Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church of Manhattan, KS, 22 Sep. 2019
Omitting greyed-out text should bring presentation time down around 45 minutes.
In the last sermon, we looked at how faith shaped Moses and his family and their destiny.
As we continue to meditate on Hebrews chapter 11, and see examples from men and women of old of how to “understand things hoped for” by faith and how to “make a case concerning matters which are not seen” using the faith God gives us (Hebrews 11:1-2, NAW), we come to the history of Israel’s dramatic escape from slavery in Egypt and entrance into the Promised Land of Canaan. It starts with the Passover Lamb:
This refers to the events of Ex. 12:12-14, where, God, after cursing the nation of Egypt with 9 plagues, threatens the coup de grâce to release the Israelites from slavery there: "...I will go throughout the land And the blood shall be for a sign to you on the houses in which ye are, and I will see the blood, and will protect you, and there shall not be on you the plague of destruc-tion1, when I smite in the land of Egypt in that night, and will smite every first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and on all the gods of Egypt will I execute vengeance: I am the Lord. And this day shall be to you a memorial, and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord through all your generations..." (Brenton)
John 6:4 defined the Passover as “the feast of the Jews”2 but the heart of the Passover festival was the sacrifice of a lamb,
which is why the phrase “kill the Passover” occurs almost half a dozen times in the Bible3.
It was that sacrificial lamb which was “prepared” and “eaten” for the Passover feast4.
Exodus 12:21-24 Moses called all the elders of the children of Israel, and said to them, "...take to yourselves a lamb according to your kindreds, and slay the passover. And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and having dipped it into some of the blood... ye shall touch the lintel, and shall put it upon both door-posts, even of the blood which is by the door; but ye shall not go out every one from the door of his house till the morning. And the Lord shall pass by to smite the Egyptians, and shall see the blood upon the lintel, and upon both the door-posts; and the Lord shall pass by the door, and shall not suffer the destroyer to enter into your houses to smite you. And keep ye this thing as an ordinance for thyself and for thy children for ever." (Brenton)
It wasn’t the meal which kept the Destroyer from “touching” the firstborns but rather the blood of the lamb – and the Christological fulfillment of that typological act.
The church father, Chrysostom, when he preached on this verse said, “The angel feared the blood; for he knew of what it was a Type; he shuddered, thinking on the Lord’s death; therefore he did not touch the door-posts.”
In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul defines the Passover as “Christ” (1 Cor. 5:7 “Christ our Passover has been sacrificed” “...τὸ πάσχα ἡμῶν ἐτύθη Χριστός”).
This symbol of Christ’s death on the cross – lamb’s blood splattered onto vertical and horizontal wooden beams – was, by faith, institutionalized by Moses among the Jewish people.
Moses accepted the symbol which God invented to picture the death of a substitute to save the life of a human from experiencing the wrath of God. He observed the ritual himself and he taught everyone in his nation to do the same.
The Greek verb πεποίηκε – which most English versions translate “kept” is in the Perfect tense, indicating an action in the past which has continuing results – in other words, the Passover sacrifice wasn’t a one-time act, but the initiation of an annual tradition.
But the passover is not what I would have expected to symbolize escape from oppressive slavemasters. A ritual where
sin against God is symbolically repented-of by throwing all the leavening agents out of your house,
where everyone is reminded that God would have killed persons in every household – including Jewish households, such that they have to cower indoors all night, afraid of their own God killing them,
a bloody death-ritual where the victim is eaten whole -
this is not what you’d expect of preparations to escape from a totalitarian government.
All these rituals point to a much bigger spiritual drama, far greater than a mere political emigration.
By faith, Moses instituted a tradition which taught that all mankind has sinned against God and deserves to be killed.
It taught that God will hold everyone accountable for their sin; no one has natural immunity from God’s coming judgment.
It taught that sin against God was Israel’s primary problem; the problem of them being slaves was merely a secondary issue. They had to deal with the main problem of having offended God before dealing with the subsidiary problem of escaping from political oppression in Egypt.
