It’s a question that surfaces, quite literally, when we read the story of the Exodus. We know Pharaoh's army drowned in the Red Sea, right? As it says in Exodus 15:1, "Horse and driver He has hurled into the sea." But then, just a few verses later, Exodus 15:12 tells us, "The earth swallowed them."

Wait a minute. Did they drown, or were they swallowed?

That seeming contradiction sparked a fascinating story, a sort of cosmic argument between the sea and the earth. Imagine it: The sea, churning with the defeated Egyptian army, turns to the earth and says, "Hey, these are your children! Time to take them back. After all, 'For dust you are, and to dust you shall return' (Gen. 3:19)." It's a cold, almost legalistic argument.

But the earth isn’t so keen. "Receive your slain," she retorts. According to Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 15:12, neither the sea nor the earth wanted to take responsibility.

Why not? Well, the earth was afraid. Deeply afraid. As the story unfolds in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the earth feared that these dead soldiers would testify against it on the Day of Great Judgment, in the Olam Ha-Ba (the World to Come). A bit like Abel's blood crying out from the ground in Genesis 4:10. Can you imagine the earth's anxiety?

So what happened? How did this standoff resolve itself?

God intervened. He inclined His right hand over the earth and swore an oath – a powerful, unbreakable promise – that the bodies of the dead would not be permitted to testify against the earth in the World to Come. Only then, reassured, did the earth open its mouth and swallow them. As we find in the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 15:12, with divine assurance, the earth fulfilled its part.

It's a powerful image, isn't it? This myth, beautifully retold in Howard Schwartz's Tree of Souls, isn't just about resolving a textual contradiction. It's about responsibility, about justice, and about the sometimes uneasy relationship between the elements of creation. We see a similar concept in "The Quarrel of the Sun and the Moon," which Schwartz also includes in Tree of Souls.

But here’s the really striking part. Even in this moment of triumph, God doesn't rejoice in the downfall of the wicked. The Talmud, in B. Megillah 10b, tells us that when the ministering angels wanted to chant their hymns, celebrating the victory, God stopped them. "Shall you chant hymns," He asked, "while the work of My hands is being drowned in the sea?"

Think about that for a moment. Even as justice is served, there's a profound sadness, a recognition of the shared humanity – or perhaps, the shared creation – even with our enemies. It's a complex, nuanced view of divine justice, one that challenges us to see the world, and our enemies, with compassion. It’s a reminder that even in victory, humility and empathy have a place.