Intro: Welcome to the Spoken Gospel podcast. This is our attempt to speak the gospel out of every corner of scripture. We believe every part of the Bible, Old Testament and New, is about Jesus, and this podcast is our experiment to publicly test that belief. Let's jump in. [upbeat music]
David: Well, welcome to the Spoken Gospel podcast. It's, uh, it's glad to have you back with us.
Seth: It's glad to have you, too.
David: Glad to have you. It's glad. Who's glad? It's, it's just a glad thing to have you.
Seth: A glad thing.
David: And, and, uh, and Seth, how are you today?
Seth: Fine.
David: Yeah, you doing okay?
Seth: I'm fine. I have unraveled a mystery-
David: Oh
Seth: ... of my childhood.
David: Oh, gosh. [laughs] Oh, that is so random. What are you talking about?
Seth: Well, ever since we started the podcast, you always have to, like, bump my voice up all the time.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Why do I speak so quietly all the time? And then I realized it's this neurosis from my childhood.
David: You have neurosis from your childhood?
Seth: Doesn't everybody?
David: No, uh-uh.
Seth: I was ... So, we grew up in, so Americans are just loud everywhere in the world, basically.
David: Yeah, but you didn't, you weren't raised an American.
Seth: No, so I was, you know, I l- grew up in Europe, and I was always told, "Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet, be quiet," all the time. And so I think I've just absorbed into my psyche and into my voice patterns, just low speaking all the time, and no one's ever called me out on it, until the podcast.
David: Until the podcast, and then the waveforms on the audio recording program call you out.
Seth: That's it.
David: It's just-
Seth: That's it. I'm looking at it right now
David: ... they, they shame you. But they're looking good now because we bumped up your overall input.
Seth: I'm so much louder.
David: [laughs] It's so good. Um-
Seth: This is all a sham now, though.
David: It is.
Seth: This isn't my real volume.
David: [laughs]
Seth: It's a lie. Don't believe it.
David: Don't believe it. Oh, man, well, uh, last week was really fun. Um, fun is a r- a really bad word, I guess. Uh, but it was really-
Seth: Death of the firstborn
David: ... really interesting. Super fun. But it was really insightful for me. I really enjoyed, like, unpacking that, um, the death of the firstborn, the, the Passover, the feast, and all that, all that stuff.
Seth: We even forgot something, I realized.
David: Oh, what's that?
Seth: So whenever they spread the doorpost with blood-
David: Uh-huh
Seth: ... they use a hyssop branch.
David: Right.
Seth: And a hyssop branch is the same thing that's offered to Jesus as he's on the cross when they give him that vinegar.
David: Oh.
Seth: I, I just-
David: Interesting
Seth: ... anyway.
David: Is there, is there-
Seth: Tidbit
David: ... does that, like, mean anything?
Seth: No, just interesting.
David: It's just interesting.
Seth: Well, I mean, I think it's another parallel John brings up.
David: It's nice.
Seth: So it's just another way in which we're supposed to look at Jesus as-
David: The, the Passover lamb
Seth: ... the Passover lamb.
David: Okay, gotcha. Well, that is pretty cool. I don't think I ever knew that.
Seth: Now you do.
David: Now I do. I need to learn more about plants.
Seth: Horticulture is very important to scripture.
David: [laughs] It really is.
Seth: No. Well, I mean, a little bit.
David: You should write a book called Horticulture Hermeneutics. [laughs]
Seth: No one would read it.
David: No, you're right.
Seth: [laughs]
David: But that's, that's, that's the world we're in. We, you know, us Bible nerds, we write books and no one reads them. That's, uh, that's just the, that's the, that's the game you signed up for.
Seth: Okay.
David: So anyway, well, today then, uh, we are in Exodus 14 through 15, so this is the actual exodus. [laughs] This is the, right, this is the exodus.
Seth: Not Jesus, not Jesus. Not yet.
David: Not Jesus, not yet. What was I thinking?
Seth: Moses leading people through the water.
David: Yep, out of the land of Egypt. So, um, we start, uh, kind of where we left off with, um, the death of the firstborn, the angel of the Lord coming through the, all, I mean, all of Egypt-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... and passing over where there was the blood and, and, uh, killing where there wasn't.
Seth: Yep, and then God in verse 13:17 is leading them in a way that they don't expect, uh, not by the land of the Philistines, which would've been more direct, I guess.
David: Yeah, w- so yeah, it'd been way more direct. The shortest route would've been through the land of the Philistines, and also you have to assume, too, not only was it the shortest route, it's really the plausible route because they weren't thinking, "How else could we get through here? Well, we could go through the land of the Philistines, or we could just cross through the Red Sea." No one's thinking that yet 'cause a miracle hasn't occurred, so it's strange.
Seth: Yeah, and then God seems to, like, anticipate their desire to turn to, "Because we're doing this because they might change their mind when they see war and return to Egypt."
David: Right, so why, yeah, why aren't they going through the, the land of the Philistines?
Seth: God wants to back them into a corner.
David: [laughs] Yeah, I think it's like He, He says, "Well, because if they see war, and they see the Philistines, they're gonna turn back and go into bondage." So God knows that, so He's, He brings them in His foreknowledge to this other place, but not only to not keep them from war because we know here in just, like, two chapters they're going to go to war with, uh, who is it? The, I'm still turning pages, still turning pages. The, with Amalek.
Seth: Right.
David: So-
Seth: But not all war is gonna make them wanna go back to Egypt.
David: But this one would have 'cause they would've still been right there next to Egypt.
