecile B. DeMille is a holiday favorite for watching with the entire family. Perennial award-winning actor and former NRA spokesman, the late Charlton Heston, brilliantly personifies the character of “Moses” as based on the biblical Old Testament texts and popular imagination. One of the greatest and memorable scenes in the movie is when he, in the title role of the great Hebrew Deliver “Moses,” is standing on a cliff overlooking the Red Sea and is about to, by the power of God, lead the children of Israel through the midst of the sea.

The breath-taking sight of watching a body of water of such expanse parting in the middle and standing in a heap on the left and right, stories high while exposing a dry seabed is almost surreal; but is this the way it really happened? After the pursuing army of Pharaoh was drowned in the Red Sea, the children of Israel sang a victory song in celebration of the glorious deliverance as recorded in Exodus, Chapter 15.

1
Then Moses and the sons of Israel sang this song to the Lord, and said, “I will sing to the Lord, for He is highly exalted; the horse and its rider He has hurled into the sea.”(??)

4-5
“Pharaoh’s chariots and his army He has cast into the sea (??); and the choicest of his officers are drowned in the Red Sea. “The deeps cover them; they went down into the depths like a stone (??).”

8
“And at the blast of Thy nostrils the waters were piled up, The flowing waters stood up like a heap; The deeps were congealed [frozen] in the heart of the sea.”

10
“Thou didst blow with Thy wind, the sea covered them; they sank like lead in the mighty waters.

11a, 12
“Who is like Thee among the gods, O Lord? “Thou didst stretch out Thy right hand, the earth swallowed them.”

19-21
For the horses of Pharaoh with his chariots and his horsemen went into the sea, and the Lord brought back the waters of the sea upon them; but the sons of Israel walked on dry land through the midst of the sea. And Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took the timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dancing. And Miriam answered them, “Sing to the Lord, for He is highly exalted; the horse and his rider He has hurled into the sea (??).”

Nehemiah 9: 11
And You divided the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on dry land. And their persecutors You threw into the deep, as a stone into the mighty waters (??).

NOTE: It is of course plausible, that the poetic refrain of this song of praise and triumph is expressed in figurative language, and is thereby not to be taken literally word for word. A collapsing wall of water from both sides, perhaps hundreds of feet high would have an unimaginable concussive force that would in all probability have crushed everybody and anything that was beneath it.


Robert Randle
776 Commerce St. #B-11
Tacoma, WA 98402
June 23, 2008
pbks@hotmail.com