Note: Regarding
the sea-floor-contour picture above, the water would still, normally, have been quite deep even at the shallowest midpoint on the crossing.
In
the Nuweiba beach picture above the Israelites would have entered from the upper right, through the narrow valley
coming down from the mountains, from the west.
They were under treat of imminent death at the
hands of the Egyptian army in hot pursuit.
God saved them.
The would have departed through the parted sea
waters to the left in the picture (east).
In God's dealings with his people there are always
moral purposes and symbols.
Symbolically, God saved his people out of Egypt in the Passover and
the sacrificial blood of the lambs.
Thus, as Isaiah 51:10 says, they were "ransomed," and "redeemed:"
10Art thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters
of the great deep; that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?
11Therefore the redeemed of the LORD
shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and
joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.
This,
of course looks forward to the ultimate "Lamb of God" who is Jesus Christ.
It
is God who is the power behind it all. Mankind simply cooperates.
The passage through the divided sea was analogous
to Christian water baptism.
Two Scripture passages can give us some insight into this.
A
passage from 1 Peter 3:20-22 goes back to Noah's Ark and the Flood:
1 Peter 3:20-22 (King James Version):
20Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while
the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
21The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us
(not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ:
22Who is
gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him.
The lesson above seems to be an act of a correct decision and response to God.
And
more directly concerned with the Exodus situation:
1 Corinthians 10:
1Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how
that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;
2And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in
the sea;
3And did
all eat the same spiritual meat;
4And did
all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.
5But with many of them God was not well
pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
6Now these
things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.
7Neither be ye idolaters, as were some
of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.
8Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed,
and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.
9Neither
let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents.
10Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and
were destroyed of the destroyer.
11Now all
these things happened unto them for examples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are
come.
12Wherefore
let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.
13There hath
no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that
ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
14Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee
from idolatry.
15I speak
as to wise men; judge ye what I say.
16The cup
of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion
of the body of Christ?
17For we
being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread.
The
lesson here seems to be that baptism is symbolic of an inward necessary decision of faith, and that lacking THAT, -- baptism
does not, of itself, save a person.