It taught that the way to appease God’s wrath was only through the death of a substitute – a perfect lamb, which was revealed in time to represent Jesus, Who came from God, lived as a man without sin, and then offered His life to God as a sacrifice, to die instead of us and to save us from perishing in our sins under God’s coming wrath.
“By faith, Moses kept the Passover,” believing in these unseen things:
that every household had offended God by failing to live according to God’s ways,
believing that God’s invisible agent of destruction would come that night and kill some in every home,
believing that this grisly spectre whose mission it was to kill firstborns5, would actually pass over the houses of all who had splattered lamb’s-blood on their doorframes,
and believing that, even though Pharaoh had refused to allow an exit visa to the Hebrews the last nine times had Moses demanded it, this would somehow change Pharaoh’s mind.
No one ever would have expected any of these things. No one could have known any of that without God revealing it. And when God revealed it to Moses, Moses accepted it in faith and acted accordingly.
In this, Moses provides for us an example of faith:
Without the Bible, would any of us have guessed that we were all under the wrath of God? No, it’s natural to think that we’re good and that the problem is outside of us.
Without the Holy Spirit, would we ever have figured out that all the bad things in this world are not our main problem; rather our main problem is that we have sinned against God and need to repent?
Without the preaching of the Gospel, would we ever have understood that we could be made right with God through the application of the blood of Jesus Christ on the cross?
We believe all these things by faith, and, now, in the New Testament, instead of the Jewish Passover, we remember Jesus in His death through “doing6” the Lord’s Supper – holy communion.
"If then the blood of a lamb preserved the Jews unhurt in the midst of the Egyptians, and under so great a destruction, much more will the blood of Christ save us, who have been anointed, not on the door-posts, but in our souls. For even now also the Destroyer is going about in this depth of night: but let us be armed with that Sacrifice. For God has brought us out from Egypt, [that is] ... from idolatry. Moses said, ‘Sprinkle,’ and they sprinkled, and were confident. And you, having the Blood of the Lamb Himself, are you not confident?" ~J. Chrysostom, AD 400
This is the beginning point of faith: trusting God’s atoning sacrifice to save us from God’s wrath against our sin. “There is no other refuge from the Destroyer’s face.7” Faith in Jesus has to be where we begin to get right with God. But that faith doesn’t stop there...
This refers to the events in Exodus 14:8-31 “And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and of his servants, and he pursued after the children of Israel; and the children of Israel went forth with a high hand. And the Egyptians pursued after them, and found them encamped by the sea; and all the cavalry and the chariots of Pharaoh, and the horsemen, and his host were before the village, over against Beel-sepphon. And Pharaoh approached, and the children of Israel having looked up, beheld, and the Egyptians encamped behind them: and they were very greatly terrified, and the children of Israel cried to the Lord… And Moses said to the people, ‘Be of good courage: stand and see the salvation which is from the Lord, which He will work for us this day; for as ye have seen the Egyptians to-day, ye shall see them again no more for ever. The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.’ ... And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the Lord carried back the sea with a strong south wind all the night, and made the sea dry, and the water was divided. And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea on the dry land, and the water of it was a wall on the right hand and a wall on the left. And the Egyptians pursued them and went in after them, and every horse of Pharaoh, and his chariots, and his horsemen, into the midst of the sea…. And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Stretch forth thine hand over the sea, and let the water be turned back to its place, and let it cover the Egyptians coming both upon the chariots and the riders.’ And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea… and the water returned and covered the chariots and the riders, and all the forces of Pharaoh, who entered after them into the sea: and there was not left of them even one. But the children of Israel went along dry land in the midst of the sea... and the people feared the Lord, and they believed God and Moses his servant.” (Brenton)
Numerous suggestions have been made by secular scholars to explain away the miracle, such as that the crossing was at a very shallow marsh high up in the fingers north of the Red Sea.
Many Bible maps show Mt. Sinai in the triangle between the fingers North of the Red Sea, but it is my opinion that they crossed an approximately 10-mile wide stretch of the Gulf of Aqaba and that Mt. Sinai was on the other side of the sea in Midian, which is now Saudi Arabia. That’s controversial enough that I won’t make a big deal of it.