Seth: This, and they actually do wanna go back, so verse 10, "When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes and saw them, they feared greatly, and the people of Israel cried out, 'It's bec- are there no graves in Egypt that you've taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done than bring us out of E- Egypt? Well, leave us alone so we can go serve the Egyptians. It would've been better to be there.'" So, like, they-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... God's like, "They're gonna do this."
David: They're already disposed to this.
Seth: They're like, "No, who would want that?" And then He does it.
David: Right, so God leads them down to the Red Sea, um, or the Reed Sea, as it says in the Hebrew scriptures, the Sea of Reeds, which is mentioned elsewhere in the Bible, too. Uh, we know that it was a deep sea, uh, 'cause this is the same place where some ships of later, um, kings, like, port out of, so it's a big old sea.
Seth: Big sea.
David: Which is pretty cool, so.
Seth: You, you also need a big sea to, like, get a million people through.
David: Yeah.
Seth: 600,000 chariots.
David: Yeah, well, 600, yeah, 600,000 men, so some estimates are upwards of 2 million people plus their animals for the Hebrews.
Seth: Yeah, it has to drown the entire Egyptian army.
David: Right.
Seth: So it's gotta be deep.
David: It's gotta be a big old sea. So, um, so He takes them there. Yeah, they, they kind of butt up against the sea, and, uh, God leads them there through two different-Like manifestations of his power. In the daytime, he leads them with a pillar of cloud, and then in the nighttime, he leads them with a pillar of fire.
Seth: I don't, I've always wondered about this. Like, is there like-
David: [laughs]
Seth: Is this just such a strange way to reveal yourself?
David: Yeah.
Seth: I mean, I know God's glory is sometimes described as like smoke-
David: Right
Seth: ... or-
David: We're gonna see that on Mount Sinai here in a bit, right?
Seth: Yeah. And so I just, is it, this is just a different manifestation of smoke and lightning, like?
David: I don't know. Um, I don't know. Pillar of cloud. We, we don't really get a lot out of it. I mean, it just kind of flippantly mentions it. We know later that, um, when after they build the tabernacle, that they know to leave, um, and pick up, pick up the tents of the tabernacle and move it whenever the cloud moves. And so it's just the way that God is guiding them. Um, and yeah, I don't know if it's smoke or if it's cloud or like, if it's actual, like just low-hanging clouds or if it's like a column of smoke. We're not really told a ton about it.
Seth: Prince of Egypt, it's like a tornado of fire. [laughs]
David: Yeah, dude, it's so epic in Prince of Egypt. It really is. It, it like comes down so quickly in that tornado. I love that scene. It's legit.
Seth: Prince of Egypt.
David: So good.
Seth: Guiding us through the book of Exodus.
David: Oh, yes. Just by the hand, so responsibly. I'm just waiting for the musical numbers.
Seth: Historically accurate.
David: [laughs] And so they're, uh, they're brought there by this pillar of cloud and pillar of fire and yeah, like you, you kind of already hinted at, Egypt shows up, right? And they're, uh, they're, they're-
Seth: Yes
David: ... they're, oh, oh, before we get there, something, something interesting is in, um, 13, uh, 19, Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for Joseph, uh, had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying, "God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones with you from here." So this takes us back to the end of Genesis, Genesis, uh, 50:24, right at the end, and Joseph, before he dies, makes the people swear that he won't, they won't leave his bones in Egypt. Uh, he says, "Because the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is gonna take us to the land that he swore to Abraham. And so I, I wanna be there, even if it's just in my bones." So it's like at the very end of Genesis, in, in Joseph's dying breaths, we see that he still believes in this covenant-keeping God who is going to make good on what he promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And so here, as they're leaving the Exodus, we see, you know-
Seth: That's crazy
David: ... the, the author's trying to show us, like, "Hey, remember that thing? [laughs] Like, when Joseph was like, 'Don't leave my bones in Egypt.'"
Seth: It's just crazy that Moses knows about it.
David: Oh, yeah.
Seth: [laughs] Like-
David: How, yeah, oral tradition or?
Seth: Yeah, just he knows about it, and apparently he can just walk in and take the bones.
David: Take the bones. [laughs]
Seth: This is crazy.
David: It is crazy.
Seth: I, I told you this, uh, I'm not gonna-
David: But I guess if they were, if they were getting gold from everybody they asked for too, I guess bones.
Seth: I want the bones.
David: I want the bones too.
Seth: I'll get the bones with that.
David: Yeah. [laughs] Do you want bones with that?
Seth: It's like-
David: The fast food version of-
Seth: Yeah, yeah
David: ... Egypt, the Exodus. Okay. Uh, so that's pretty cool. That's, that's awesome. Uh, so, um, yeah, so we, we know that this is the deliverance that God had promised Abraham back, um, in Genesis, like 15. This is the promised, uh, deliverance that Joseph was waiting for. You know, by picking up Joseph's bones, the people of Israel are saying like, "This is that time. Like, it's here. This is the time that Jesus," or Jesus. [laughs] It's, uh, my turn. You did it earlier. Now it's my turn.
Seth: Too much Jesus.
David: Too much Jesus. That God promised, um, to, to deliver us. So yeah, then we get to-
Seth: Pharaoh
David: ... Pharaoh.
Seth: And verse four, God hardens Pharaoh's heart again.
David: Right.
Seth: Pursuing them. We're told in verse five that the mind of Pharaoh and his servants was changed towards the people of Israel.
David: Yep.
