5 min read

Four Plans at the Red Sea and God Rejected All of Them

At the sea Israel split into four camps - charge, retreat, fight, or pray. The Mekhilta records God's answer to each, and none got what it asked.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. Four Voices at the Water
  2. The Faction That Wanted to Jump In
  3. The Faction That Wanted to Go Back
  4. The Faction That Wanted to Fight
  5. What Each Group Got Instead

Four Voices at the Water

Egypt is behind them. The sea is in front of them. The Israelites left less than a week ago with their unleavened bread still on their shoulders and the cries of the firstborn still in their ears, and now the army is close enough that they can see the chariot wheels catching the morning light. There is nowhere to go. There is the water, and there is Pharaoh, and there is the empty air above the sand, and none of those is a plan.

Four groups form at the water's edge. The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus compiled in the second century, names them and gives each one its argument, and then records what God said to each one. None of the groups got what they were asking for. What they got was something they had not thought to ask.

The Faction That Wanted to Jump In

The first group said: let us throw ourselves into the sea. Not wait for a miracle. Not negotiate. Just move forward, into the water, and trust that something will happen on the other side of the choice. This is not faith. It is desperation wearing faith's clothing, the people who prefer any action to the unbearable pressure of standing still while something approaches from behind.

Moses answers them. "Stand firm and see the salvation of God" (Exodus 14:13). You will do this. You will not throw yourselves into chaos on your own initiative. The sea will open, but not because you forced it open with your bodies. You will stand where you are and watch what is done for you.

The Faction That Wanted to Go Back

The second group said: let us return to Egypt. The logic was coherent if brutal. Slavery was survivable. They had survived it for four hundred years. The sea was not survivable. A known suffering is preferable to an unknown one, especially when the unknown one involves drowning before you can be enslaved again. They were willing to trade freedom for survival, which means they did not yet understand that what they were being freed into was worth more than what they were being freed from.

Moses answers them too, with the same standing instruction. You will not go back. You will watch what happens to Egypt today, and you will never see Egypt again.

The Faction That Wanted to Fight

The third group did not want to die in the water or go back to slavery. They wanted to turn and engage. Egypt had a professional army, but Israel had numbers. Perhaps they could hold them off long enough for something to change. This was military thinking applied to a situation that had already exceeded the reach of military thinking, the application of human calculation to a moment that God had been designing since before Abraham was born.

The fourth group wanted to cry out to God and wait. This sounds the most reasonable until you hear what God says to Moses about it: "Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move" (Exodus 14:15). Prayer is not what this moment requires. This moment requires feet moving forward. The prayer has already been heard. What is needed now is the movement that shows the prayer was meant.

What Each Group Got Instead

The Mekhilta records God's answer to each faction not as satisfaction of the request but as correction of the premise. The faction that wanted to throw themselves into the sea had hold of one true thing, the need to move forward, and the wrong handle on it, moving forward on their own terms. The faction that wanted to return to Egypt felt the pull of the familiar and mistook that pull for the value of what lay ahead. The faction that wanted to fight understood that Egypt had to be defeated and reached for the wrong hand to defeat it. The faction that wanted to pray understood that they needed God and misjudged what calling on God in that moment required.

The sea splits. Israel walks through. Egypt follows. The water returns. Each faction carried an instinct that pointed at the right thing and aimed at the wrong version of it. They wanted to move, and they were right to. They feared going back, and they were right to. They saw that Egypt had to be stopped. They saw that God was the answer. The thing each of them misjudged was the specific form each of those correct things would take on that specific morning.

Red SeaExodusFaithMekhiltaIsraelMoses
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From the tradition

Sources

5 sources

The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Mekhilta Tractate Vayehi Beshalach 3:27Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael

Trapped between Pharaoh's army and the water, Israel did not respond as one. The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael teaches that Israel were four factions at the sea, each gripped by a different impulse. One faction was for lunging into the sea, ready to drown rather than be recaptured. Another was for returning to Egypt and surrendering to slavery again. A third was for warring against the Egyptians. And a fourth was for crying out against them in noisy panic.

To each faction Moshe gave an answer drawn from his charge to the people (Exodus 14:13). To those who were for lunging into the sea, it was said: "Stand ready and see the salvation of the Lord." To those who were for returning to Egypt, it was said: "For as you see Egypt this day, you shall see them no more, forever." To those who were for warring against the Egyptians, it was said: "The Lord will war for you." And to those who were for crying out, it was said (Exodus 14:14) "And you shall be still."

The rabbis read the single verse as a fourfold reply, one line for each faction. Despair, retreat, reckless battle, and frantic clamor are each met and corrected. The proper posture, the passage teaches, was neither flight nor frenzy but to stand firm in faith and witness the deliverance that God Himself would bring.

