Between the DeMille and the Deep Red Sea
Parashat B’shalach, Exodus 13:17–17:16
Chaim Dauermann, Simchat Yisrael, West Haven, CT
When I first came to faith in Messiah, I was disheartened by what I saw in others. Namely, it was nominally religious folks who did not “uphold their end of the bargain,” as I saw it. This disturbed me. It did not shake my faith, but I found myself dismayed. I was filled with godly fervor, and wanted to see the same reflected in the world around me. The idea that someone could glimpse the truth and power of God in any measure and not respond with appropriate zeal made me despondent, and I feared for the world. Although I do not feel nearly the same angst now, the dynamic I observed then isn’t any less present. What calmed me was understanding two key realities: First, that God’s power is not subject to our belief. He can accomplish his goals with any number of people at his side, or even none at all. Second, that the righteous are almost exactly like everyone else, except for one key difference. And this difference is what defines us. In the Bible, it is what separates the heroes from ordinary men and women.
Speaking of heroes—let’s talk about Moses.
Moses is famous. Even people who don’t quite know what Moses did, know his name. I remember a conversation I had with a friend of mine when I was a teenager. He was raised in an atheist home, having no religious education whatsoever. One day, I casually mentioned Moses in the course of making a point. “Moses!” my friend exclaimed. “I know who that is! That’s the guy with the big boat, right?” But most everyone else knows the story of the Exodus—it has transcended its biblical roots and populated the realm of popular myth, inspiring blockbuster films, such as Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 epic The Ten Commandments, or the (absolutely delightful) animated film The Prince of Egypt.
In light of such Hollywood sources, one would be easily forgiven for conceiving of the historical Moses as a handsome super-man. Whether played by Charlton Heston, Ben Kingsley, or Christian Bale, the Moses of the popular imagining is a man wielding great power—calling up plagues upon the Egyptians, parting the Red Sea with little more than a wave of his hand, and liberating an entire nation from the bondage of slavery.
But that’s not the real Moses. The real Moses was a shy octogenarian with a stammer. When God called to him from a burning bush, the real Moses had been hiding from Egypt for forty years, herding sheep. The real Moses was so unsure of himself, initially, that God called upon his brother, Aaron, to be his mouthpiece and speak for him. The real Moses was absolutely riddled with doubt.
In this week’s parasha, B’shalach, Moses has somewhat improved in confidence. With God’s instructions, Aaron’s help, and the mighty power of ten plagues, the Hebrews have successfully been liberated and are on their way out of Egypt, with Moses at their head. But what Moses may now possess in confidence, the children of Israel lack. They have doubts.
They said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.” (Exod 14:11–12 ESV)
What a moment this must have been! After everything Moses had done, and after everything the children of Israel had seen, still they were unconvinced. It’s nothing that Moses had not heard before. He seemed to understand his people’s doubtful nature, for when God recruited him, Moses was not only casting doubt on his own abilities when he said, “But look, they will not believe me or listen to my voice. They will say, ‘Adonai has not appeared to you’” (Exod 4:1 TLV). God later calls the Hebrews am k'she oref —a stiff-necked, or obstinate people (Exod 32:9). They not only doubted Moses’s judgment in this moment—in declaring that they would “die in the wilderness,” they doubted God’s ability to deliver them.
That they would continue to rebel and doubt was not lost on God. He did not choose them, however, for their obedience, but for his own purposes (Deut 9:6). He knew everything they would do from that point forward—a future full of disobedience and idolatry—and saved them anyway. And in that moment beside the Red Sea, he did not need their belief in order to accomplish their deliverance.
In chapter 10 of his letter to the Romans, Rav Sha’ul draws an interesting parallel as he wrestles with the mystery of Israel’s disobedience. Citing Moses’s words to an obstinate Israel, Sha’ul begins:
But I ask, did Israel not understand? First Moses says,
“I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation;
with a foolish nation I will make you angry.”
Then Isaiah is so bold as to say,
“I have been found by those who did not seek me;
I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.”
But of Israel he says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.” (Rom 10:19–21 ESV)
Here, Sha’ul is exploring, not Israel’s stubbornness in the wilderness, as they were led by the prophet Moses, but rather their failure to heed the words of another prophet Moses foretold—Yeshua (Deut 18:15–19).
Israel’s disobedience was not recent or novel, a point that Sha’ul drives home in the next chapter of his letter, making reference to yet another time in Israel’s history:
Or do you not know what the Scripture says about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? “Adonai, they have killed your prophets, they have destroyed your altars; I alone am left, and they are seeking my life.” But what is the divine response to him? “I have kept for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” (Rom 11:2b–4 TLV).
And so, we see in this that God does not require everyone to be behind him in order to accomplish his purposes. Sometimes it takes just seven thousand righteous men out of an entire nation. Other times, it might take only one. Let us return to Parashat B’shalach as an example. The Israelites have fled the Egyptians, and now have their backs against the Red Sea. They have despaired. They have given themselves up as dead. But Moses—awkward, reticent Moses—replies, “Don’t be afraid! Stand still, and see the salvation of Adonai, which He will perform for you today” (Exod 14:13a TLV).
Then, in faith, he steps out toward the sea, and he stretches out his hand . . .
Moses believed God. And that made all the difference.