Seth: And then in verse eight, again, we're told the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and he pursued the people of Israel, while the people of Israel were going out. Um, so God's continuing to harden Pharaoh's heart for ultimately His glory, so I can get glory over Pharaoh-
David: Right
Seth: ... and all of his hosts.
David: And He says that twice, so I can get glory over Pharaoh. So why would God, um, harden hearts and change minds? It's for His glory. It's the only worthy cause. I think a lot of times people wanna pit, um, they, they wanna say like, God would never do something like this because He respects humans too much. And it's like, okay, He does respect and love humans, but there's one thing that stands above human autonomy, and it's the glory of God. It's worth everything, even, um-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... our own autonomy.
Seth: And I think too, I mean, when we-- I don't think anybody would say that with Pharaoh, though, 'cause they look at Pharaoh and they say, "He's clearly so bad-
David: He's messed up
Seth: ... God is right to treat him this way."
David: Sure.
Seth: And we're gonna read about, like, God snorting in anger or, like, killing him. But, like, when we hear about people like Pharaoh oppressing people, no, we want them to die.
David: Right.
Seth: And we, and we, that's a good desire. You know, like-
David: We want justice for that, yeah.
Seth: We want justice.
David: That's right.
Seth: And if there are people not weeping over sex trafficking, not weeping over the enslavement of people, who are not angry about that-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... or rights being taken away, you're being inhuman. So I think God is proving His justice here in a way that we all understand.
David: Right.
Seth: Like, nobody wants dictators to keep living.
David: And so God, yeah, God draws him in to this trap He's basically set for Pharaoh to, uh, enact this judgment against this dictator.
Seth: At this point, the people of Israel don't know that.
David: No.
Seth: They think they're doomed.
David: [laughs] They, they, they're like, "The jig is up."
Seth: Verse 10, and the people of Israel cry out to the Lord. But what's fascinating, it says they cried to the Lord, then they say to Moses. It's because there's no graves in Egypt that, so it's like, who are they talking to in this moment?
David: Yeah.
Seth: And I think it plays on the fact they cried out to the Lord in the beginning of Exodus-
David: That's right
Seth: ... to, like, save them, and they're doing it here, but now they're complaining-
David: That's right
Seth: ... and they're wanting to go back into slavery, where God's already delivered them from. So the cries-
David: Yes
Seth: ... of the Israelites seem to be changing.
David: Yeah.They're, yeah, they, they are, they're crying out to God in the beginning of the narrative, asking for their salvation from Egypt, and then whenever they're actually given it, instead of calling back out to this God for salvation, saying, "Save us from the encroaching Egyptians," they're complaining about the salvation, and said, "Actually, we would've rather just stayed in Egypt and served them."
Seth: We'd rather be enslaved.
David: It would be better to s- be under this oppressive dictator than to be out here trusting that God is gonna save us. [laughs]
Seth: Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians.
David: Yeah, they wanna go back into slavery-
Seth: Yes
David: ... instead of just trust God to actually be the deliverer for whom they cried.
David: [laughs] It's absolutely absurd.
Seth: But I don't actually think it's that absurd.
David: [laughs]
Seth: I, I mean, at this point in the story, I think we're saying like, "How on earth ... You, you literally are looking at a pillar of fire."
David: Right.
Seth: You've just been rescued out of the land of Egypt. They've given you all the gold. You've just seen hail and stuff. Like, how on earth are you not trusting in God right now?
David: Right.
Seth: And we look at it, and we say that's absurd.
David: Right.
Seth: I think, I think you're supposed to be that way-
David: Right
Seth: ... 'cause, like, he's-
David: The story's written that way.
Seth: The story's written that way.
David: Yeah.
Seth: We have genres of literature and movies that do the same thing. Isn't it terrible that this person would do this, this, and this, this? And by the end of the movie, like, oh, wait.
David: Yeah.
Seth: That's our society.
David: Right.
Seth: That's us.
David: That's-
Seth: That's how we act.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Yeah.
David: We were talking about that with an episode of Black Mirror recently.
Seth: Yes.
David: Where it was like this horrible thing that people are, are watching this, this, this-
Seth: Like, the whole series of Black Mirror. [laughs]
David: The whole series of Black Mirror, and it's just like, oh.
Seth: You become complicit.
David: Yeah. Oh, yeah. So yeah, w- that's w- how this narrative's working. That's how movies work.
Seth: Yeah, so I think by the time we get to the golden calf, we s- there's literally smoke on the mountain. God is still present, yet they're still demanding to worship other things. I think at that point we start to realize how broken, not just the Israelites are, but we are. We can see God working and moving, not just in judgment, but in His provision.
David: Mm.
Seth: And really, really quickly start to say, "It would be better if I did my own thing. It'd be better if I chose what to do in this particular scenario. It'd be better if I trust my own inclinations and followed my own heart than trust the heart of the Lord."
David: Yeah.
Seth: And so I just want us to point that out here, like, yes, that's absurd, but I think the hammer's gonna fall a little bit more quickly on our own hearts pretty quickly.
David: Yeah, yeah. My heart is equally absurd, that no matter how God reveals Himself to me, I'm still going to doubt Him and feel like there's no way out, and I'm, I'm never going to be s- like, stop my doubting.
