Keluaran 14:22

14:22 So the Israelites went through the middle of the sea on dry ground, the water forming a wall ¹  for them on their right and on their left.

Keluaran 14:29

14:29 But the Israelites walked on dry ground in the middle of the sea, the water forming a wall for them on their right and on their left.

Mazmur 66:6

66:6 He turned the sea into dry land; ² 

they passed through the river on foot. ³ 

Let us rejoice in him there! ⁴ 

Yesaya 25:8

25:8 he will swallow up death permanently. ⁵ 

The sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from every face,

and remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth.

Indeed, the Lord has announced it! ⁶ 

Ibrani 11:29

11:29 By faith they crossed the Red Sea as if on dry ground, but when the Egyptians tried it, they were swallowed up.

[14:22]  ¹ tn The clause literally reads, “and the waters [were] for them a wall.” The word order in Hebrew is disjunctive, with the vav (ו) on the noun introducing a circumstantial clause.

[14:22]  sn S. R. Driver (Exodus, 119), still trying to explain things with natural explanations, suggests that a northeast wind is to be thought of (an east wind would be directly in their face he says), such as a shallow ford might cooperate with an ebb tide in keeping a passage clear. He then quotes Dillmann about the “wall” of water: “A very summary poetical and hyperbolical (xv. 8) description of the occurrence, which at most can be pictured as the drying up of a shallow ford, on both sides of which the basin of the sea was much deeper, and remained filled with water.” There is no way to “water down” the text to fit natural explanations; the report clearly shows a miraculous work of God making a path through the sea – a path that had to be as wide as half a mile in order for the many people and their animals to cross between about 2:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. (W. C. Kaiser, Jr., “Exodus,” EBC 2:389). The text does not say that they actually only started across in the morning watch, however.

[66:6]  ² sn He turned the sea into dry land. The psalmist alludes to Israel’s crossing the Red Sea (Exod 14:21).

[66:6]  ³ tn Because of the reference to “the river,” some understand this as an allusion to Israel’s crossing the Jordan River. However, the Hebrew term נָהָר (nahad) does not always refer to a “river” in the technical sense; it can be used of sea currents (see Jonah 2:4). So this line may also refer to the Red Sea crossing (cf. NEB).

[66:6]  ⁴ tn The adverb שָׁם (sham, “there”) is used here, as often in poetic texts, to point “to a spot in which a scene is localized vividly in the imagination” (BDB 1027 s.v.).

[25:8]  ⁵ sn The image of the Lord “swallowing” death would be especially powerful, for death was viewed in Canaanite mythology and culture as a hungry enemy that swallows its victims. See the note at 5:14.

[25:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “has spoken” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).