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Bible Dictionaries
Exodus the
People's Dictionary of the Bible
or Exodus, the. The departure of the Israelites from Egypt. The Exodus was the execution of a divine plan. God sent ten plagues upon Egypt in punishment for enslaving the Israelites. "And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not one dead." Then followed the midnight call of Pharaoh for Moses and Aaron, the command to depart, and the actual leaving of the house of bondage. There are two prominent theories about the locality and mode of the miraculous passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea: 1. The usual theory, which locates the passage several miles south of Suez, where the sea is about ten miles broad. This theory fits in best with the literal meaning of the narrative, for in this case the waters must have been actually divided for several miles, and have flowed back on either hand. But the difficulties the view raises are more numerous than those it solves. 2. The second theory puts the crossing at the head of the gulf, near or some distance north cf Suez. In Moses's time the gulf may have extended as a reedy marsh as far as the Bitter Lakes. The crossing was made possible by a special providence and a miraculous adaptation of the laws of nature. The east or rather northeast wind drove off the waters from the small arm of the sea which runs up by Suez; this would leave the water on the more northern part of the arm, so that there would be water on both sides to serve as an entrenchment. This would meet the exigences of the narrative. Exodus 14:22. But even in this case the passage of two millions of people, with all their cattle, was a great miracle. It has its counterpart in the crossing of the river Jordan at the end of the journey through the wilderness.
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Rice, Edwin Wilbur, DD. Entry for 'Exodus the'. People's Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/rpd/e/exodus-the.html. 1893.