Eighteenth Century commentator John Gill explained that, “This sea is called the Red sea [᾿Ερυθρὰν Θάλασσαν], not from the... colour of the water, which is the same [as] that of other seas... but from Erythrus, to whom it formerly belonged, and whose name signifies ‘red;’ and is no other than Esau... [as] it lay near his country [Midian and Edom]: [but] it is called in the Hebrew tongue the Sea of Suph, from the [Suph] weeds that grew in it.”
At any rate, the Bible says that the Israelites
crossed “into the middle of” [בתוך/εἰς μέσον] the Red Sea
and saw “walls” of congealed water on either side of them (Ex. 14:22),
and the Greek translation of Exodus made in the 2nd century Before Christ uses the same name that is still used today designating the Red Sea, not some other minor body of water.
According to The New Unger’s Bible Dictionary, the Red Sea is 100 miles wide and 7,200 feet deep.
That would be deep enough to drown all the locusts that covered the entire surface area of Egypt after the earlier plague (Ex. 10:15-19),
and that would also be deep enough to drown the Egyptian army. Exodus 14 records that Pharoah’s personal bodyguard alone comprised 600 chariots, and, in addition to that, were all the other chariot forces from all the rest of Egypt, plus all the mounted horsemen, plus all the footsoldiers. This was a huge fighting force of legions of soldiers swallowed up in the depths of this sea.
Critics of the Bible say this was some sort of wading through a marsh coordinated by a clever trail guide, but the Bible portrays8 the crossing of the Red Sea as a supernatural miracle.
It was not by cleverness but rather “by faith” that Moses and the children of Israel crossed over. In what ways did they exercise “faith”?
God had specifically led the escaping nation of Israel to this spot so that there were perhaps two million ex-slaves, trembling with fear on the edge of a sea they could not swim across, hemmed in from behind by a great army in battle array. There was no way out. They were doomed.
Would you have had the faith in those circumstances to yell out to everybody, "Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which He will accomplish for you today..." (Exodus 14:13, NKJV)? It took some faith for Moses to proclaim that before God told him what would happen next!
Moses is an example for you to exercise the same kind of faith: When you’re in a fix – whether you overslept your alarm, or burned your food, or got in a wreck, or made a dumb decision that is going to bring all kind of bad consequences on you, can you pull your thoughts out of your earthly circumstances and consider the big picture of what God is doing, and tell yourself, “Don’t be afraid. Keep your peace and see the salvation of the Lord Jesus which He will accomplish for you today!”?
In the midst of these terrifying circumstances, God spoke to Moses, “...Tell the children of Israel to go forward. But lift up your rod, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it. And the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea. And I indeed will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, and they shall follow them. So I will gain honor over Pharaoh and over all his army, his chariots, and his horsemen. Then the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I have gained honor for Myself over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen." (Exodus 14:15-18, NKJV)
It appears that God told Israel to start walking into the sea before the waters parted! God for sure told Moses to stretch out his hand over the sea before it divided.
How would you have done that? “What if I’m making all this up in my head? What if I raise my rod and stretch my hand out and nothing happens? Maybe I’ll just make it look like I’m stretching so that if nothing happens I won’t look ridiculous…”
With faith in God, Moses did what God told him to do; he stretched out his hand, he commanded the people to start walking, the waters parted, and they found they were walking on dry land. They kept walking all night until they were all safely on the other side of that body of water, perhaps 10 miles across at that point.
That walk itself must have taken faith, too.
If I were there, I’d probably be worried about the stability of those walls of water. What if you walked a few miles in and then they collapsed? Water doesn’t stand up on its own like this. There’d be no way out.
Be honest, now, how many moms would say, “Oh, that looks like a perfectly safe place to send my children!” No way! Scared as they were of the Egyptian army behind them, I have no doubt that the Israelite moms were saying, “Children, get away from that water before you drown!”
Just as it took faith to sacrifice the lamb to protect them from God’s wrath against the firstborn, it also took faith to take the way of salvation which God opened up for them through the sea!
