Daily Verse Exodus 14:14 | Daily verse by Faithlife

[SC Facilitator]

 

[Diana S]

This verse makes me think of Luke 21:28 - In the Dutch translation The Book (Het Boek) it says: "When these things begin to happen, stand up straight and lift up your heads, for your salvations is at hand."

 

[Lori Jane]

Cross References:​

2 Ch 20:29 | And the fear of God came upon all the kingdoms of the earth when they heard that Yahweh had fought against the enemies of Israel.
Is 30:15 | For the Lord Yahweh, the holy one of Israel, said this: “In returning and rest you shall be saved; your strength shall be in quietness and in trust.” But you were not willing,
Ex 14:25 | And he removed the wheels of their chariots so that they drove them with difficulty, and the Egyptians said, “We must flee away from Israel because Yahweh is fighting for them against Egypt.”
Dt 1:30 | Yahweh your God, who is going before you, will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes,
Dt 3:22 | You shall not fear them, for Yahweh your God is the one fighting for you.
Ex 14:25; 15:3; Dt 1:30; 3:22; 20:4; Jos 10:14, 42; 23:2–3, 10; 1 Sa 7:8; 12:16; 2 Sa 5:24; 2 Ch 20:15, 29; Ne 4:20; Ps 24:8; 35:1; 37:7; 46:10; 116:7; Is 28:12; 30:15; 31:4; 42:13; Je 38:27; 41:12; Zec 2:13

 

[Lori Jane]

Commentaries:​

14:14 Yahweh will fight for you The claim that God will fight on His people’s behalf, called the “divine warrior” motif, occurs throughout the Bible (e.g., Deut 28:7; Neh 4:20; Isa 42:13; Zech 14:3).

John D. Barry et al., Faithlife Study Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2016), Ex 14:14.

14:13–14 The command Don’t be afraid, given as a word from the Lord to his people or an affirmation of confidence before battle, has many parallels (Nm 21:34; Dt 1:21, 29; 3:2, 22; Jos 8:1; 10:8, 25; 2Ch 20:15, 17; 32:7; Neh 4:14). Moses gave no defense of himself but focused instead on what the Lord would accomplish. The words salvation (here and Ex 15:2; Hb yeshu‘ah) and “saved” (14:30) mark the instructions for the encounter with Egyptian forces, its summary, and its celebration. The “save” word group in Hebrew (the root yasha‘) was applied in a variety of situations, often military ones, so that salvation took the form of victory (Dt 20:1–4; Jdg 10:12–14; 2Kg 19:32–35; Ps 3) or rescue (Ex 2:17). An earlier pharaoh was afraid that the Israelites might fight against Egypt (1:10), but something greater happened—the Lord fought for Israel and against Egypt (14:14, 25).

Dorian G. Coover-Cox, “Exodus,” in CSB Study Bible: Notes, ed. Edwin A. Blum and Trevin Wax (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017), 110–111.

14:10–14. As Pharaoh’s charioteers and armed troops approached, fear struck the encampment. They were trapped between the Red Sea (lit., “Sea of [Papyrus] Reeds”; see comments on v. 2) before them and a vicious foe behind them. The reaction of the Israelites here was much the same throughout the book (cf. 5:21) in times of duress and fright. Though they cried out to the LORD, they had no confidence He could help. Quickly forgetting the past, they bitterly accused Moses of deceiving them by leading them into the desert to die.… Didn’t we say … in Egypt, Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians? Moses, recognizing that fear was distorting their memories and arousing their passions against him, sought to reassure them that the LORD would deliver them by fighting for them (cf. 15:3; Neh. 4:20; Ps. 35:1) as they remained firm in confidence. Surprisingly, as they came to their greatest moment of deliverance, the people of God were full of distrust and fear.

John D. Hannah, “Exodus,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 131.

13–14 Moses’ reply to the complaint of Israel is unruffled. He ignores their sarcastic attack on his leadership and their justification of themselves by blaming him. He commands them to set aside the fear demoralizing them, to stand firm where they are, and to witness Yahweh’s imminent salvation. They have seen the Egyptians pursuing and feared greatly: they are now to see Yahweh’s deliverance and believe with an equal intensity. This contrast is deftly made by the declaration that the Egyptians whom they see, and who are the cause of their great fear, they will soon “add to seeing” no more, forever—an ominous anticipation of the medium of the victory to come. Seeing, then not seeing; not seeing, then seeing are to be, furthermore, the extent of their activity. Yahweh is going to do their fighting (an anticipation of Exod 15:3). In addition to watching, they have only to keep quiet. The victory will be gained wholly by Yahweh, for the reason that is stated explicitly in v 18. Israel’s quietude suggests not only nonintervention but also the sanctity of Yahweh-war as a religious and confessional event.

John I. Durham, Exodus, vol. 3, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 1987), 192.

The Lord will fight for you reflects the ancient Israelite concept of “holy war,” in which Yahweh is the divine warrior who defeats Israel’s enemies with supernatural power. (See 15:3.) NJB says it well: “Yahweh will do the fighting for you.”

