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What Happened to Pharaoh After the Red Sea

Pharaoh survived the Red Sea. Gabriel drove him under, then let him go, and the tradition sent him somewhere unexpected.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Cry at the Turning Water
  2. What Israel Cried Before the Water Moved
  3. The Gods That Fell Before the Drowning
  4. The Survivor and the City That Waited

The last horse went under first. Then the chariot, the axle still spinning, caught by the surge and dragged sideways. Pharaoh felt the water take the wheels from under him, and for a moment he was neither king nor god but a man tumbling inside a fist of sea. The pillar of cloud had already closed behind the Israelites. The channel they had walked through on dry ground was collapsing from both sides. He could hear his officers screaming their last orders, and then he could not hear them at all.

The Cry at the Turning Water

He cried out. Not to Amun, whose granite face had cracked in two outside the temple doors during the plague of darkness. Not to Ra, whose shrine the final fire had melted down to slag the night the firstborn died. Those gods were rubble. He cried to the one who had done this. "I believe in You," he shouted into the wave. "You are righteous. I and my people are wicked. There is no god in the world beside You."

The angel Gabriel came down immediately. He came not to save but to confront. "Villain," Gabriel said. "Yesterday you said, 'Who is the Lord that I should hearken to His voice?' And now you say the Lord is righteous." The confession, arriving only because the water was at his throat, did not move Gabriel. It was the declaration of a man with nothing left to lose, which is not the same as repentance. Gabriel drove him under. But not all the way under, not to the bottom where the chariots were settling into the silt. Pharaoh surfaced, alone, in a sea he now owned nothing of.

What Israel Cried Before the Water Moved

Earlier, while the Egyptian army was still visible across the sand and drawing closer by the hour, Israel had called out to God at the edge of the sea. The prayer is preserved, and it is not simply a plea for rescue. It is an argument.

"Sovereign of all worlds," they cried, "these Egyptians who have arisen against us to destroy us from Your world are as though they have risen up against You. Let the majesty of Your might and Your fierce anger consume them like stubble" (Exodus 15:7). They were pressing a claim. An attack on Israel was an assault on the Name that Israel carried.

The prayer moved upward. "There is none like You among the ministering angels." Michael, Gabriel, the entire heavenly court bore the divine suffix El in their names, each one a reflector of the light. But the light itself belonged to God alone. When Israel named this at the sea, they were placing every hierarchy, celestial and earthly, in its correct order. Pharaoh's whole life had been built on the claim that he was a source. Standing at the water's edge about to be answered, Israel simply said otherwise.

The Gods That Fell Before the Drowning

The destruction did not begin at the sea. Stone gods shattered into fragments in Egypt before the army ever marched. Wooden gods rotted on their pedestals. Silver, brass, iron, and lead idols ran in rivulets across the temple floors. When the last plague moved through Egypt at midnight, the gods of Egypt died too, each in the manner of its material. What remained after the drowning was not a nation with defeated gods. It was a nation whose gods had already been proven to be nothing: mineral, not divine; weight, not will. Fire descended from heaven when the Egyptians went under and consumed whatever broken pieces still cluttered the sand (Exodus 12:12).

The sequence mattered. The gods went first. The army followed. Pharaoh survived both.

The Survivor and the City That Waited

He went to Nineveh. The tradition is specific about this. Not back to Egypt, where whatever remained of his court would have needed him to perform the role of pharaoh and the role was now impossible. Nineveh: the great city that would become famous in its own time for a collective repentance so total it stopped a divine decree cold (Jonah 3:5).

Some accounts say Pharaoh was there when it happened. Some say he led it. The man who had refused to release the Israelites through ten successive catastrophes, who had watched his gods dissolve and his army vanish, arrived in a city that was about to be told: repent, or perish. He knew what perishing looked like. He had swum through it. When the call came to Nineveh, there was already a man in the city who understood that the divine decree was not a figure of speech.

Pharaoh ended his life as a witness. Not to rule, not to be punished with permanent death, but to carry forward the knowledge of what had stood at the sea and what had answered. The idols had melted. The sea had closed. One man had survived who could not say, even in private, that he doubted it.

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From the tradition

Sources

3 sources

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

Legends of the Jews 1:55Legends of the Jews

The familiar story is this: the Israelites are freed, the waters part, the Egyptians pursue, the waters crash. End of story. Well, not quite.

In Legends of the Jews, a monumental work compiled by Rabbi Louis Ginzberg, Pharaoh wasn’t allowed to simply disappear beneath the waves. He was spared! Imagine the scene: amidst the chaos of the drowning Egyptian army, Pharaoh is tossed about, battling for his life. In that moment of utter desperation, he cries out, "I believe in Thee, O God! Thou art righteous, and I and My people are wicked, and I acknowledge now that there is no god in the world beside Thee."

The angel Gabriel, no less, descends immediately. "Villain!" Gabriel thunders, according to this legend. "Yesterday thou didst say, 'Who is the Lord that I should hearken to His voice?' and now thou sayest, 'The Lord is righteous.'" The hypocrisy is clear, isn't it? A reader can believe when you're staring death in the face.

