The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 14:12 remembers an earlier argument. "Was not this the word that we spake to thee in Mizraim?" The Hebrews had told Moses in Egypt, back when he first came to them with talk of freedom: Let us alone. Let the Lord manifest Himself and judge. We would rather serve Egypt than die in the desert.
The Targum's phrasing is striking. "Let the Lord manifest Himself over us and judge, saying, Desist from us, and we will serve the Mizraee." They had wanted God to side against Moses. They had asked God to command them to remain slaves.
And now, trapped between the sea and Pharaoh's chariots, they throw it back in Moses' face. "We told you so." It is one of the bleakest lines in the Torah, and the Targum makes it bleaker by preserving its full logic. Slavery was predictable. Slavery had food. Slavery had graves. Freedom has only open sand and a pursuing army. "It is better for us to serve the Mizraee than to perish in the desert."
The Targum is showing the psychology of the slave. Four hundred years of bondage had taught them that servitude was safety. Freedom looked like a death sentence dressed up as a promise.
Takeaway: the Targum teaches that a people can walk out of Egypt in a single night, but Egypt walks out of them only after a generation in the desert.