And we need to exercise that same kind of faith.
Jesus not only is the Paschal Lamb, He is also “the way”! A life of trusting Him to make you right with God is the path to heaven. Unless you walk with Him by faith on His narrow way, you will perish with the rest of the unbelieving world.9
Furthermore, when God leads you, it is not a “cakewalk.” It usually leads into scary situations that make you have to depend on God to keep you from ruin. It often means leaving familiar things behind that make you feel secure and stepping into new, unknown circumstances that make you have to trust God more. Stress is actually God’s tool to mature our relationship with Him and bring us closer to Him.
Step out in faith using the little bit of direction He’s already given you, and you’ll see the waters part!
The Egyptians, on the other hand, were not motivated by faith in God.
They were not expecting God to deliver a promised land to them; they were just trying to oppress their minions.
So it was not with faith that the Egyptians “tried to take advantage of” the “dry” bed behind the Israelites, and, Romans 14:23 tells us “whatsoever is not of faith is sin” (KJV).
In fact, it must have taken quite a hardened heart for Pharaoh and his army to watch a gigantic pillar of fire come around the Israelites the previous evening and blaze between them and the Israelites all night, blocking them from being able to get any of the Israelites, and then to see the pillar advance into the Red Sea, leaving high walls of water on both sides and a dry path between, and then to think it was a good idea to chase the Israelites down that path into the sea bed.
It took some real spiritual blindness not to see that some kind of God Who obviously had-it-out for the Egyptians – and Who was more powerful than all the gods of Egypt – was protecting the Israelites. It was insane for the Egyptians to continue defying Yahweh and to imagine that they were going to gallop through the Red Sea and end up victorious.
The soldiers who consequently drowned were not helpless victims of circumstance, they were reaping the consequences of not believing and obeying what they knew of the true God.
Phillip Hughes in his 1977 commentary on Hebrews noted: “The fact that ‘the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned’ illustrates the truth that, what is, for the believer, the way of life is, for the unbeliever, the way of death… Thus the gospel is to one ‘a fragrance from death to death,’ but to another ‘a fragrance from life to life’ (2 Cor. 2:16); Christ is set for the ‘fall’ as well as for ‘the rising of many’ (Lk. 2:34); [H]e is the chosen cornerstone, so that ‘he who believes in [H]im will not be put to shame,’ whereas, to the unbeliever [H]e becomes ‘a rock of stumbling’ (1 Pet. 2:6-8; Isa. 28:16; 8:14f.)...”
Why did the writer of Hebrews bring up this story? Like the Hebrews escaping from Egypt, the first Century Jews to whom he was writing were in a tough spot, persecuted by their own neighbors and kinsmen. They needed to be reminded that God will not leave His people to be destroyed; He will preserve them, but they will have to trust Him through the process, both to be their Paschal Lamb who makes them right with God and also to be their Way that brings them securely to the fulfillment of God’s promises.
But they would still face hardship and opposition along the way, so thirdly, we are reminded...
The conquest of Fort Jericho represents the children of Israel coming into possession of the land God had promised to their forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It was the first city which the Hebrews encountered upon crossing over the Jordan River into Canaan, so it was the first Canaanite city to be conquered, but God called upon His people to exercise faith in Him in a special way for the power to conquer the fortress.
There was a thick wall of mud and stone built all around Jericho, so that, once the residents shut the gate, there was no way to get into the city,
and if you sent soldiers anywhere near the wall of the city to attack it, the soldiers inside Jericho could shoot arrows (2 Sa. 11:24) or throw stones or pour boiling water down on the attackers and kill anyone who threatened their city.
The only ways to conquer cities like that were either to spend months surrounding the wall in a seige, keeping any food from entering the city until the people inside starved to death, or to spend years building seige ramps to get into the city (2 Sa. 20:15). But God had a better idea.
