Rabbi Yehudah interprets the verse "And He removed their chariot wheels" (Exodus 14:25) as describing a scene far more spectacular than a simple mechanical failure. According to his reading, fire descended from the heavens above and struck the Egyptian chariots below. The intense heat shattered the wheels, snapped the yokes, and left the chariots careening out of control.
But the destruction served a double purpose. The chariots did not merely break apart — they ran wild on their own, stripped of their drivers, carrying their cargo straight toward the Israelites waiting on the far shore. And what cargo they carried. The Egyptian war chariots were loaded with vessels of silver and gold, precious gems, and pearls. Pharaoh's army had ridden to battle in extraordinary wealth, and now that wealth was delivered directly into Israelite hands as spoil.
This detail solves a narrative puzzle. The Torah describes Israel leaving Egypt with great wealth, and later receiving additional spoils at the sea. Rabbi Yehudah explains how: God turned the instruments of war into instruments of blessing. The very chariots that were meant to run the Israelites down instead ran their treasures to them. The fire from above was not merely destructive — it was redistributive. God stripped Pharaoh's army of everything: their mobility, their weapons, their wealth, and their lives. What Egypt spent generations hoarding through slave labor was returned to the enslaved in a single morning at the sea.