Crossing the Sea and Crises in the Wilderness
PARASHAT B’SHALACH (“when [Pharaoh] let [the people] go”) recounts the crossing of the sea, the culmination of the story of the Israelite sojourn in Egypt. From the beginning of the book of Exodus, the goal of leaving Egypt is part of the narrative thread describing the oppressive measures that Pharaoh uses to keep the Israelites in Egypt. That goal is finally realized once the Israelites traverse the Sea of Reeds. This climactic event is related in two versions: a prose account in 14:1–31, followed by a poetic account (called in rabbinic literature Shirat HaYam, “Song at the Sea”) in 15:1–22. The latter is more of a celebratory or victory hymn than a record of the Exodus event. Without the prose version, the sequence and details of the crossing would be unclear. However, without the poetic one—which may be a female composition—the soaring emotion of escape and the realization of God’s role in deliverance would be lost.
Fleeing from Egypt does not end the Israelites’ woes. They are far from the Promised Land, and they must cross the uninviting Sinai Peninsula. The crises they face in the wilderness—military threats and shortages of food and water—are the focus of 15:22–17:16. These predicaments foreshadow the challenges they must deal with as an agrarian people living in the highlands of the land of Israel.
Just as women and water began the story of the liberation from Egypt (Exodus 2), so too they bring it to its fulfillment. Miriam, the sister who first stood by the water (the Nile River) to watch over her baby brother, now, as a prophet, leads the women in interpreting what crossing the water (the Sea of Reeds) means. Thus, women and water frame the story of Israel’s beginnings, from servitude to freedom.
—Carol Meyers
Outline—
I. DEPARTING FROM EGYPT (13:17–22)
II. CROSSING THE SEA (14:1–31)
A. Egyptian pursuit (vv. 1–14)
B. Splitting of the sea (vv. 15–25)
C. Rejoining of the waters (vv. 26–31)
III. CELEBRATING DELIVERANCE (15:1–21)
A. Song at the Sea (vv. 1–19)
B. Song of Miriam (vv. 20–21)
III. JOURNEYING IN THE WILDERNESS (15:22–17:16)
A. Water crisis (15:22–27)
B. Food crisis (16:1–36)
C. Another water crisis (17:1–7)
D. Military crisis (17:8–16)