So, Gabriel doesn't let him off the hook. He plunges Pharaoh back into the depths, torturing him for fifty days! Fifty days of watery torment to teach him a lesson about the power of God. It sounds harsh, doesn’t it? But remember, this is about making God’s power known.

But the story doesn't end there. After those grueling fifty days, Pharaoh is… installed as king of Nineveh! Nineveh, that great and wicked city. Now, fast forward many centuries. The prophet Jonah arrives, prophesying the city's destruction because of its wickedness.

And who is it that remembers his own brush with divine power, who is it that leads the city to repentance? It's none other than Pharaoh! Overcome with fear and terror, he covers himself in sackcloth and ashes. He issues a decree: "Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed nor drink water; for I know there is no god beside Him in all the world, all His words are truth, and all His judgements are true and faithful."

Wow. Talk about a redemption arc!

This version of the story, found in Legends of the Jews, adds layers of complexity to the familiar narrative. It’s a reminder that even those who seem furthest from redemption might have a role to play in acknowledging God's power. It makes you wonder, doesn't it? What does it take for true belief to take root? Is it enough to cry out in desperation, or does it require something more profound, a transformation forged in the depths of suffering and ultimately expressed through genuine repentance?

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Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 42:13Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer

The Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, a fascinating and often poetic work of Midrash (Jewish Biblical exegesis), gives us a glimpse into the hearts and minds of the Israelites at that pivotal moment in history. Specifically, in chapter 42, we find a powerful prayer uttered by Israel in the face of imminent destruction.

"Sovereign of all worlds!" they cry out to God. "These Egyptians who have arisen to come against us to destroy us from Thy world, as well as all who rise up against us, are as though they had risen up against Thee." It's a bold statement, isn't it? The Israelites aren’t just pleading for their own lives; they’re framing their struggle as God’s struggle. They are saying that an attack on them is an attack on God Himself. And they implore God: "Let the majesty of Thy might and Thy fierce anger consume them like stubble." This, of course, echoes the verse in (Exodus 15:7): "And in the greatness of thine excellency thou overthrowest them that rise up against thee: thou sendeth forth thy wrath, it consumeth them as stubble."

The prayer doesn’t end with a plea for vengeance. It transitions into a declaration of God’s unparalleled nature. "Sovereign of all worlds! There is none like Thee among the ministering angels." The Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer points out that even the names of the angels, like Michael and Gabriel, contain part of the word Elohim ("God"). It's as if even these celestial beings are only reflections of God’s ultimate divinity.

The Israelites continue, quoting (Exodus 15:11): "Who is like unto thee among the divine creatures, O Lord?" And then, in a fascinating twist that Pharaoh, in an act of defiant mimicry, replies after them, saying: "Who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?" It's the same verse, but the context is everything.

The Midrash then draws a crucial distinction. "Fearful in praise" is not written here, but "fearful in praises." Why the plural? Because, the Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer explains, "the praises of the ministering angels are on high, and the praises of Israel are (uttered on earth) below." The angels praise God from their celestial realm, but the Israelites, facing earthly struggles and temptations, offer their praise from a place of vulnerability and genuine effort.

This idea connects beautifully with (Psalm 22:3): "But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel." God dwells within the praises of His people. He is present in our heartfelt expressions of gratitude and devotion, even amidst hardship.

What does this all mean for us? Perhaps it's a reminder that our struggles, our prayers, our praises – they matter. They resonate not just within our own hearts, but within the very fabric of the divine. And even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, we can find strength and solace in the knowledge that we are never truly alone. Our voices, our faith, join a chorus that echoes through the heavens.

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Chronicles of Jerahmeel LIVChronicles of Jerahmeel (Gaster, 1899)

Before the tenth plague struck, God executed judgment on every idol in Egypt. Stone gods shattered into fragments. Wooden gods rotted to dust. Idols of silver, brass, iron, and lead melted into puddles on the ground. And when the Egyptians finally drowned in the Red Sea, fire descended from heaven and consumed whatever remained of their gods.

In Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, Moses went personally among the Egyptian firstborn before the final plague and delivered the warning himself. "About midnight," he told them, "the Lord will go forth in the midst of Egypt, and all the firstborn shall die." The firstborn panicked. They ran to their fathers and said, "Every plague Moses predicted has come true. Now he says we will die." Their fathers sent them to Pharaoh. But Pharaoh, himself a firstborn, refused to relent. He ordered his servants to beat anyone who begged him to release the Israelites.

The firstborn of Egypt took matters into their own hands. They turned on their own people and killed 600,000 Egyptians who supported Pharaoh's stubbornness. Even before God's angel arrived at midnight, Egypt was tearing itself apart from the inside.

When the Israelites finally left, Pharaoh pursued them with his chariots. At the Red Sea, God did not merely part the waters. He made the sea floor dry and comfortable for Israel while turning it into a deathtrap for Egypt. The waters crashed down on the Egyptian army like walls collapsing. Every chariot, every horse, every soldier vanished. The sea spit their bodies onto the shore so the Israelites could see with their own eyes that their oppressors were truly dead. Miriam took up her timbrel, and the women danced, because the empire that had enslaved them for generations was finished in a single night.

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