Parshat Beshalach4 min read

News of the Sea Broke Canaan's Kings, and Miriam's Well Rolled With the Camp

Before any Israelite army reached Canaan, the news from the sea had already hollowed out its kings. A singing well then drew rivers around the desert camp.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Weapon That Arrived First
  2. Rage on the Right and Rage on the Left
  3. Why the Angels Objected
  4. The Well That Fed the Camp
News of the Sea Broke Canaan's Kings, and Miriam's Well Rolled With the Camp Click for full size

The Weapon That Arrived First

The kings of Canaan had heard. By the time Israel finished singing at the sea and turned inland, the news had already crossed the Jordan and the rumors were doing more work than any army could have done. Rahab would say it directly when the spies came to Jericho: "we heard what the Lord did to Egypt, and our hearts melted. No courage remained in any man because of what had happened at the water."

The sages behind the Yalkut Shimoni on Torah read this as the completion of the sea miracle, not a side effect. The drowning of Egypt was not only the destruction of a pursuing army. It was an announcement, and the announcement carried the weight of the water with it all the way to Canaan.

Rage on the Right and Rage on the Left

The walls of water that rose on either side of Israel during the crossing were not calm. The Yalkut plays on a single missing letter in the Hebrew of Exodus 14:22. Where the verse says the water was a wall on their right and left, the word chomah is spelled without its full complement of letters, which allows it to be read as chema, rage. The sea was not a fence. It was fury barely contained, anger pressed back on both sides, and only two things kept Israel alive between those raging columns of water.

On the right stood the merit of the Torah, the fiery law that would come from God's right hand at Sinai, given here as credit against a debt not yet incurred. On the left stood the merit of the tefillin, the leather boxes and straps that Israel would one day bind on their heads and arms in obedience to a commandment not yet issued. Future observance, treated by the sea as if it were already a fact, held the walls apart long enough for a nation to cross on dry ground.

Why the Angels Objected

The angels of service looked at the people walking through and could not believe what they were seeing. "These were idolaters," they said. "These were people who had bowed to Egypt's gods in the delta only yesterday, and now they cross on dry land while Egypt drowns? How does this make sense?"

The tradition preserves this as a genuine protest, not a rhetorical device. The objection was real, and the midrash does not dismiss it. Israel had served foreign gods in Egypt. They had been sunk in the same moral condition as their masters in many respects. The case for rescuing them was not obvious on merit alone. It rested on promise and on the accumulated account of the patriarchs and matriarchs, debts owed to the dead that were being paid to the living.

The Well That Fed the Camp

After the sea, the same logic of miraculous provision continued in the desert. Miriam's well, the tradition says, was not a stationary source. It was a traveling companion, a boulder that rolled alongside the camp through forty years of wilderness wandering, and from it rivers branched out and ran between the tents. The families of Israel did not have to carry water any distance. The water came to them, distributing itself through the camp the way an aqueduct distributes water through a city, except that the source moved and the city moved with it.

When Israel camped, the well camped. When they marched, the well rolled. The same power that had sent walls of water standing on both sides of a nation walking through the sea was now routing water around every tent in the camp so that no one had to go dry.

The dread that had broken Canaan before any soldier arrived was one face of what the sea had done. The well that followed the camp through the desert was another. Both were the same event continuing, the miracle at the water that had not stopped when the last Egyptian drowned.

Yalkut ShimoniExodusWildernessMiraclesHoly LandRedemptionSplitting Sea
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From the tradition

Sources

3 sources

The texts behind this telling. Some cards carry a translation of the source; others are our own retelling of it, and each card says which. Every card links out to the original.

Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 238Yalkut Shimoni

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.Sefaria Community Translation · CC0

"And the waters will came back and cover the chariot and the horsemen" (Exodus 14:26) And even Par'oh, according to Rabi Yehuda, as it says "the chariots of Phar'oh and his army" (15:4). Rabi Natan says Par'oh was the exception, since we have this verse about him: "maybe for this I made you stand up"(Exodus 9:16). And there are those who say that at the end Par'oh went down and drowned, as it says "and the horse of Par'oh came" (Exodus 15:19). "And the children of Israel went into the sea in dry ground" - the angels of service were astounded, saying: 'the children of Israel, idolaters that they are, are coming on dry land?!' And from where do we know that even the sea was filled with rage from Above? Because the text says "and the waters were like rage to them" [since the vav is missing to the word chomah, wall, it can be read as chema, rage; so you can re-read the verse as "the water was like anger on their right and on their left"]. And what caused them to be saved from their right and their left? From the right, it was Torah, which they would receive later on, as it says "From His right, [He gave] a fiery law to them". And left? This is tefilin.

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Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 251:15Yalkut Shimoni on Torah

Translation of the source text.Torat Emet (Yalkut Shimoni) · CC-BY-NC

"All the inhabitants of Canaan melted away" (Exodus 15:15). "Terror and dread fell upon them" (Exodus 15:16): terror upon those who were far off, and dread upon those who were near. This is the matter of which it is said, "And it came to pass when all the kings of the Amorites heard" and so forth. And so too Rahab said to Joshua's messengers (Joshua 2:10-11), "For we have heard how the LORD dried up [the waters], and when we heard it our hearts melted."

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Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 426:1Yalkut Shimoni on Torah

Translation of the source text.Torat Emet (Yalkut Shimoni) · CC-BY-NC

It is written, "And the Levites shall encamp around" (Numbers 1:53). How was their encampment? Like a single band of four thousand cubits they would encamp and surround the Tabernacle on every side. Moses, Aaron, and his sons were on the east, they and their sons and all that was theirs across the whole eastern front of the Tent of Meeting. The well was at the entrance of the court, near Moses' tent, and it would make known to all the camps how they should encamp. How? Once the hangings of the court stood, twelve princes would stand over the well and recite song, as it is said, "A well dug by princes" (Numbers 21:17-18). The waters of the well would go out and become rivers upon rivers. One river went out and encircled the camp of the Divine Presence. From that river four rivers went out at the four corners of the court, each one going to the edge, serving two directions, south and east, and going out toward the camp of Israel.

Once the waters passed the camp of the Levites, the rivers mixed with one another and encircled the whole Levite camp. They went between family and family and appeared like tablets upon tablets surrounding the camp of the Divine Presence. A great river encircled the whole camp of Israel from outside, and rivers upon rivers ran between every tribe and tribe. The rivers made known the boundary between each one and the next, so that no one needed his fellow. Do not say that these were merely channels of water. They grew for Israel every kind of delicacy, a likeness of the World to Come, as it is said, "Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates, with precious fruits, henna with spikenard, spikenard and saffron" (Song of Songs 4:13-14).

Now the camps stood camp by camp, east and west, north and south, each camp four thousand cubits: Moses, Aaron, and his sons on the east; the sons of Kohath on the south; the sons of Gershon on the west; and the sons of Merari on the north. Each of them faced one hundred cubits within four thousand cubits, with another four thousand from every direction. Thus their place was arranged, and the place of the Levites was one eighth of the place of the tribes. Where were their animals? Their encampment was twelve mil by twelve mil. Count the camp of the Divine Presence, the Levite camp, and the Israelite camp; in the remaining corners of every side their animals grazed opposite their encampment. The rivers encircled them inside and outside and marked them like tablets from beginning to end, so that they had permission to walk to the Tabernacle on Shabbat and from camp to camp. The cloud was spread over them, separating them from their animals, as it is said, "the cloud of the LORD was upon them by day" (Numbers 10:34). From the radiance of the blue, the rivers looked blue, patterned like dawn, moon, and sun. The nations saw them for many miles and praised the Holy One, blessed be He: "Who is this that looks forth" (Song of Songs 6:10). Fear and dread fell on all, as it is said, "Terror and dread shall fall upon them" (Exodus 15:16).

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