the fifteenth day of the
lunar month; four hundred and thirty years after our forefather Abraham
came into Canaan, but two hundred and fifteen years only after Jacob
removed into Egypt. [28] It was the eightieth year of the age of Moses,
and of that of Aaron three more. They also carried out the bones of
Joesph with them, as he had charged his sons to do.

3. But the Egyptians soon repented that the Hebrews were gone; and the
king also was mightily concerned that this had been procured by the
magic arts of Moses; so they resolved to go after them. Accordingly they
took their weapons, and other warlike furniture, and pursued after them,
in order to bring them back, if once they overtook them, because they
would now have no pretense to pray to God against them, since they had
already been permitted to go out; and they thought they should easily
overcome them, as they had no armor, and would be weary with their
journey; so they made haste in their pursuit, and asked of every one
they met which way they were gone. And indeed that land was difficult to
be traveled over, not only by armies, but by single persons. Now Moses
led the Hebrews this way, that in case the Egyptians should repent and
be desirous to pursue after them, they might undergo the punishment of
their wickedness, and of the breach of those promises they had made to
them. As also he led them this way on account of the Philistines, who
had quarreled with them, and hated them of old, that by all means they
might not know of their departure, for their country is near to that
of Egypt; and thence it was that Moses led them not along the road that
tended to the land of the Philistines, but he was desirous that they
should go through the desert, that so after a long journey, and after
many afflictions, they might enter upon the land of Canaan. Another
reason of this was, that God commanded him to bring the people to
Mount Sinai, that there they might offer him sacrifices. Now when the
Egyptians had overtaken the Hebrews, they prepared to fight them, and by
their multitude they drove them into a narrow place; for the number
that pursued after them was six hundred chariots, with fifty thousand
horsemen, and two hundred thousand foot-men, all armed. They also seized
on the passages by which they imagined the Hebrews might fly, shutting
them up [29] between inaccessible precipices and the sea; for there was
[on each side] a [ridge of] mountains that terminated at the se