So your fathers cried out to the LORD, and He put darkness between you and the Egyptians, over whom He brought the sea and engulfed them. Your very eyes saw what I did to the Egyptians. Then you lived in the wilderness for a long time.
Parallel translations
- WEB When they cried out to Yahweh, he put darkness between you and the Egyptians, and brought the sea on them, and covered them; and your eyes saw what I did in Egypt. You lived in the wilderness many days.
- KJV And when they cried unto the LORD, he put darkness between you and the Egyptians, and brought the sea upon them, and covered them; and your eyes have seen what I have done in Egypt: and ye dwelt in the wilderness a long season.
- NKJV So they cried out to the Lord; and He put darkness between you and the Egyptians, brought the sea upon them, and covered them. And your eyes saw what I did in Egypt. Then you dwelt in the wilderness a long time.
- NASB But when they cried out to the Lord, He put darkness between you and the Egyptians, and brought the sea upon them and covered them; and your own eyes saw what I did in Egypt. And you lived in the wilderness for a long time.
- NLT When your ancestors cried out to the Lord, I put darkness between you and the Egyptians. I brought the sea crashing down on the Egyptians, drowning them. With your very own eyes you saw what I did. Then you lived in the wilderness for many years.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
When Israel cried out, God put darkness between them and the Egyptians, brought the sea over their pursuers, and Israel witnessed His deliverance before living many days in the wilderness. It matters because God answers the cry of His people and judges their enemies.
Overview
The verse compresses the climax of the exodus (Exodus 14:19-31): the protecting darkness, the sea covering the Egyptians, and the long wilderness sojourn. Israel's own eyes saw God's saving work, leaving them without excuse for unbelief. The deliverance through the waters became a lasting picture of salvation, later echoed in the New Testament's language of passing from death to life in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 13
- Deut 4:34Or has any god tried to take as his own a nation out of another nation—by trials, signs, wonders, and war, by a strong hand and an outstretched arm, and by great terrors—as the LORD your God did for you in Egypt, before your eyes?
- Exod 14:10As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up and saw the Egyptians marching after them, and they were terrified and cried out to the LORD.
- Exod 14:20so that it came between the camps of Egypt and Israel. The cloud was there in the darkness, but it lit up the night. So all night long neither camp went near the other.
- Neh 9:12–21You led them with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, to light for them the way in which they should travel.
- Ps 95:9–10where your fathers tested and tried Me, though they had seen My work.
- Exod 14:31When Israel saw the great power that the LORD had exercised over the Egyptians, the people feared the LORD and believed in Him and in His servant Moses.
- Exod 14:27–28So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea returned to its normal state. As the Egyptians were retreating, the LORD swept them into the sea.
- Deut 29:2Moses summoned all Israel and proclaimed to them, “You have seen with your own eyes everything the LORD did in Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his officials, and to all his land.
- Deut 1:46For this reason you stayed in Kadesh for a long time—a very long time.
- Num 14:33–34Your children will be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, and they will suffer for your unfaithfulness until the last of your bodies lies in the wilderness.
- Josh 5:6For the Israelites had wandered in the wilderness forty years, until all the nation’s men of war who had come out of Egypt had died, since they did not obey the LORD. So the LORD vowed never to let them see the land He had sworn to their fathers to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey.
- Heb 3:17And with whom was God angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?
- Acts 13:17–18The God of the people of Israel chose our fathers. He made them into a great people during their stay in Egypt, and with an uplifted arm He led them out of that land.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Joshua — the same name as Jesus, 'the LORD saves' — leads God's people into their inheritance, a shadow of the greater Joshua who brings us into the true rest and the promised land that remains.
How Joshua 24:7 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.