The Mekhilta presents another parable contrasting human warriors with God, this time focusing on the problem of aging. A human warrior reaches the height of his power at forty years old. At that age, his strength, reflexes, and endurance are at their peak. But the decline is inevitable.
A forty-year-old warrior is not like a sixty-year-old. His arms are stronger, his legs faster, his vision sharper. And a sixty-year-old is not like a seventy-year-old. Each decade strips away another layer of capability. The muscles weaken. The joints stiffen. The reactions slow. The older a human warrior grows, the more his power wanes, until the fighter who once terrified armies can barely lift a sword.
This is the universal law of mortal existence. Time devours strength. Every empire built on human power eventually crumbles because the warriors who built it grow old and die, and their replacements are never quite as strong.
Not so the One who spoke and brought the world into being. God declares through the prophet Malachi (3:6): "I am the Lord. I have not changed." There is no prime of life for God, because there is no decline. God at the moment of creation is the same God at the end of days. His power does not wax and wane with the centuries. He does not grow weary or slow. The warrior who split the Red Sea is exactly as powerful today as He was in the moment the waters parted — and will remain so forever. Time, which conquers every human champion, has no authority over the Creator of time itself.