Keluaran 14:22

14:22 So the Israelites went through the middle of the sea on dry ground, the water forming a wall ¹  for them on their right and on their left.

Mazmur 78:13

78:13 He divided the sea and led them across it;

he made the water stand in a heap.

Habakuk 3:10

3:10 When the mountains see you, they shake.

The torrential downpour sweeps through. ² 

The great deep ³  shouts out;

it lifts its hands high. ⁴ 

[14:22]  ¹ tn The clause literally reads, “and the waters [were] for them a wall.” The word order in Hebrew is disjunctive, with the vav (ו) on the noun introducing a circumstantial clause.

[14:22]  sn S. R. Driver (Exodus, 119), still trying to explain things with natural explanations, suggests that a northeast wind is to be thought of (an east wind would be directly in their face he says), such as a shallow ford might cooperate with an ebb tide in keeping a passage clear. He then quotes Dillmann about the “wall” of water: “A very summary poetical and hyperbolical (xv. 8) description of the occurrence, which at most can be pictured as the drying up of a shallow ford, on both sides of which the basin of the sea was much deeper, and remained filled with water.” There is no way to “water down” the text to fit natural explanations; the report clearly shows a miraculous work of God making a path through the sea – a path that had to be as wide as half a mile in order for the many people and their animals to cross between about 2:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. (W. C. Kaiser, Jr., “Exodus,” EBC 2:389). The text does not say that they actually only started across in the morning watch, however.

[3:10]  ² tn Heb “a heavy rain of waters passes by.” Perhaps the flash floods produced by the downpour are in view here.

[3:10]  ³ sn The great deep, which is to be equated with the sea (vv. 8, 15), is a symbol of chaos and represents the Lord’s enemies.

[3:10]  ⁴ sn Lifting the hands here suggests panic and is accompanied by a cry for mercy (see Ps 28:2; Lam 2:19). The forces of chaos cannot withstand the Lord’s power revealed in the storm.