Seth: Right. We are always gonna wanna serve somebody other than God.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And even in the moment when it seems like the Lord's rescuing us, we're gonna say, "I would rather serve a different master." [gentle music]
David: Right. So we just looked at the people cowering at the edge of the Red Sea, wondering how God was gonna save them, wishing they were back in slavery. [laughs] And Moses's, um, response is one of my favorite parts of this whole story. Uh, in, uh, chapter 14 verse 13, Moses said to the people, "Fear not. Stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent." [laughs] So basically he's like, "Shut up, because God's gonna do something unilaterally. He's gonna do it for you. Would you just be quiet long enough for Him to just act?" [laughs] Like, uh, He doesn't ask them-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... to do anything other than stand still and don't be afraid.
Seth: And this is the first time we see the word salvation in all the Bible.
David: Oh, is it?
Seth: Yep, the very first time. So the first time we hear the word salvation in the entire Bible, it's God unilaterally acting to save a silent, cowering people.
David: Oh, well, that's awesome. [laughs]
Seth: [laughs] That's really cool.
David: Uh, and we'll, we'll, we'll link back into this later about how, how important this is for us, but, um, I just wanted to highlight it here as we're walking through the narrative.
Seth: And so how does then Moses enact, how does God through Moses enact the salvation? He, in verse 16, he holds up his staff, stretches out his hand over the sea, and divide it. The people of Israel may go through the sea on dry ground, and then the Lord, in verse 21, drives back the sea with a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.
David: Right.
Seth: And so I think this should bring us back in this moment right here. So we're, God's providing salvation. It should bring us back to the garden.
David: Oh, why?
Seth: Because He's dividing the lands. He's separating the dry land from the sea. He's-
David: Ah
Seth: ... right, so the author here is intentionally calling to mind, like, God is recreating for His people.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Once in the garden, and now again in the Promised Land. He's making a new creation for His new people.
David: Oh, that's so cool. And now that you've mentioned Genesis, I'm also thinking too of the first, the first gospel, the protoevangelium, the, you know, the Genesis 3:15, where it says, "I will put-"
Seth: Yeah
David: ... "enmity between your seed and the woman's seed, and he will crush your head, and you will bruise his heel." Here again, we see a separation between the seed of God's chosen people and the seed of destruction because you see this separation happening, uh, later. Uh, so whene- whenever the, the, the Israelites go through the Red Sea, um, what keeps the E- uh, the Egyptians at bay is this pillar of cloud or pillar of fire that was in front of Israel moves to the back and keeps Egypt at bay for a little while, and I'm reminded of the cherubim, um, the cherubim, like, with the flaming sword keeping people out of the garden. Now we have this flame creating a separation again, and I, I'm, I just see really clearly this distinction that God made starting in the plagues that we saw. Now He's making it here too.
Seth: So you're saying there's something here where God's ... There's a, this theme of separation happening.
David: Yes, and distinction.
Seth: And distinction.
David: Yeah.
Seth: To answer this for me then, so
Seth: I see what you're saying, like thematically, like conceptually, but I actually don't see that like in word form.
David: Sure.
Seth: I don't really see all the like separation language-
David: Right
Seth: ... happening right here. The flaming sword of an angel, is that really analogous to a pillar of fire? [laughs]
David: Well, it's definitely, I mean, flame and, fire and fire, and it's fire of God, and f- and, and, um, and the, what, the, it's called an angel that, it's the angel of the Lord that is in the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire.
Seth: You're right. So you have, yeah.
David: So you have, you have angel and fire, angel and fire. So I feel like there's a pretty strong language connection there, not only a conceptual one, and then also that what's the purpose of the fire once the Egyptians come is separation, exclusion, barrier.
Seth: Mm-hmm.
David: So I feel like-
Seth: Verse 20, coming between the host of Egypt and the host of Israel.
David: Yeah.
Seth: So coming between, separation.
David: That's right, and what, what are they separating? God's chosen seed and fallen man. Those whom ... And, and, and we don't see like the good guys and the bad guys. Like, you have unrepentant, doubtful Israel there at the mouth of the Red Sea, and yet God makes a distinction not based on merit, but just based on His will. He just distinguishes.
Seth: Yeah, He does.
David: [laughs] I mean, we don't have to explain that, because-
Seth: It's done
David: ... anytime we, anytime we try to, we're slapped by scripture to not, not ask the question. But [laughs]
Seth: And this text doesn't actually give us-
David: It doesn't
Seth: ... space to even ask that question, because immediately the wind is coming-
David: Yep
Seth: ... separating the sea, and regardless of what's happening there, God's gonna make it happen.
David: Yeah, and, and-
Seth: And move on
David: ... if you're in the situation, you're like, "Oh, run." [laughs]
Seth: Right. [laughs]
David: Yeah, so they go through. Uh, Israel, Israel goes through on dry ground, and then after a while, God removes the pillar of fire and hardens Pharaoh's heart and the hearts of his army to pursue after Israel. 'Cause it feels like at this point, you would be, you'd be like, "I'm done."
Seth: I'm done.
David: I'm not gonna go in there.
Seth: There's 100 feet of water on both sides of me.
David: Yeah.
Seth: I'm not. [laughs]
David: It, it's like, it's like in horror movies whenever it's like, "Oh, should I go into this, this house where there's no escape and there's a murderer inside?" It's like, "No, don't do it."
Seth: Don't go in there.
David: Why would you do that? And it's like, oh, the, someone hardened their heart. The director hardened their heart. [laughs] Here, it's God. God hardened the heart of Pharaoh to go in after them, and it says they go in, and then He sends in this, He s- He starts like sending in, I think it's His pillar of cloud or something, and like, uh, He, He basically takes away the, uh, the dryness of the, of the ground, and it starts to get wet, and it says their chariot wheels start getting clogged up so they can't move, and then He closes in the waters around them, and they drown. And yet in front of this closed water, it's still open and dry, and so it's, it's like-
Seth: It's like a zipper.
