Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore.

In the children’s bible that the pediatrician kept in his waiting room when I was a kid (You know, the bible where Adam, Eve, Mary and Jesus are all Caucasian), I don’t remember seeing the bodies of the Egyptians dead on the shore in the story of the Red Sea Crossing. There were chariot wheels and helmets tumbling in the cascading water, but no bodies. Anyone who has seen the images of flooding in Libya has no trouble envisioning the power of water to erase lives and livelihoods on a massive scale, so it may be understandable that the editors would try to shield tender young sensibilities from the hard reality of such violent death. But children’s imaginations will do what they will do regardless. So for me, the Israelites on their miraculous dry-shod hike between the towering walls of water were definitely the good guys, but the mental image of dead Egyptians– and their dead horses–still haunted me. 

The storyteller of Exodus, unlike the publishers of that children’s Bible, didn’t spare us the details. In fact, we are meant not only to see the victory at the Red Sea, but we are also meant to ponder the cost. 

But we can’t ponder the end of the story without an understanding of its context. Hebrew Bible scholar Walter Brueggemann has recently written a pair of books that detail the pivotal moments of Exodus as the Israelites are Delivered out of Empire and Delivered into Covenant. In the first book, covering roughly the first half of Exodus, Brueggemann shows us a dramatic conflict, not just between Moses and Pharaoh, but more importantly, between the God of Liberation and the powers of exploitation and empire represented by Pharaoh specifically, and by Egypt as a whole. Moses, as God’s agent, leads the Israelites away from Egypt–where they were seen as nothing more than what Brueggemann calls “anonymous heavy lifters” slaving at brickmaking and feeding Pharaoh’s economic engine–leading them to a land of promise where they will become a covenanted community, a people called by their Liberator God to embody an alternative to exploitative empire. The people will see and know that it is God alone who accomplishes this act of liberation–God will see to it. 

The pivotal point in the encounter at the Red Sea actually takes place before today’s story. After Pharaoh sends the Israelites away, his heart is once again hardened, and he sends his army to bring his slaves back into captivity.

As Pharaoh drew near, the Israelites looked back, and there were the Egyptians advancing on them. In great fear the Israelites cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, bringing us out of Egypt? Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, ‘Let us alone so that we can serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”

The people immediately are overwhelmed with despair. Brueggemann writes, “…the strategy of empire is characteristically to intimidate with overpowering force. The Israelites respond to the threat of Pharaoh in great fear. Their fear causes them to regret that they had ever left Egypt, had ever followed Moses, had ever trusted the promises of YHWH.”

But God will have none of their despair. God says, through Moses:

“Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today, for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.”

Do not be afraid.  Stand firm. See and witness how God is in charge; Pharaoh is now irrelevant. God will deliver you and fight for you. God will do this, not Moses, and not you. Just be still, watch, and receive your deliverance.

The storyteller then describes the Lord fighting for the Israelites: God the warrior single-handedly obliterating the enemy, clogging their chariot wheels, throwing them into panic, and drowning every last one of them. 

The military imagery that is used in this passage is challenging for those who struggle with the concept of a warrior God. And no, it is not the case that there is a dichotomy between a liberating/avenging God in the Hebrew Bible versus a loving/reconciling God in the New Testament. Both personae exist in both testaments. But it is important to name the tension between acts of liberation, which necessarily involve conflict, and acts of reconciliation, which seek to resolve–but not necessarily avoid–conflict. We need to engage this tension by understanding what is being represented in this passage. This story may not be literal history, but it is politics, economics, and theology. It’s a battle between slavery and emancipation in all times and places, including our own.

Today we see on almost every continent how our war-torn and climate-change-ravaged world is on the move; modern day children of God fleeing the pharaohs of persecution, starvation and all kinds of violence in desperate hope of a new life in a promised land of safety and peace. The Pharaoh of today is enabled and supported by systems of economic and political inequality that marginalize the powerless and render them voiceless. And their emancipation must come at a cost to everyone–a strong counterforce to systemic cruelty and exploitation– in order to achieve the peace and well-being of those who are virtually invisible to the world of privilege. Because as long as even one of our fellow children of God is in bondage and hurting, all of us are in bondage and hurting. 

So, the point that Brueggemann is making isn’t just scriptural (with him, it almost never is), it is deeply theological and political. The principalities and powers of greed and exploitation ultimately will never have a chance against a Liberator God who is bound by love for his people to fight injustice forcefully and decisively.

Brueggemann doesn’t mince words: “It is…romantic and unreal to imagine reconciliation of master and slave. Before there can be reconciliation there must be emancipation, and that requires a strong counterforce. Or said another way, there must be justice…before there can be peace…”

His interpretation is compelling. And yet. Does it offer us adequate solace or reassurance as we gaze upon the Egyptians dead on the seashore? Because that’s where we began today. After all is said and done here, the question lingers; what is the full cost of emancipation? Brueggemann has made his argument, but he doesn’t address the horror of the aftermath, even as Miriam and the women get out their tambourines and begin to celebrate within plain view of the carnage:

Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.

Brueggemann doesn’t speak much to this specific tension. But others do. A friend of mine has told me that at Hebrew College they had a practice, during the reading of the Song of the Sea/Song of Miriam, of putting money in a charity box that represented their remorse at the death of the Egyptians. It isn’t a common Jewish practice–maybe just at that yeshiva–but it goes to show that this part of the story brings up mixed emotions in many people.

A 2014 article in The Jewish Reporter titled, “Why Did We Sing When the Egyptians Drowned?” describes the midrash, or faithful creative exploration, of the ethical quandary posed by this story. The midrash speculates that the angels, witnessing God’s victory, were on the verge of breaking into song, but YHWH said, “’The work of My hands, the Egyptians, are drowning at sea, and you wish to say songs?’ This indicates that God does not rejoice over the downfall of the wicked.” At the same time, the article says, the Israelites were allowed to sing because they needed to express their relief at their liberation.

The author continues: Maybe the dramatic image of the sea splitting is the actual metaphor for this dichotomy. The two shores of the sea represent the two sides of the story. And we must pass through the middle, preserving and valuing life, yet not drowning in war and hate. The middle path between justice and mercy is a difficult one to tread and at any moment we can be washed away.

What is the cost of emancipation? This is the question with which the Exodus storyteller invites and challenges us to wrestle. May God bless our wrestling and make it fruitful.