At the moment when the last of the Israelites stepped out of the bed of
the sea, the first of the Egyptians set foot into it, but in the same
instant the waters surged back into their wonted place, and all the
Egyptians perished. [43]
But drowning was not the only punishment decreed upon them by God. He
undertook a thoroughgoing campaign against them. When Pharaoh was
preparing to persecute the Israelites, he asked his army which of the
saddle beasts was the swiftest runner, that one he would use, and they
said: "There is none swifter than thy piebald mare, whose like is to be
found nowhere in the world." Accordingly, Pharaoh mounted the mare, and
pursued after the Israelites seaward. And while Pharaoh was inquiring
of his army as to the swiftest animal to mount, God was questioning the
angels as to the swiftest creature to use to the detriment of Pharaoh.
And the angels answered: "O Lord of the world! All thing are Thine, and
all are Thine handiwork. Thou knowest well, and it is manifest before
Thee, that among all Thy creatures there is none so quick as the wind
that comes from under the throne of Thy glory," and the Lord flew
swiftly upon the wings of the wind. [44]
The angels now advanced to support the Lord in His war against the
Egyptians. Some brought swords, some arrows, and some spears. But God
warded them off, saying, "Away! I need no help!" [45] The arrows sped
by Pharaoh against the children of Israel were answered by the Lord
with fiery darts directed against the Egyptians. Pharaoh's army
advanced with gleaming swords, and the Lord sent out lightnings that
discomfited the Egyptians. Pharaoh hurled missiles, and the Lord
discharged hailstones and coals of fire against him. With trumpets,
sackbuts, and horns the Egyptians made their assault, and the Lord
thundered in the heavens, and the Most High uttered His voice. In vain
the Egyptians marched forward in orderly battle array; the Lord
deprived them of their standards, and they were thrown into wild
confusion. [46] To lure them into the water, the Lord caused fiery
steeds to swim out upon the sea, and the horses of the Egyptians
followed them, each with a rider upon his back. [47]
Now the Egyptians tried to flee to their land in their chariots drawn
by she-mules. As they had treated the children of Israel in a way
contrary to nature, so the Lord treated them now. Not the she-mules
pulled the chariots but the chariots, though fire from heaven had
consumed their wheels, dragged the men and the beasts into the water.
The chariots were laden with silver, gold, and all sorts of costly
things, which the river Pishon, as it flows forth from Paradise,
carries down into the Gihon. Thence the treasures float into the Red
Sea, and by its waters they were tossed into the chariots of the
Egyptians. It was the wish of Israel, and for this reason He caused the
chariots to roll down into the sea, and the sea in turn to cast them
out upon the opposite shore, at the feet of the Israelites. [48]
And the Lord fought against the Egyptians also with the pillar of cloud
and the pillar of fire. The former made the soil miry, and the mire was
heated to the boiling point by the latter, so that the hoofs of the
horses dropped from their feet, and they could not budge from the spot.
[49]
The anguish and the torture that God brought upon the Egyptians at the
Red Sea caused them by far more excruciating pain than the plagues they
had endured in Egypt, for at the sea He delivered them into the hands
of the Angels of Destruction, who tormented them pitilessly. Had God
not endowed the Egyptians with a double portion of strength, they could
not have stood the pain a single moment. [50]
The last judgement executed upon the Egyptians corresponded to the
wicked designs harbored against Israel by the three different parties
among them when they set out in pursuit of their liberated slaves. The
first party had said, "We will bring Israel back to Egypt;" the second
had said, "We will strip them bare," and the third had said, "We will
slay them all." The Lord blew upon the first with His breath, and the
sea covered them; the second party He shook into the sea, and the third
He pitched into the depths of the abyss. [51] He tossed them about as
lentils are shaken up and down in a saucepan; the upper ones are made
to fall to the bottom, the lower ones fly to the top. This was the
experience of the Egyptians. And worse still, first the rider and his
beast were whisked high up in the air, and then the two together, the
rider sitting upon the back of the beast, were hurled to the bottom of
the sea. [52]
The Egyptians endeavored to save themselves from the sea by conjuring
charms, for they were great magicians. Of the ten measures of magic
allotted to the world, they had taken nine for themselves. And, indeed,
they succeeded for the moment; they escaped out of the sea. But
immediately the sea said to itself, "How can I allow the pledge
entrusted to me by God to be taken from me?" And the water rushed after
the Egyptians, and dragged back every man of them.