David: It's like a zipper. [laughs] Yeah. Yeah, that's a good way. I was like, how do I explain this?
Seth: Hmm.
David: I was thinking of like a U in the middle of it, but I like the zipper.
Seth: A zipper's still good. [laughs]
David: Yeah.
Seth: Yeah. Zip, zip.
David: Yeah. And, um, and so you have, therefore you have God acting in two different ways in one situation. Um, He's acting through one event in this Red Sea, and He's saving one group and judging through death another, um, and it's extremely graphic. Um, so much so-
Seth: And it kind of gets-
David: Yeah, go ahead
Seth: ... more graphic-
David: It, it does, yep
Seth: ... now in the next chapter. It's the same narrative, but in poetry-
David: Yep
Seth: ... song-
David: Right
Seth: ... where they're praising the Lord for His strong arm-
David: Right
Seth: ... and His anger.
David: Yeah, and, and, and in between those two events, um, or not events, but the narrative form and the poetic form, we have this final narrative touch here. It's kind of a sum-up, um, of what just occurred in Exodus 14:30 and 31. "Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians. So the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in His servant Moses." So w- they, we have the fear of the Lord and faith. They fear and have faith in the Lord because why? Because, and it doesn't say because they were saved. It says 'cause they saw the judgment. They saw Egyptians dead on the seashore, and so they believed.
Seth: So like all people freed from slavery, all people freed from oppression, who've just seen their victory and all their enemies vanquished, they celebrate.
David: Yeah.
Seth: They sing. So I mean, I think we have examples throughout history of people who have been freed, and they sing and put that-
David: Oh, yeah
Seth: ... put that freedom into words and celebration. You know, any, any war movie you see, [laughs] there's always like a dancing scene at the very end of the war movie.
David: Well, or, uh, I, I, I immediately thought of, of The Wizard of Oz. What, what happened after the house crushed, crushed the Wicked Witch?
Seth: I don't remember. I haven't seen The Wizard of Oz in forever. [laughs]
David: The Wicked Witch is dead. Which old witch? The Wicked Witch. They sing a song about her dying. [laughs]
Seth: So that's what's happening here.
David: That's what's happening. [laughs]
Seth: [laughs] Um, yes, and we are a little surprised by some of the language, especially, I mean, we're ch- children of our culture, so like we like, "The Lord is a man of war. The Lord is His name," verse 3. "The chariots and the host were cast into the sea, and the chosen officers were sunk. The floods covered them; they went down into the depths like a stone. Glorious in power, shattering the enemy, overthrowing the adversary, and consuming them like stubble."
David: Yeah.
Seth: "The blast of Your nostrils." [laughs]
David: [laughs]
Seth: "The floods covered them in heap, and the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea."
David: It's all this like, it's all this hyperbolic war, um, language that, that is very indicative of like wrapping up a victory of war.It's just like we're just gonna hyperbolically explain what just occurred in order to-- not, it's not an embellishment. It's a, it's po- it's poetry.
Seth: It's poetry.
David: It's poetry. This is poetry, and it's just them saying like, "This is what basically happened." And like, uh, it, but it, it serves a purpose, too. It's not just like overkill language. I mean, take for instance the, "He cast them into the sea," right? It's almost this vision of like God hurled them, like picked them up and tossed them into the sea. It's like, well, that's not what happened. They followed Him in, and the water closed around them, but why, why, why use this kind of language? Well, He's trying to take us back to the beginning of the story whenever Pharaoh had, uh, Israel's children cast into the sea.
Seth: And when Moses-- Oh, I didn't think about that.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Yeah. [laughs] I caught you off guard.
David: [laughs] Caught me off guard.
Seth: It was the-- I thought you were gonna go back where he just says like, "Be, be silent, and I will save by my hand."
David: Mm.
Seth: So even just within this shorter story saying, "I will save," and they're repeating that by saying, "The Lord cast them into the sea."
David: The Lord cast them into the sea, right.
Seth: But you're saying it rewinds us back to-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... Pharaoh's actions.
David: Because it's not, 'cause God's not judging arbitrarily.
Seth: No, Pharaoh's getting what he deserves.
David: That's right. He earned this punishment, right? And so I think God is showing that He is heaping his punishment back on his head by kind of repeating this cast into the sea kind of language here.
Seth: So this poem goes on for a while, and it ends with an expectation of walking into the Promised Land. Um-
David: Yes
Seth: ... verse 17, "You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain, the place, O Lord, where you have made your abode, the sanctuary, O Lord, where you've, your hands have established, Lord."
David: Right. So it's not just looking backwards narratively through poetry. It's also, um, prophetic. It's actually looking forward and saying what God will do next. And so I think a lot of times we, when, especially when we come to the Pentateuch, these first five books of the Bible, we, we tend to only view them as narrative about what God has done, but they constantly are looking forward still to what God will do because they're not meant to be a self-contained narrative. They are meant to cast the mind forward to w- how God will accomplish what He's promised ever since the beginning of the story.
Seth: Yeah, not only will He's gonna establish His place on His mountain, verse 15, it talks about like melting away the Canaanites and allowing themselves to dwell in the land.
David: That's right. So he's already talking about their, their wars that they're about to go in to cleanse the Promised Land, which we'll get into at a, [laughs] at a much later podcast when we take up some of those later books, but yeah, absolutely.
