Board index ‹ Specific Bible verses, texts, and passages ‹ Exodus

[Durian]

My first time to write here. This verse just keeps on bothering me when I read this tonight.

He jammed the wheels of their chariots so that they had difficulty driving. And the Egyptians said, “Let’s get away from the Israelites! The Lord is fighting for them against Egypt.”

My question is, how did the writer of Exodus know about this when surely none from the Egyptian side lived to tell the story of that they were experiencing nor discussing when they were that close to meeting the Israelites?

[jimwalton]

The Israelites had lived in Egypt a long time. They knew that the Egyptians, just like the Israelites, believed in the concept of the Divine Warrior—that their deity would fight for them. It was a common theology in the ancient Near East. So the writer is using, if I may put it this way, a little literary creativity to speculate (and probably accurately) what the Egyptians were thinking when their superior army and their chariots were being defeated by a slave army that wasn't even fighting. Since the Israelites were not mounting a military offensive against the Egyptians, and since the forces of nature (a common "weapon" of the gods) were against them, it's easily to surmise that this is exactly what the Egyptians are thinking.

[Durian]

I agree with this approach of using literary creativity. Thanks!