Joshua 6:1-5 "And the LORD said to Joshua: "See! I have given Jericho into your hand, its king, and the mighty men of valor. You shall march around the city, all you men of war; you shall go all around the city once. This you shall do six days. And seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark. But the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. It shall come to pass, when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, that all the people shall shout with a great shout; then the wall of the city will fall down flat. And the people shall go up every man straight before him." (NKJV)
So Joshua led the Hebrews in doing just as the Lord instructed, and, wonder of wonders, the walls indeed fell down flat on the seventh day so they could easily occupy the city.
No seige, no earthworks, no dynamite, no battering rams, no casualties, just the pure power of God, and BOOM, the walls were down!
Make no doubt, that was a miracle. I like how old Chrysostom put it, "The soundings of trumpets, though one were to sound for ten thousand years, cannot throw down walls, but faith can do all things." ~J. Chrysostom, AD 400
Winning this battle took doing it God’s way, and God’s way was to keep your mouth shut if you weren’t blowing a horn and just walk around the fort every day for a week. It must have looked ridiculous, but who cares what it looks like after it releases that kind of power!
"We may also apply this event to our benefit and instruction: for it is not otherwise than by faith, that we can be freed from the tyranny of the Devil, and be brought to liberty... and that all the strongholds of hell can be demolished." ~J. Calvin, AD 1551
Go to all the help groups you want for human aid,
Download all the “apps” that technology can invent for your smart phone,
Throw all the money and power you’ve got at your problems,
but you’re never going to beat the world, the flesh, and the devil unless you fight God’s way with God’s power – walking in the Spirit, as we heard from Beni in last week’s sermon.
The same was true of the first-Century Christians to whom this epistle was originally written: "The Hebrew Christians were engaged in a cause, the success of which, in the estimation of human reason, was even more hopeless than the capture of Jericho by the Israelites. The final triumph of the religion of Jesus over Judaism and paganism, false philosophy and worldly power, which had been distinctly predicted, seemed very unlikely. The means — the only means they were warranted to employ, appeared very ill fitted to gain their object. The preaching of the Gospel, the prayers of the Church, the holy conversation10 of believers, and their patience under manifold and severe afflictions.... 'The Captain of the Lord’s host' had uttered the following oracle, 'All power in heaven and earth is given unto Me. Go ye there-fore, and teach all nations: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.' This believed, was quite enough to induce them to commence and continue, amid all discouragements, the use of the appointed means, ‘till the promised end was gained. Nothing else could have induced them to do so. And it is equally true still, that faith — that nothing else but faith — can carry forward the Christian Church in its predicted triumph over the world and hell. What is the reason that there has been so little missionary effort in the Christian Church, in comparison of what there ought to have been? and why has that little effort been so languid, interrupted, and ineffectual? What but the want of a sufficiently implicit persevering faith in the promises, leading to a correspondingly implicit and persevering obedience to the commandments, of the great 'Captain of our salvation'?" ~John Brown of Edinborough, AD 1862
The Passover story teaches us to trust Jesus as the lamb of God - as God’s atoning sacrifice to save from sin’s punishment,
The crossing of the Red sea teaches to trust Jesus as “the Way” out of bondage to sin toward the fulfillment of God’s promises,
And the Battle of Jericho teaches us to trust Jesus to be our power to fight opposition and come out victorious!
Romans 8:34-37 "...It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ... Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us...." (NKJV)
Greek NT |
NAW |
KJV |
28 Πίστει πεποίηκεB τὸ πάσχα καὶ τὴν πρόσχυσινC τοῦ αἵματος, ἵνα μὴ ὁ ὀλοθρεύωνD τὰ πρωτότοκα θίγῃE αὐτῶν. |
28 With faith, he has instituted the Passover and the application of the blood in order that the Destroy-er of the firstborns might not touch them. |
28 Through faith he kept the pass-over, and the sprink-ling of X blood, lest he that destroyed the firs-tbornX should touch them. |
29 Πίστει διέβησανF τὴν ᾿ΕρυθρὰνG Θάλασσαν ὡς διὰ ξηρᾶς [γηςH], ἧςI πεῖρανJ λαβόντες οἱ Αἰγύπτιοι, κατεπόθησανK. |
29 With faith they traversed the Red Sea as across dry {land}. When the Egyptians, tried to take advantage of it they were drowned. |
29 By faith they passed through the Red sea as by dry land: which the Egyptians assaying to do were drowned. |
30 Πίστει τὰ τείχη ᾿Ιεριχὼ ἔπεσενL κυκλωθένταM ἐπὶ ἑπτὰ ἡμέρας. |
30 With faith, the walls of Jericho fell, after having been walked around over the space of seven days. |
30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about X seven days. |
1ἐκτριβῆναι - compare with Heb. 11:28 ὀλοθρεύων "destroyer" and Ex. 12:23 τὸν ὀλεθρεύοντα
2“τὸ πάσχα, ἡ ἑορτὴ τῶν Ἰουδαίων.”