Seth: Yeah, and then I like, I wanna point out, this is a smaller little thing, but so in verse 19, "For when the horses of Pharaoh and his chariots and his horsemen went into the sea, the Lord brought them back, back the waters of the sea upon them," yada, yada. So I just want us to note how many time horses are mentioned in this passage.
David: Okay.
Seth: Be- they're mentioned all over this passage, and one of the things that we, that, that's picked up here in the books of Sol- where Solomon's life is recorded in First and Second Kings is that part of the downfall of Solomon is his amassing of Egyptian horses.
David: Right, he trusted in horses.
Seth: He trusted in horses, and specifically Egyptian horses.
David: Yep, and their chariots.
Seth: And their chariots, and so I think part of what we're supposed to-- we should just be flagging it for later, and when these turn up again in later books of the Bible, we say, "Oh, gosh, Solomon is becoming like Pharaoh."
David: Mm.
Seth: Solomon also enslaves a people group-
David: Sure
Seth: ... in order to build some of his, uh, his building projects. Egyptian horses, like he's becoming the same as the person that was already judged here.
David: Yeah.
Seth: So like when we hear that in the beginning of the story, we say, "Okay, he's gonna fall just like Pharaoh did."
David: Wow, yeah, absolutely. And so, um, then we get to, let's see. I don't think 15's over quite yet. No, it's not. So, uh, Miriam the prophetess leads a group song. It's a much shorter song, and then, um, we have this strange little story about them coming to this place that they call Marah because they try to drink water there, and it's bitter water, and so God tells them to throw a log in the water, and the water will become drinkable. Uh, [laughs] like it's potable water now. It's called sweet here in the text. And then after that, um, I was just reading this this morning, and I realized, like to close out chapter 15, we have like this mini version of the fuller law that they're about to get. Um, so chapter 15 verse 26, um, God says this, um, "If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God and do that which is right in His eyes and give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, your healer." And so this is like a really mini encapsulation of the entire law. Obey and keep my commandments, and you won't be cursed. [laughs] Like instead, you'll be blessed. I'm your healer.
Seth: And what's significant, too, is that this is the first time I've noticed laws or commandments, and it's after rescue.
David: After rescue.
Seth: They've already been rescued, and because they've been rescued, therefore believe.
David: That's right. They, God didn't, didn't say like, "Okay, I could open up this Red Sea for you, but first you have to believe in me. First you have to swear that you'll obey me." No, none of that is predicated upon. It's, it's God saves in spite of and during their unbelief and doubt, and then afterwards they believe, and then after their belief, they're commanded.
Seth: Yes.
David: It's a very particular flow. So let's, we're, we're at the end of the story, so let's jump into why that's, that's important.
Seth: Because that's the story mo- most broadly of the gospel.
David: Yes.
Seth: So Jesus Christ saves us while we were yet sinners, and then because He has saved us while we were yet sinners, we therefore act based on our forgiveness and based on our justification, not in order to gain it.
David: That's right. That's right. We're not, we're, we're not saved because of our actions, and God does not offer us salvation because we're good people. It's not like that.
Seth: We can do more good deeds than bad deeds.
David: That's right.
Seth: No, at this point in the story in Egypt, they are, they're, they're thick-headed.
David: Yep.
Seth: They're, they're doubting God. They've continuously doubted God except for that very one, that one moment of, that brief glimmer, and God's saying, "I will rescue you."
David: All right, so, um, we have to, we have to look at how the ministry of Jesus, um, is, i- fulfills really everything that God is doing here in Exodus. Like, this is a picture, um, preparing the way for the ministry of Jesus, and Jesus himself clearly understood that he was fulfilling this role, um, as the new and final Moses bringing about the new and final exodus. We see that really clearly because, uh, and we've, we've, we've looked at all this already, Seth. I don't really like the, uh, like what are some of the early things we looked at i- in Exodus and linking to Jesus's life?
Seth: Yeah, so I mean, Moses came out of Egypt just like Jesus came out of Egypt, or in, yeah, out of Egypt.
David: Yeah, yeah, yeah, during a, during some kind of infanticidal, um-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... uh, dictatorship brought about by a, uh, crazy king.
Seth: That was the biggest one we talked about most recently.
David: Yeah, yeah.
Seth: But what we're about to see here, so in the same way that Moses crosses the Red Sea-
David: Right
Seth: ... Jesus is baptized in the Jordan River.
David: That's right, followed by-
Seth: 40 years in the wilderness followed by 40 days-
David: 40 days
Seth: ... in the wilderness, and then Mo- Moses receives the law from Mount Sinai, and then Jesus gives the law.
David: At the Sermon on the Mount.
Seth: At the Sermon on the Mount.
David: That's right, and Matthew really tunes us into that really clearly. He's clearly showing us that Jesus is this new Moses, not only new, but final Moses, uh, what Moses prefigured and was only a shadow of. Jesus is the substance.
Seth: Yeah, and you can read a lot of commentators who talk about how the Sermon on the Mount is structured after the books of Deuteronomy and to, to address the same topics in which the law addressed in almost the same order.
David: Right.
Seth: Um, so.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And so what-
David: What a deep cut.
Seth: A deep cut. [laughs]
David: So, so what is Jesus wanting us to see, um, whenever he's trying to show us, uh, himself as the new Moses? Um, I think first off, very generally speaking, is that he's leading a new exodus, right? He's, he's, and, and so if he's leading a new exodus, if he's bringing people out, that means that people have to be in exile and slavery now, and we know it's true that we are exiles from God. Like, we're not a part of his family, right? And we're exiled from the commonwealth of Israel, Paul writes, and we are enslaved. Uh, we are enslaved by sin right now. We are slaves to sin and death, and so Jesus is coming to bring about a final and full exodus out of our exile and out of our slavery.
