I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 13-15.

    When the Israelites left Egypt they were not yet ready to face those between them and the Promised Land, let alone face those who occupied the Promised Land. So, God had Moses lead them around the area between Egypt and the Red Sea (today we would consider this area as part of Egypt, but in that day because it was mostly uninhabited, it was considered no man’s land). Receiving reports indicating they were doing this, Pharaoh decided either that he could retrieve his slave labor force, or that they were a threat. As a result, he led his army out after them (probably just his elite forces he had at ready to put down riots and to deal with bandits). When the Israelites saw Pharaoh’s army, they panicked. This was despite the mighty miracles they had just witnessed (a theme which continues through out Exodus).

    When the Israelites panicked, Moses calmed them. This is a key lesson for us. We will not be ready to follow God’s lead out of a bad situation if we are panicking. Two separate things happened next. First, God intervened so as to delay the Egyptian army. Then while the Egyptians were figuring out how to deal with the unexpected obstacle (whatever the cloud of smoke and pillar of fire was, it must have been something the Egyptians considered to be natural), God parted the Red Sea, allowing the Israelites to escape through it. This also must have been viewed by the Egyptians as a natural occurrence, otherwise they would not have been so eager to pursue the Israelites across it.

     Through all of this, the Egyptians saw natural events while the Israelites saw Divine intervention. I was not going here as I started to write this. I was about to wrap up my thoughts on how important it is for us to not panic, to trust that God will act to rescue us from our difficulties (or otherwise use them to bring glory to His Name and bless us), when it struck me how the two sides here saw things so differently. Despite, having a realization that there was Divine intervention when their chariots got stuck in the mud of the Red Sea bed, I suspect that the Egyptians ended up seeing it as all just natural events. Do we have the ability to see how God’s Divine hand has used what are otherwise natural events to bring His plan to fruition?