Among the Egyptians were the two arch-magicians Jannes and Jambres.
They made wings for themselves, with which they flew up to heaven. They
also said to Pharaoh: "If God Himself hath done this thing, we can
effect naught. But if this work has been put into the hands of His
angel, then we will shake his lieutenants into the sea." They proceeded
at once to use their magic contrivances, whereby they dragged the
angels down. These cried up to God: "Save us, O God, for the waters are
come in unto our soul! Speak Thy word that will cause the magicians to
drown in the mighty waters." And Gabriel cried to God, "By the
greatness of Thy glory dash Thy adversaries to pieces." Hereupon God
bade Michael go and execute judgement upon the two magicians. The
archangel seized hold of Jannes and Jambres by the locks of their hair,
and he shattered them against the surface of the water. [53]
Thus all the Egyptians were drowned. Only one was spared - Pharaoh
himself. When the children of Israel raised their voices to sing a song
of praise to God at the shores of the Red Sea, Pharaoh heard it as he
was jostled hither and thither by the billows, and he pointed his
finger heavenward, and called out: "I believe in Thee, O God! Thou art
righteous, and I and My people are wicked, and I acknowledge now that
there is no god in the world beside Thee." Without a moments delay,
Gabriel descended and laid and iron chain about Pharaoh's neck, and
holding him securely, he addressed him thus: "Villain! Yesterday thou
didst say, 'Who is the Lord that I should hearken to His voice?' and
now thou sayest, 'The Lord is righteous.'" With that he let him drop
into the depths of the sea, and there he tortured him for fifty days,
to make the power of God known to him. At the end of the time he
installed him as king of the great city of Nineveh, and after the lapse
of many centuries, when Jonah came to Nineveh, and prophesied the
overthrow of the city on account of the evil done by the people, it was
Pharaoh who, seized by fear and terror, covered himself with sackcloth,
and sat in ashes, and with his own mouth made proclamation and
published this decree through Nineveh: "Let neither man nor beast, herd
nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed nor drink water; for I
know there is no god beside Him in all the world, all His words are
truth, and all His judgements are true and faithful."
Pharaoh never died, and never will die. He always stands at the portal
of hell, and when the kings of the nations enter, he makes the power of
God known to them at once, in these words: "O ye fools! Why have ye not
learnt knowledge from me? I am denied the Lord God, and He brought ten
plagues upon me, sent me to the bottom of the sea, kept me there for
fifty days, released me then, and brought me up. Thus I could not but
believe in Him." [54]
God caused the Egyptians to be washed ashore in their death struggle.
There were four reasons for this. The Israelites were not to say that
as they themselves had escaped, so also the Egyptians had passed
through the sea dryshod, only the latter had gone in another direction,
and therefore had vanished from sight. The Egyptians, on the other
hand, were not to think that the children of Israel had been drowned in
the sea like themselves. In the third place, the Israelites were to
have, as their booty, the silver, gold, and other precious things with
which the Egyptians were decked; and, finally, the Israelites were to
enjoy the satisfaction of seeing their enemies suffer. With their
finger thy could point them out one by one, saying, "This one way my
taskmaster, who beat me with those fists of his at which the dogs are
now gnawing, and yonder Egyptian, the dogs are chewing the feet with
which he kicked me."
As they lay on the shore in their last agony, they had to witness their
own destruction and the victory of the Israelites, and they also beheld
the suffering of their brethren that had remained behind in Egypt, for
God poured out His punishment over the whole people, whether in Egypt
or at the Red Sea. [55] As for the corpses by the shores of the sea,
they did not remain unburied, the earth swallowed them, by way of
reward for Pharaoh's having acknowledged the justice of the
chastisement that had been inflicted upon king and people. Before their
corpses had been disposed of in this way, there had been a quarrel
between the earth and the sea. The sea said to the earth, "Take thy
children unto thyself," and the earth retorted, "Keep those whom thou
hast slain." The sea hesitated to do as the earth bade, for fear that
God would demand them back on the day of judgement; and the earth
hesitated, because it remembered with terror the curse that had been
pronounced upon it for having sucked up Abel's blood. Only after God
swore and oath, not to punish it for receiving the corpses of the
Egyptians, would the earth swallow them. [56]