Keluaran 14:21-22

14:21 Moses stretched out his hand toward the sea, and the Lord drove the sea apart ¹  by a strong east wind all that night, and he made the sea into dry land, and the water was divided. 14:22 So the Israelites went through the middle of the sea on dry ground, the water forming a wall ²  for them on their right and on their left.

Yosua 24:11

24:11 You crossed the Jordan and came to Jericho. ³  The leaders ⁴  of Jericho, as well as the Amorites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hittites, Girgashites, Hivites, and Jebusites, fought with you, but I handed them over to you.

Yosua 24:2

24:2 Joshua told all the people, “Here is what the Lord God of Israel says: ‘In the distant past your ancestors ⁵  lived beyond the Euphrates River, ⁶  including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor. They worshiped ⁷  other gods,

1 Raja-raja 2:8

2:8 “Note well, you still have to contend with Shimei son of Gera, the Benjaminite from Bahurim, ⁸  who tried to call down upon me a horrible judgment when I went to Mahanaim. ⁹  He came down and met me at the Jordan, and I solemnly promised ¹⁰  him by the Lord, ‘I will not strike you down ¹¹  with the sword.’

Mazmur 74:15

74:15 You broke open the spring and the stream; ¹² 

you dried up perpetually flowing rivers. ¹³ 

[14:21]  ¹ tn Or “drove the sea back” (NIV, NCV, NRSV, TEV). The verb is simply the Hiphil of הָלַךְ (halakh, “to walk, go”). The context requires that it be interpreted along the lines of “go back, go apart.”

[14:22]  ² 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.

[24:11]  ³ map For location see Map5 B2; Map6 E1; Map7 E1; Map8 E3; Map10 A2; Map11 A1.

[24:11]  ⁴ tn Or perhaps, “citizens.”

[24:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “your fathers.”

[24:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “the river,” referring to the Euphrates. This has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[24:2]  ⁷ tn Or “served.”

[2:8]  ⁸ tn Heb “Look, with you is Shimei….”

[2:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “and he cursed me with a horrible curse on the day I went to Mahanaim.”

[2:8]  ¹⁰ tn Or “swore an oath to.”

[2:8]  ¹¹ tn Heb “kill you.”

[74:15]  ¹² sn You broke open the spring and the stream. Perhaps this alludes to the way in which God provided water for the Israelites as they traveled in the wilderness following the exodus (see Ps 78:15-16, 20; 105:41).

[74:15]  ¹³ sn Perpetually flowing rivers are rivers that contain water year round, unlike the seasonal streams that flow only during the rainy season. Perhaps the psalmist here alludes to the drying up of the Jordan River when the Israelites entered the land of Canaan under Joshua (see Josh 3-4).