Seth: Yeah, I think, I mean, just personally for me, I know, like, this idea of exodus sounds really strange, but I also think about, like, a sense of place or being at home or feeling like, um, like homeless, you know?
David: Yeah.
Seth: Just like feeling like you're wandering through life. There's a sense that, like, the Lord is bringing us out of a sense of wandering, a sense of enslavement to whatever it is, and he's bringing us into something more concrete, grounded, placed. That sounds super vague, but I know it's, it was, it was important for me because I grew up on the mission field, and so I always had a sense like I didn't belong anywhere.
David: Yeah.
Seth: I was on all these, I was in all these countries that were different from my actual birth nationality, and yet I wasn't quite like my parents. I wasn't quite like the surrounding culture. I was this different thing.
David: Yeah, sure.
Seth: And so it was, I mean, personally, there was this sense that the Lord dr- that, that's a pretty small type of slavery, slave, at least identity marker, whatever, third culture kid, whatever. But there was a really profound sense in coming to Christ as my true identity-
David: Hmm
Seth: ... was liberating from my sense of homelessness and isolation and exile among the various people groups that I traveled among.
David: Yeah, I mean, 'cause ultimately, no matter where we live or if we're third culture kids or not, once we become Christians, our citizenship is in another place, and, um, whenever we are brought out of an exodus to our enslavement to sin and our love of the temporal and of what this world can offer, we're brought, we're called to a new home, and that new home is a new kingdom of heaven, a new promised land, a new Jerusalem, and so we should feel like we have a renewed sense of place given to us whenever we're Christians, right?
Seth: Yeah, we should.
David: Yeah.
Seth: We should, and, and it goes back to we are new creations.
David: Yeah.
Seth: So we, so we said that the parting of the Red Sea is the dividing waters. Like, this is, God is recreating a new place for his new people, and we're told actually Christ fulfills that for us.
David: Yes.
Seth: In Christ, you are new creations.
David: Yeah.
Seth: So, like, that's completed in Christ.
David: Yeah, that's great. I love that.
Seth: And particularly, it, it's completed through baptism, through water, and so I know there's also parallels here between walking through the Red Sea, through the water, Jesus being baptized-
David: Yep
Seth: ... and our baptism as well.
David: Our baptism as well. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what else to say about that. [laughs]
Seth: That's-
David: Yeah, that's really good though. Um, yeah, our baptism. I'm trying to, I'm trying to process through how to see not only Jesus and what his ministry did in this, but also our baptism. I mean, in our baptism, we did, we underwent the wa- we, we went under the water, you know, as, as not Israel, but as Egypt. We went, we as sinners went under the water, you
know, escaping God's judgment in a sense, coming, but we rose out of it. You know, I'm trying to, we, we went in as Egypt, came out as Israel.
Seth: That's super profound. We went in as Egypt and came out as Israel.
David: That's fun. I don't know if it's profound, but it's fun.
Seth: It's pretty profound. I mean, it's pretty cool.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Um, so how does that bring us to Jesus then? So, like, we are only, we only go in as Egypt and out as Israel if that's through Christ.
David: Right.
Seth: So how does Christ's baptism lead us into the baptism of the Red Sea-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... and into our own new creation-ness baptism?
David: New creation-ness.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Well, I mean, we have to see a similarity in the way that this rescue from exile and slavery is accomplished. So there is, here at the Red Sea, salvation and judgment in one action, and both are executed by God. Um, on, on the cross we see it very similarly. Jesus took on the judgment of his enemies. He cast himself, as it were, into the sea instead of Pharaoh. He stepped into the sea and closed the waters around himself, not against someone else. He closed the waters around himself, and if he had not done this, we would've been swallowed up-Uh, in the sea by his judgment instead. For we are not the good guys in this scenario. We are the hard-hearted Egyptians. But because he did do this for us on the cross, he has opened up a way for us to pass through God's judgment on dry ground. He made a way for us to get to God and the promised land.
Seth: So the only way for us to go in as Egyptians and out as Israelites is that Jesus has to go into the water first.
David: Right. Jesus has to be Egypt for us to be Israel.
Seth: He has to go into the water, die on the bottom, and then rise again. And he carries us with him.
David: Yes. That's right. He has to enact this whole narrative himself first, passing through the water of judgment, rising out in victory in order for us to follow in his footsteps. I mean, Paul talks about this, that he's the first fruits, right? Uh, even in a baptism passage like Romans 6, right? We're told that, um, if Jesus has been raised in a resurrection like this, surely we too will be, right?
Seth: Right.
David: And so we only can ever follow where Jesus has already gone. And it's the same way like, you know, Israel didn't blaze a path through the Red Sea. God cut it, you know, and so they could only follow where God had already accomplished salvation.
[upbeat music] Okay. So in this last section, Seth, I want to, I just want to pass something back to you that you mentioned. We talked about how in the Red Sea and in our baptism and in what Jesus prefigured, you had to pass through judgment and death in order to come out, um, into life. You had to be Egypt before you could become Israel in a sense. So why then, why does judgment have to be involved in the story at all? Why can't there just be salvation?
Seth: Because there's no, there's no victory without somebody losing in battle.
David: Sure. No victory without defeat.
Seth: There's no victory without defeat. You can't be rescued from something if the one who owned and oppressed you, his ownership is cut off and he's judged for it.