3Luke 22:7, Mk 14:12, Exod. 12:21; Deut. 16:2-6
4“prepare[d] the Passover” (Luke 22:8&13, Matt. 26:19; Mk. 14:16) | “eat/ate the Passover” (Luke 22:11&15, Exod. 12:11, Matt. 26:17; Mk. 14:12, 14; Jn. 18:28)
5ὁ ὀλοθρεύων τὰ πρωτότοκα - lit. “the one who destroys the firstborns”
6Jesus & the apostles used the same verb (poiew) of the Lord’s Supper as was used of the Passover (Mt. 26:18, Lk. 22:19, 1 Cor. 11:24-25).
7from “Beneath The Blood-stained Lintel” by Henry Ironside
8e.g. in Ex. 15:22, Deut. 11:4, Josh. 2:10, 4:23, 24:6, Neh. 9:9, Psalm 106:9&22, 136:13-15, and Acts 7:36
9John 14:6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." NKJV (cf. Acts 16:17; 18:25-26; 24:14, Matt. 7:13-14)
10i.e. lifestyle
AThe
Greek is the Majority text, edited by myself to follow the majority
of the earliest-known manuscripts only when the early manuscript
evidence is practically unanimous. My original document includes
notes on the NKJV, NASB, NIV, & ESV English translations, but
since they are all copyrighted, I cannot include them in my online
document. Underlined words in English versions indicate a
standalone difference from all other English translations of a
certain word. Strikeout usually indicates that the
English translation is, in my opinion, too far outside the range of
meaning of the original Greek word. The addition of an X indicates a
Greek word left untranslated – or a plural Greek word
translated as an English singular. [Brackets] indicate words added
in English not in the Greek. Key words are colored consistently
across the chart to show correlations.
Bcf. Matthew 26:18 “ποιῶ τὸ πάσχα” ("Do" the "pascha" is also in the LXX: Exod. 12:48; Num. 9:2-14; Deut. 16:1; Jos. 5:10; 2 Ki. 23:21; 1 Es. 1:6; Ezr. 6:19) John 6:4 defines the passover as “the feast of the Jews” - “τὸ πάσχα, ἡ ἑορτὴ τῶν Ἰουδαίων.” But later, Paul defines the passover as “Christ” (1 Cor. 5:7 “...τὸ πάσχα ἡμῶν ἐτύθη Χριστός”), and Jesus used the same verb “do” in relation to observing holy communion. Other verbs associated with this same object (pascha) are “kill” (Luke 22:7, Mk 14:12, Exod. 12:21; Deut. 16:2-6), “prepare” (Luke 22:8&13, Matt. 26:19; Mk. 14:16), and “eat” (Luke 22:11&15, Exod. 12:11, Matt. 26:17; Mk. 14:12, 14; Jn. 18:28). AGNT= instituted (which would be L&N#13.9), but the AGNT tagging selected L&N#90.45 “do, to perform, to practice, to make.” It wasn’t the meal which kept the destroyer from touching the child but the sacrifice of the lamb and the Christological fulfillment of that typological act. Vncent, A.T. Robertson and Blas & DeBrunner noted that the perfect tense refers to starting an institution (the passover) that would continue on.