Full source
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 14:13Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus

The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:13) breaks Israel into four factions at the edge of the sea. Not "the people" united, but four parties, each with its own plan.

The first said: Let us go down into the sea. Better drowning than recapture.

The second said: Let us return into Mizraim. Better slavery than death.

The third said: Let us set against them the line of battle. Better to die fighting.

The fourth said: Let us raise a cry against them, and confound them. Better to scream our way out.

Four parties. Four panics. And Moses, astonishingly, has a separate answer for each.

To the ones who wanted to drown, Moses says: "Fear not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which will be wrought for you today." You do not need to rush into the water. Wait.

To the ones who wanted to return to Egypt, Moses says: "You shall not return; for, though you see the Mizraee today, you will see them no more for ever." This is the end of Egypt in your life. You are going forward, never back.

The Targum's fourfold analysis is a masterclass in leadership. A panicking people is never one thing. A leader who treats them as one mind will lose them. Moses diagnoses four different fears and answers four different fears. Only then can the nation move.

Takeaway: the Targum teaches that leadership is listening to every faction of fear and answering each one in its own language.

Full source
Legends of the Jews 4:114Legends of the Jews

Loyalty to a leader you trust, versus the allure of the familiar. That's exactly where the Israelites found themselves in this little-known story about Moses.

The familiar version gives us Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt. But what happened after that monumental event, according to some fascinating legends? The people, fresh from their miraculous escape, faced a crisis of leadership. A power vacuum, if you will. not everyone was completely sold on this whole Moses thing. Some longed for the "good old days" – or at least, what they remembered of them.

So, what happened? Well, according to Legends of the Jews, a collection compiled by Louis Ginzberg, a whole day was spent in heated debate. The people and the nobles – they were at each other's throats! Should they listen to the queen? Should they stick with Moses? The officers of the army, they remained steadfast in their allegiance to Moses. But the people of the cities? They were swayed by the prospect of familiar rule. They wanted to crown the son of their former lord, this figure named Kikanos, as their king. Imagine the tension!

The next morning? The people rose up and actually crowned Monarchos, the son of Kikanos, as their king. Monarchos. Kind of has a ring to it, doesn't it? But, and here's the crucial part, they were afraid to lay a hand on Moses.

Why?

Because, as the story tells us, the Lord was with him. God’s presence offered Moses protection.

But there's more. They also remembered the oath they had sworn to Moses. An oath! A powerful commitment. They couldn't simply ignore it. So, they didn't harm him. In fact, they showered him with gifts and dismissed him with great honor. They crowned a new king, yet they treated Moses with respect, even reverence. What a strange and complicated situation!

What does it all mean? Well, perhaps it speaks to the human condition. The desire for change, the pull of the familiar, the weight of oaths, and the recognition of divine presence. It is a potent mix that makes this story so compelling.

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Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 233:1Yalkut Shimoni on Torah

"For as you have seen Egypt today" (Exodus 14:13). In three places the Holy One, blessed be He, warned not to return to Egypt. So it is said here, "For as you have seen Egypt"; and it says, "And the LORD said to you, You shall not return that way again" (Deuteronomy 17:16); and it says, "by the way of which I said to you" and so on (Deuteronomy 28:68). In all three cases they returned, and in all three they fell. The first was in the days of Sennacherib, as it is said, "Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help" (Isaiah 31:1). The second was in the days of Yohanan ben Kareah, as it is said, "And the sword which you fear" and so on. And the third was in the days of Trajan. In all three they returned, and in all three they fell.

Israel formed into four factions at the sea. One said, Let us fall into the sea. One said, Let us return to Egypt. One said, Let us make war against them. And one said, Let us cry out against them. To the one that said, Let us fall into the sea, it was said, "Stand firm and see" (Exodus 14:13). To the one that said, Let us return to Egypt, it was said, "For as you have seen Egypt." To the one that said, Let us make war against them, it was said, "The LORD will fight" (Exodus 14:14). And to the one that said, Let us cry out against them, it was said, "And you shall hold your peace" (Exodus 14:14).

Full source
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 14:14Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus

The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:14) finishes the fourfold answer from the verse before. Two parties still need their reply: the fighters and the screamers.

" Your voice is not a weapon here. Turn it into a song.

Both answers work the same way. They take an impulse toward action and redirect it toward worship. The fighters wanted to fight. Moses tells them to let God fight. The screamers wanted to scream. Moses tells them to praise.

The Targum is making a startling claim about redemption. At the Sea of Reeds, human effort is beside the point. "The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace," the Hebrew verse says. The Targum expands it into an instruction: the right response to overwhelming miracle is silence, and then praise. Any action the people take on their own will only get in God's way.

Takeaway: the Targum teaches that there are moments when the most spiritual act is to stop acting and let God be God.

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