David: Sure. Yeah.
Seth: So in verse 30, when they see the Egyptians dead on the seashore, that's when they rejoice. David: Yeah.
Seth: When they see the judgment. Rachel Den Hollander and all the people who are abused by, uh, Nasser.
David: Yeah, yeah.
Seth: Did they rejoice before or after the verdict?
David: Oh, yeah. After.
Seth: It was after the verdict. We don't rejoice until we see judgment.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And those that deserve to be punished are punished.
David: That's right.
Seth: And so the challenge for us is what we, so we, so we can conceptualize that and see that out there. But the problem is that this story continues to confront us with the fact that we are either Egypt or Israel.
David: Yep.
Seth: And Egypt and Israel do the same thing both times. Like we all say, oh no, we're not like Egypt. We would never oppress anybody. And they're like, oh, we would never say God's doing all these great things and we're just going to ignore him.
David: Yeah.
Seth: But the story is forcing you to see yourself in one of those two positions. So the struggle for us isn't to say conceptually, yes, the people who deserve to die need to die.
David: Yeah.
Seth: It's to say we need to deserve to die.
David: Right.
Seth: And we need, we should be on the bottom of Egypt because if we were on the bottom of Egypt, uh, if we were on the bottom of the Red Sea.
David: Right.
Seth: We would be saying, God, we would be better off in Egypt anyway.
David: Right. Yeah. Even if we aren't Egypt on our chariots, we're, we're Israel on the shore doubting God. We are always opposed to God's plans. We're always, as Paul says in the New Testament, we're enemies of God. We stand diametrically opposed to what God is trying to do in this world. And so for God to have victory, which is the ultimate good, um, the, there has to be defeat and defeat of that which stands opposed to him. And that's us. Like we stand opposed. I stand opposed to God. I stood opposed to God. I was an enemy. I hated him. I hated his will. I didn't want his kingdom to advance. I wanted my kingdom to advance. Like I wanted to rule and reign. I wanted my own glory and that stands opposed to God. And so for him to have victory, I must have defeat.
Seth: Yes. And that would be bad news.
David: That would be really bad news.
Seth: That would be bad news.
David: That's like flood. That's like, you know, it's like everyone's dead.
Seth: Everyone's dead. The flood, the Red Sea falling, like that's bad news.
David: Yep.
Seth: If it was not for Christ.
David: Yes.
Seth: Who goes under the water instead of us.
David: That's right. Yeah. So yeah, God, God has all this sin that he has to judge and he has to punish because he's good because we don't rejoice until there's punishment. We don't rejoice until there's vindication. We don't rejoice until there's justice. And so Jesus takes on that justice so that we can rejoice and yet not die in order to like go through what it costs to bring about that joy. Like, because we would have been dead.
Seth: In the Christian story is that the only way that we get to experience that type of joy and seeing evil punished is if we recognize that would have been us without Christ's intervention.
David: That's right. That's right. And I think that's what we see here in this whole story is that if left under their own devices, Israel would have just been stuck on the shore complaining and they would have gone back to Egypt and they would have died in slavery. If God had not unilaterally acted apart from their own actions, he wouldn't, if he wouldn't have just opened up a way for them, they would have been dead in slavery and without hope of ever getting to the promised land. But because God is faithful to his word, he always accomplishes what he promises. He opened up the way for a sinful, doubting people for no other reason but to get glory over Pharaoh and to make his name famous.
[upbeat music]
David: Okay. Well, I'm really excited to end with a new little special tag I'm hoping we can do every now and then here. We actually got a submission about how someone else saw Jesus in the gospel in the text of Exodus. And so as we, as we get those, we want to share them as they're really encouraging to us.
Seth: So send them in. If you, something, as you're listening to me, it triggers in your mind, like, oh, what about this? They didn't talk about this. Send it to us.
David: So that's podcast at spoken gospel.com. Podcast. Podcast.
Seth: It's podcast.
David: Podcast at spoken gospel.com. We'd love to hear it. So this one comes to us from Ashley S. Here in Oklahoma City, which is really great. That's where we record. And she brought up this idea of, you know, we have, we have Israel in the land of Egypt at the beginning of the book of Exodus. And they have all these promises that have been given them from the patriarch Abraham, but they're awaiting its fulfillment. And she said, you guys didn't talk about the fact that that's a picture of us as Christians, as the church. We've received all these promises from Jesus. He's, he's, you know, ratified the covenant. He's done all these things and we know it's going to happen, but we're sitting in this-
Seth: We're waiting.
David: We're waiting. We're sitting in this land waiting. We're, you know, we're still kind of in this Egypt in a sense, you know, and so waiting on the fulfillment. And so cry out to God, come Lord, save us. Come Lord Jesus.
Seth: We're not just waiting for Jesus to come in the cross. We're waiting for him to come a second time.
David: That's right.
Seth: And that's part of the gospel.
David: To be our deliverer out of this, out of this land and remake everything, bring us into the promised land to live with him forever, which is what we see in Exodus, which is great. So Ashley, thank you so much. That's great. If you see a connection in, in something that we're doing that you want us to read out loud, send it to podcast at spoken gospel.com. Thank you guys for being with us this week and we'll see you next time.
Seth: Adios.
Outro: Thank you for listening to the Spoken Gospel podcast. Spoken Gospel is a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating gospel-centered media that speaks the gospel out of every corner of scripture in every corner of the world. To learn more about the ministry of Spoken Gospel and view more of our resources, visit spoken gospel.com.
