Benjamin and Nahshon Race Into the Unparted Sea

Click for full size

The Shore That Would Not Open

The water stood black and flat in front of them. Behind them the dust of Egypt rose like a wall, and chariot wheels cut the air into a scream. Moses raised his staff. The sea did not move. Men shoved. Women clutched children against their ribs. The tribes began to shout each other down for the honor of going first into a place that still looked like death.

Judah's princes pushed forward. Benjamin's men pushed harder. Someone raised a stone. Another answered with a stone of his own. On the edge of a miracle, Israel nearly broke itself with pride. The staff stayed high. The water stayed shut. Pride made more noise than faith.

A child asked if the sea was a door. No one answered him. The only door they could see was the one Egypt was about to kick in from behind.

Benjamin Leaps First

In one telling the whole tribe of Benjamin stopped arguing and jumped. They hit the water while it was still water. Salt slammed their mouths. Current tore at their legs. They went in as if the promise were already solid under their feet, and the princes of Judah, mad with zeal, pelted them with stones for daring to claim the first step.

A Benjaminite went under and came up choking, still moving forward. Another held a brother by the collar so the current would not peel him back to shore. They did not wait for walls of water to stand like cliffs. They treated the deep as a road before it had agreed to be one.

Heaven watched both the leap and the stones. The leap earned Benjamin a future portion where the Temple would stand. The stones, strange as they were, earned Judah the kingship, because even their violence was a hunger to go first into danger for God's people. Reward for the dive. Reward for the hunger. The sea still had not parted. The staff still had not finished its work.

Nahshon Walks Until the Water Reaches His Soul

In another telling one man does what a tribe cannot. Nahshon son of Amminadab of Judah leaves the quarrel behind him. He does not throw a stone. He does not claim a speech. He walks into the water alone.

Ankle. Knee. Waist. Chest. The cold climbs him like a second army. Fish flash past his calves. The bottom drops. When the water reaches his neck, the verse that will later sound like a psalm is already his prayer in the throat. "Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my soul."

At that height of drowning, Heaven turns on Moses. Stop praying. My beloved is going under. Stretch out your hand. Split the sea. The staff that had waited for a better moment moves because a body has already paid the price of faith in advance. Nahshon's mouth fills. Then the road opens under him like a held breath finally released.

Walls of water stand like frozen cliffs. Israel walks between deaths and lives. Children stare up at fish frozen mid-turn in the wall of the deep. The quarrel on the shore becomes a line of wet feet and silence.

One Sea, Two Smells

Egypt drives in after them. The same sea that held still for Israel turns cunning against the army that once said, "Come, let us deal craftily." Measure for measure. The craft they used on slaves becomes the craft of the deep against chariots.

To the Egyptians the water stinks like a boiling pot. They choke on air that has turned against them. They faint inside armor that cannot float. They thrash like wineskins sealed shut, neither breathing in nor breathing out. Wheels lock. Horses scream and go under. Captains shout orders that die in salt.

To Israel the same salt corridor smells like every spice of the market. Inside the bitter sea they taste sweet drinking water. They eat as they walk. They rejoice while walls of judgment stand over their heads. A woman passes a cup of sweet water to a child while, a spear's throw away through the wall of the deep, an Egyptian officer claws at a chariot that will not rise.

What a finger of God did in Egypt, a whole hand does at the water. Plague multiplies into plague until the arithmetic of judgment grows almost too large to hold, and still the heart of the moment is not the body count. It is the look on Israel's face when they reach the far shore and finally believe.

Belief That Cuts Both Ways

They fear the LORD. They believe in Him and in Moses His servant. Before this hour their trust was thin, a thing that cracked every time water or meat ran short. Now it hardens into something that can hold a nation for a little while. To trust the shepherd of Israel is to trust the One who spoke and the world stood. Later, when they slander Moses in the wilderness, they will be slandering Heaven with the same mouth that sang here.

Benjamin's wet clothes dry on the bank. Nahshon's hair still drips into his collar. Judah's princes lower the stones they never needed. Behind them the sea closes over Egypt's boasts with a sound like a gate. The people who almost tore each other apart for the first step stand quiet in the knowledge that the first step was never theirs to stage. It belonged to the one willing to drown before the road appeared.

Night comes to the far shore with a different kind of dark. No chariot dust. No shopkeeper's whip. Only the smell of salt and the memory of a neck-deep man who kept walking when walking looked like suicide. Somewhere in the column a boy from Benjamin touches the bruise a Judahite stone left on his shoulder and does not raise a hand in return. The Temple is still centuries away. The kingship is still a promise. The sea has already collected its fee in faith.