Exodus 14:22
ContextNET © | So the Israelites went through the middle of the sea on dry ground, the water forming a wall 1 for them on their right and on their left. |
NIV © | and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. |
NASB © | The sons of Israel went through the midst of the sea on the dry land, and the waters were like a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. |
NLT © | So the people of Israel walked through the sea on dry ground, with walls of water on each side! |
MSG © | The Israelites walked through the sea on dry ground with the waters a wall to the right and to the left. |
BBE © | And the children of Israel went through the sea on dry land: and the waters were a wall on their right side and on their left. |
NRSV © | The Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left. |
NKJV © | So the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea on the dry ground , and the waters were a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. |
KJV | |
NASB © | |
HEBREW | |
LXXM | |
NET © [draft] ITL | |
NET © | So the Israelites went through the middle of the sea on dry ground, the water forming a wall 1 for them on their right and on their left. |
NET © Notes |
1 tn The clause literally reads, “and the waters [were] for them a wall.” The word order in Hebrew is disjunctive, with the vav (ו) on the noun introducing a circumstantial clause. sn S. R. Driver (Exodus, 119), still trying to explain things with natural explanations, suggests that a northeast wind is to be thought of (an east wind would be directly in their face he says), such as a shallow ford might cooperate with an ebb tide in keeping a passage clear. He then quotes Dillmann about the “wall” of water: “A very summary poetical and hyperbolical (xv. 8) description of the occurrence, which at most can be pictured as the drying up of a shallow ford, on both sides of which the basin of the sea was much deeper, and remained filled with water.” There is no way to “water down” the text to fit natural explanations; the report clearly shows a miraculous work of God making a path through the sea – a path that had to be as wide as half a mile in order for the many people and their animals to cross between about 2:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. (W. C. Kaiser, Jr., “Exodus,” EBC 2:389). The text does not say that they actually only started across in the morning watch, however. |