Exodus 14:1-31 Study Guide: The Red Sea

Community Group Study Guide — The Red Sea
Exodus 14:1-31

Study Information:
If you’ve ever been to a live concert it is really common for the band to leave the stage at the end of the show and come back out for an encore. Usually the crowd gets hyped up and starts cheering and the band reemerges back on stage to triumphant applause and shouting. Our text shows us an encore of God’s power over Egypt, even though Israel wasn’t cheering for it to happen. Israel was freed from slavery after the plague of the death of the firstborn, but instead of walking out of Egypt God led them to a dead end. This passage gives us another example of God’s power in the face of an impossible situation. In this God exposed the Israelite’s fear and led them to greater faith. 

Fear Over Faith
Exodus 14:1-14
Our text opens up with how God told Moses to lead the people of Israel to a dead end as they camped facing the sea (Exodus 14:1-2). You’d think that God would lead them by a smooth path out of Egypt as quickly as possible, but God was doing something to challenge his people. God hardened Pharaoh’s heart and once Pharaoh heard the Israelites were “stuck,” Pharaoh pursued them. God’s goal was to let Pharaoh know one more time that God was the LORD (Exodus 4:4, 18). Pharaoh regretted giving in to letting Israel go saying,“what have we done?” He then mobilized a strike team to go after the Israelites who had left the land “defiantly.” The strike team was Pharaoh’s army and 600 chariots, which would have been an impressive force to reckon with. 

It is interesting to observe what this does in the hearts of the Israelites. They had just witnessed God’s miraculous power in all the plagues, shouldn’t they be confident in God’s promise and power to save them?  We read the opposite in our text which tells us that they gave in to fear (Exodus 14:10). The people of Israel once again “cried out” to the LORD, which is the same wording for when they were suffering under slavery and cried out for God to rescue them. But, notice the difference here, rather than crying out to trust God for deliverance, they cry out with a complaint that things were better in Egypt! They cried out saying “God led us to the wilderness to die!” They cried out “it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians (Exodus 14:11-12).” Impossible situations and challenging hardship can reveal what we really think and believe about God and his promises. We can find ourselves in similar situations where we cry out in fear or complaint because faith requires trust and our faith can be weak. Ultimately these moments are a gift for us, just like it was for the Israelites, because they brings us to our human limits and requires us to wait and see the glory of God for our hope. 

The response of Moses was a stark contrast to the Israelites. Notice how Moses expressed faith over fear in his response to the people’s complaint. First in Exodus 14:13 he gave three quick commands, “fear not, stand firm, see the salvation of the LORD.” Moses did not know how the Lord would save them, but he knew that God promised to show them his glory. He was able to trust in God’s promise even as he did not know God’s plan. Such is the case when we face impossible situations, God brings us there to stretch our faith and show us once again that salvation belongs to him alone. 

Seeing the Glory of God
Exodus 14:18-31
God spoke to Moses and his command was to have the people go through the dead end… “stretch out your hand to the sea and divide it so they go forth on dry ground!” God then hardened the hearts of the Egyptians so that they followed Israel and were destroyed. 

Our text tells us that this all took place at night, which likely added to the fear and confusion, but God protected them and was present with them (Exodus 14:20). The pillar of cloud, representing God’s presence with them, moved behind them, functionally creating a bit of a barrier between them and Egypt as Moses stretched out his hand to the Red Sea. Next, a great wind divided the water so that Israel could walk through the Red Sea. Then in the early hours of the morning God put the Egyptians into a panic and clogged their wheels and the Egyptians realized that the LORD fights for the Israelites (Exodus 14:24-25). Finally, Moses was told to stretch his hand back over the water so that the water came crashing down on this army. 

God hardened Pharaoh and the Egyptian army’s hearts so that they would be defeated once and for all and so that his people’s faith would be built up. It was an encore of God’s power for them to witness. By eliminating the Egyptian army, God prevented Egypt from being able to harass and dominate another people group through military might and slavery in the near future. And, by having Israel witness it, rather than just doing that in secret, his people got to see his glory one more time as they were moved from fear to faith. 

This story of fear and faith in an impossible situation reminds us of Jesus on the boat in the sea of Galilee with his disciples. Jesus was fast asleep during a storm while his disciples were dumping buckets of water out of the boat back into the sea. They were panicked and fearful, as God himself was present in their midst. They cried out to Jesus, “don’t you care that we’re perishing?!” Jesus woke up and spoke the words “quiet, be still” to the storm and its raging ceased. Mark 4:40 tells us that Jesus asked the disciples “why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” In that moment they saw the power of God over all the created world and had their fear challenged. God likewise takes his people through impossible situations to show his power over what we think is impossible. When he does this he exposes our fear and leads us to faith. Many of us have gone through very significant and difficult circumstances from financial implosion, to medical issues, to hostile work environments, loss, strained relationships and sin that we cannot shake. But notice that God was fully present with his people in both the parting of the red sea and Jesus calming the storm. God wanted to get full and complete victory over that which threatened his people. Both the disciples and the Israelites “feared the Lord and believed” and God can help us now to fear him and believe in his promise and power.  

God can lead his people to dead ends and impossible circumstances so they’d express their fear, see the salvation he brings and believe. Some of us need to see God’s work in our lives today, confess your fear and complaints to God and ask for him to show you his glory. 

At your community group:
Take 15-20 minutes to share about how God has been at work in your life, prayer concerns and pray for one another.

How did God speak to you through the scripture and the sermon this week? 


Discussion Questions:
Read Exodus 14:1-31

What are some reasons God led the freed Israelites to the dead end at the Red Sea instead of another way to freedom?

How does Israel express fear and how was the response of Moses a contrast to that?

Why would God want to destroy the Egyptian army and humiliate Pharaoh?

Imagine you have a friend who is fearful given unknown circumstances or because they’re facing something that looks hopeless from the our earthly perspective. What kind of counsel would you give them?