Exodus — Chapter 14

The Lord tells Moses to camp at Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, opposite Baal-zephon. Lapide notes the strategic impossibility of the position: sea in front, mountains on the sides, Pharaoh's army behind. God deliberately led Israel into a humanly hopeless position to make the miracle more manifest and to teach a lesson in trust. He cites Augustine (In Ps. 39): \"God closes every door of human help so that His door alone remains open—and then He opens it.\"

Fear ye not, stand and see the great wonders of the Lord which he will do this day: for the Egyptians whom you see now, you shall see no more forever. Moses's words to the trembling Israelites teach the virtue of hope and the remedy against scrupulosity and despondency. Lapide cites Bernard (Serm. In Ps. XC): \"The cry of the soul in the ears of God is vehement desire.\" The silence God commands—\"you shall be still\" (vers. 14)—is not passivity but the interior recollection of those who trust entirely in God's power.

The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace. Lapide meditates on divine silence as the condition of divine victory. He cites Isaiah 30:15: \"In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength.\" The stillness commanded by Moses is the interior recollection (recollectio) of the soul that abandons self-effort and relies on God alone. He contrasts this with the Israelites' alternative: flight backward into Egypt (verse 12), which is the return to sin in time of spiritual crisis.

The angel of God who went before the camp of Israel moved and went behind them; the cloud shifted from in front to the rear. Lapide notes that the divine guide moves to protect the most vulnerable point: when the enemy approaches from the rear, the divine presence places itself between the enemy and the people. He applies this to the soul in temptation: the Holy Spirit, the divine Paraclete, stands between the devil's onslaught and the soul's vulnerability. The same cloud that illuminated Israel darkened the Egyptians—the same grace that saves the good destroys the impious.

And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea: and the Lord took it away by a strong and burning wind blowing all the night, and turned it into dry ground, and the water was divided. Lapide carefully distinguishes the roles of Moses, the wind, and the angel. The wind was sent not to divide the sea—that was done instantaneously by the Angel—but to dry the seabed so the people could pass. He estimates the breadth at six leagues (the width of the Red Sea as reported by Adrichomius). The crossing required half a night for what Josephus calculates as three million people—hence the width of the passage must have been enormous, all walking simultaneously abreast. This exceeds any natural explanation.

The water was as a wall on their right hand and on their left. Lapide notes that God did not merely part the water; He held it in two vertical walls throughout the entire crossing—a continuous, ongoing miracle, not a one-time act. He compares the water walls to the grace that God maintains around the justified soul: on every side the threats of the world and the devil are held back by divine power, so that nothing can harm the soul as long as it walks in God's way.

The waters returned and covered the chariots and horsemen of all Pharaoh's host; there remained not so much as one of them. Lapide finds in this total destruction the eschatological lesson: at the Last Judgment the enemies of God's elect will be utterly destroyed, with no residue. He cites Origen (Hom. in Ex.): the destruction of the Egyptians at the sea prefigures the final ruin of sin—sin is not merely forgiven in Baptism but drowned.