CHapex
legomena. cf. Exodus 12:7 καὶ
λήμψονται ἀπὸ
τοῦ αἵματος
καὶ θήσουσιν(from
tithemi)/וְנָֽתְנ֛וּ
... 22 καθίξετε (from
kata+tithemi?)/וְהִגַּעְתֶּ֤ם
(from
ng’ - cause to
strike – perhaps this is the basis for the translation
“sprinkling”?) ATR
said it should be translated “pouring out,” Vincent
“affusion.”
Dcf. Ex. 12:13 πληγὴ τοῦ ἐκτριβῆναι “plague of destruction” See also 1 Cor. 10:10 ἀπώλοντο ὑπὸ τοῦ ὀλοθρευτοῦ "destroyed by the Destroyer," also the ολεθρος that will come upon those who reject God’s wisdom in Prov. 1:26-27.
EOnly here and Col. 2:21 “do not taste, do not touch, do not HANDLE); and Heb. 12:20 (Quoting Exod. 19:12 about not touching the holy mountain).
FThis verb appears in the recounting of the Israelites camps in the LXX of Numbers 33:8 “...καὶ διέβησαν μέσον τῆς θαλάσσης εἰς τὴν ἔρημον...” “and they crossed through the middle of the sea into the desert.” It is used almost exclusively in the Bible of crossing bodies of water, whether supernaturally on foot or naturally by boat.
GThis is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word סוּף, which Holliday’s lexicon defines as: “reed (Ex. 23:5 Is. 19:6), water-plants Jon. 2:6.” But in Greek, eruthran means “red,” and of the 27 times in the Greek Bible this word occurs, it always refers to the Red Sea (except for the one instance in Isaiah 63:2). In Deut. 1:1, it occurs without the word "Sea." The sea wasn't red in color; it was just a name for a particular body of water. Other definite bodies of water, such as the Jordan and Euphrates rivers receive their own separate entries as proper nouns, but the Red Sea isn't even listed in L&N's index. Acts 7:36 is the only other passage in the N.T. which mentions the Red Sea. Marvin Vincent noted: “By the Greeks the name was at first applied to the whole ocean from the coast of Ethiopia to the island of Taprobana or Ceylon. Afterward, when they learned of the existence of an Indian Ocean, they applied the name merely to the sea below Arabia, and to the Arabian and Persian gulfs.”
HAll 5 oldest-known Greek manuscripts include the word “land,” thus it is in modern critical editions of the Greek New Testament, but it is not in the majority of Greek manuscripts or in the Greek Orthodox or Textus Receptus editions of the Greek New Testament. The oldest-known manuscript which does not contain this noun dates to the 9th century. Its presence or non-presence does not change the meaning, as the term “dry” by itself can also mean “dry land.”
IThis relative (properly translated “which” by the KJV, fairly translated “it” by the NASB, and erroneously translated “so” by the NKJV & ESV and “the same” by the ESV”) is genitive and feminine, referring to “dry land.” The Egyptian army literally was “taking a stab” at traversing the “dry land” behind the Israelites, but they lived to regret it.
JOnly here and v.36 and in the LXX of Deut. 28:56 & 33:8.
KNot used in the history account in Ex. 14, but used in the song about it in Ex. 15:12.
LFour of the six Greek manuscripts from the first millennium (as well as half a dozen second-millennium manuscripts) spell this verb in the plural (επεσαν), so this was adopted by contemporary critical texts (and the 1904 Greek Patriarchal edition). The singular form which I preserved is in the vast majority of Greek manuscripts, including the oldest-known one (The Chester-Beatty Papyrus, dated around the year 200AD). The singular form of this verb is what the modern Greek Orthodox version as well as the renaissance-era Textus Receptus went with. There is a curious exception in Greek grammar which does not require the number of the subject and verb to match when the subject is neuter. The word for “walls” is neuter and plural, so, according to the rules of Greek grammar, its verb could be spelled singular or plural without making any difference in meaning. I can imagine, however, that it bugged enough editors that they changed the original singular spelling to a plural spelling to match the subject more obviously.
Mcf. Joshua 6:7 κυκλῶσαι τὴν πόλιν