And you have only to be still is ambiguous. The verb may be understood either as being silent or as doing nothing. 14:14 TEV chooses the former, “and all you have to do is keep still,” but 14:14 CEV chooses the latter, “and you won’t have to do a thing.” (The problem is discussed in verse 15.) NEB has “so hold your peace,” but REB has changed it to “so say no more.” In keeping with the holy war concept, however, it is better to follow the idea of the people doing nothing and simply letting Yahweh do the fighting for them.
Alternative translation models for this verse are:

• Yahweh will fight your enemies for you. So all you have to do is keep quiet.
• Yahweh will fight your enemies for you. So you will not have to do anything.


Noel D. Osborn and Howard A. Hatton, A Handbook on Exodus, UBS Handbook Series (New York: United Bible Societies, 1999), 338–339.

 

[Lori Jane]

OT for Everyone:​

EXODUS 13:17–14:31

One Kind of Fear Turns to Another


John Goldingay, Exodus and Leviticus for Everyone, Old Testament for Everyone (Louisville, KY; London: Westminster John Knox Press; Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2010), 61.

17 When Pharaoh had sent the people off, God did not guide them by the road to the Philistines’ country because it was near, because [God said], “In case the people have a change of heart when they see battle, and turn back to Egypt.” 18 God made the people go around by the wilderness road, by the Reed Sea. The Israelites went up from Egypt organized into companies. 19 Moses took Joseph’s bones with him, because he had made the Israelites solemnly swear, “God will definitely attend to you, and you are to take up my bones from here with you.” 20 They traveled from Sukkot and camped at Etham at the edge of the wilderness, 21 with Yahweh going before them by day in a cloud column to guide them on the way and by night in a fire column to give them light, so that they could go day or night. 22 The cloud column by day and the fire column by night would not depart from before the people.
14:1 Yahweh spoke to Moses: 2 “Tell the Israelites they are to turn back and camp near Pi-hahirot, between Migdal and the sea. You are to camp near Baal-zaphon, opposite it, by the sea. 3 Pharaoh will say of the Israelites, ‘They are lost in the country. The wilderness has closed in on them.’ 4 I will strengthen Pharaoh’s resolve and he will pursue them, so that I may gain honor through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians may acknowledge that I am Yahweh.” They did so. 5 When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, the resolve of Pharaoh and his servants toward the people changed. They said, “What is this that we have done, that we have sent Israel off from our service?” 6 He harnessed his chariot and took his people with him; 7 he took six hundred picked chariots and all the other Egyptian chariotry, with officers over all of them.
8 So Yahweh strengthened the resolve of Pharaoh king of Egypt and he pursued the Israelites. As the Israelites were leaving with hands high, 9 the Egyptians pursued them. They overtook them camping by the sea, all Pharaoh’s chariot horses, his riders, and his army, near Pi-hahirot, opposite Baal-zaphon. 10 As Pharaoh got near, the Israelites looked up. There: the Egyptians were marching after them. They were very fearful. The Israelites cried out to Yahweh, 11 and said to Moses, “Was it for lack of graves in Egypt that you took us to die in the wilderness? What is this you have done to us in getting us to come out of Egypt? 12 Is this not the thing we told you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone and we will serve the Egyptians, because serving the Egyptians is better for us than dying in the wilderness’?” 13 Moses said to the people, “Do not be fearful. Take your stand and look at Yahweh’s deliverance, which he will effect for you today. Because the Egyptians you have seen today you will not see any more, ever again, forever. 14 Yahweh—he will fight for you. You—you can stay quiet.”

[In verses 15–31 Yahweh then bids Moses tell the Israelites to advance towards the sea and lift his staff over the sea and split it. Yahweh splits the sea by sending a strong wind and the Israelites begin to cross, with a wall of water on either side. When the Egyptians follow, Yahweh sends them into a panic and causes their chariots to get stuck. The sea returns, and they drown. The Israelites see what happens, revere Yahweh, and come to trust in Yahweh and in Moses.]

This weekend our rector is on a discernment retreat, and next weekend he is away preaching at a church in another city. I was a bit slow on the uptake, and someone else had to whisper to me that this is code for his wondering whether he should leave if that church asks him to move there. Having your pastor leave is a bit scary. He has been with us for eight years and has been a great gift for us. (He has given me lots of scope to be involved in the ministry, too.) Losing your pastor isn’t like facing the Egyptian army, but it raises some similar issues. Can you face the future? Whom do you trust? Change can be hard: we prefer the situation we know.

In the streets of Tel Aviv you used to come across bits of old railway track (they have probably been cleaned up now), the remains of the railway line from Damascus to Cairo on which trains have not run for some time. South of Tel Aviv, they take the obvious, flat route along the coast all the way to Egypt. That might have seemed the obvious route for the Israelites from Egypt to Canaan, but Canaan was part of the Egyptian empire (the Philistines were not actually there yet—Exodus describes the geography in terms that make sense to people reading the story later). There was much traffic along this route precisely because it was the obvious one. The Egyptians would guard it, and going that way would mean hitting trouble. So God took them by an inland route, but that involved crossing the Reed Sea, the “sea of rushes” (the word is the one that came in Exodus 2 where Miriam left Moses in the reeds by the Nile).

