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.
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.
- BSB 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.
- 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.
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 God tried to go and take a nation for himself from among another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that Yahweh your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?
- Exod 14:10When Pharaoh came near, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them; and they were very afraid. The children of Israel cried out to Yahweh.
- Exod 14:20It came between the camp of Egypt and the camp of Israel; and there was the cloud and the darkness, yet gave it light by night: and one didn’t come near the other all night.
- Neh 9:12–21Moreover, in a pillar of cloud you led them by day; and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light in the way in which they should go.
- Ps 95:9–10when your fathers tempted me, tested me, and saw my work.
- Exod 14:31Israel saw the great work which Yahweh did to the Egyptians, and the people feared Yahweh; and they believed in Yahweh, and in his servant Moses.
- Exod 14:27–28Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its strength when the morning appeared; and the Egyptians fled against it. Yahweh overthrew the Egyptians in the middle of the sea.
- Deut 29:2Moses called to all Israel, and said to them: Your eyes have seen all that Yahweh did in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land;
- Deut 1:46So you stayed in Kadesh many days, according to the days that you remained.
- Num 14:33–34Your children shall be wanderers in the wilderness forty years, and shall bear your prostitution, until your dead bodies are consumed in the wilderness.
- Josh 5:6For the children of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, until all the nation, even the men of war who came out of Egypt, were consumed, because they didn’t listen to Yahweh’s voice. Yahweh swore to them that he wouldn’t let them see the land which Yahweh swore to their fathers that he would give us, a land flowing with milk and honey.
- Heb 3:17With whom was he displeased forty years? Wasn’t it with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?
- Acts 13:17–18The God of this people chose our fathers, and exalted the people when they stayed as aliens in the land of Egypt, and with an uplifted arm, he led them out of it.
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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
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