Frustratingly, the story gives us lots of concrete detail about the way the Israelites went, but we cannot actually locate any of the places it mentions. The Reed Sea might be one of the northern arms of what we call the Red Sea, either side of Sinai, or it might be an area of marshy lakes within Sinai. Things that we know about Egyptian geography and history also don’t help us establish how the exodus happened. The only hard detail that we can link with Egyptian records is the reference to Rameses in Exodus 1. Maybe this helps us focus on the way the story put the stress on how God guided the Israelites. When God guides you and you end up trapped in a cul-de-sac, it’s reasonable to react the way the Israelites did. They still get in trouble, but it does not mean God abandons them.

As usual, God has a bigger picture in mind. We would have thought that the Israelites’ escape from Egypt meant the exodus story was over. All they need do now is to march to the promised land. Taking Joseph’s bones fulfills the wishes of the whole ancestral family: that is, to know that one day they will have their rest in the promised land as a place that belongs to the family and not merely one where they live as aliens. But it transpires that neither God nor Pharaoh is finished. God encourages Pharaoh not to give in quite yet.

Maybe we are not surprised that Pharaoh flip-flops once again and asks whether the disadvantages of letting the Israelites leave outweigh the advantages. Each time there is a disaster, things look different once the disaster is over. From God’s angle, it is obvious that Pharaoh has admitted defeat, but it’s not clear whether he has really acknowledged who is God. So God is happy to have one final confrontation whereby to get honor through him and his army. Once again it is emphasized how events demonstrate that Yahweh is God. The great power’s leader thinks his will decides what happens in the world, and his people and other peoples are inclined to believe him. Yahweh’s victory at the Reed Sea will give a final proof that this is not so.

The Israelites go from having their hands held high in praise and/or confidence and/or triumph to abject fear. They cry out to God, which is the right thing to do, but their words to Moses indicate how terrified they are. Like the disasters in Egypt, the parting of the sea has been explained as a natural event; a strong wind blew at just the right moment to let the Israelites through and then abated and caught the Egyptians as they followed. Such explanations undermine the story’s concern to relate how the event proved that Yahweh is God and that the great power’s leader is much less powerful than he thinks. Its point comes at the chapter’s close: “When Israel saw the great power Yahweh exercised on the Egyptians, the people feared Yahweh and trusted in Yahweh and in his servant Moses.” Hebrew uses the same word for being afraid and for revering, for a negative fear and a positive submission. At the beginning of the story the midwives feared God in a good sense rather than fearing Pharaoh and doing what he said. At the end of the story Israel gives up fearing the future and fearing Pharaoh in a bad sense because it has seen the reason for fearing God in a good sense. That it is a good fear is indicated by the fact that it goes along with trusting in Yahweh. The Israelites have caught up with the midwives.


John Goldingay, Exodus and Leviticus for Everyone, Old Testament for Everyone (Louisville, KY; London: Westminster John Knox Press; Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2010), 61–64.

 

[Lori Jane]

Exodus 14:10-14


In this wilderness account, Israel is shown fearing many things, but most of the time it was other people, hunger, and thirst. This is not unusual but natural, as it is natural to you and me to fear what is going on around us—to fear those who have the power to hurt us or to take our lives. It is natural for people to fear. Nonetheless, it has to be dealt with and overcome.

Fear has been called the most self-centered of all emotions because it is generated by a perceived high degree of threat to what we believe is our well-being. What we believe is what we have been instructed in, accepted, and practiced. The solution to fear is to eliminate what we perceive to be threatening us. It is right here that the crux of the problem exists, because the perceived threat to our well-being forces choices about what to do. Our choice in these circumstances may indeed involve sin, and with that choice we run the risk of exposing the depth of our divided loyalty. Fear is a powerful producer of conduct, for good or bad, depending upon who or what is feared and the direction of our response.

Psalm 111:10; 112:1 show the right One being feared, and this fear is directed positively toward the Kingdom of God and the glorifying of God. On the other hand, the fear of the wrong things will produce bad results for the Christian—perhaps not immediately, but eventually and always. We must realize this. The fear of the wrong thing can never produce good things for the Christian, except temporarily. In the long run, it will always produce bad things.

The fear of the wrong things, and then submission to the wrong things may reduce the pressure. It gets us off the hook but only for a while. The chances are great that the choice that led to us submitting to the wrong thing will, in the long run, actually make the pressure and the pain more intense.

A specific, powerful, and motivating negative fear inhabits every one of us. It must be confronted and overcome in this time of preparation because it destroys trust and inhibits our preparation for the Kingdom of God. It specifically inhibits growth of trusting God. It is the fear of sacrifice—the fear of denying the self.



John W. Ritenbaugh

 

[Diana S]

'Fear can be a very powerful motivator'. I heard that in a movie once. Some dictatorial regime used fear to 'motivate' the people. Like how watchtower controls the 'sheeple' under their spiritual abusive tyranny.
The movie could be '1984', but I'm not sure.
Coincidentally we spoke of 'The Orwellian World of Jehovah's Witnesses' by Heather and Gary Botting at the Simply Christian EXODUS Support & Fellowship last week.