Lord shall fight for you," and he
commanded Moses to stretch out his rod over the sea. (Exodus xiv.) The
Egyptians were stronger than the Jews--they would have cut them to pieces
if they had come to a battle. For free civilised men like the Egyptians
are always stronger than slaves, like the Jews; they respect themselves
more, they hold together better, they have order and discipline, and
obedience to their generals, which slaves have not. God intended to
teach the Jews that also in His good time. But not yet. They were not
fit yet to be made soldiers. They were not even _men_ yet, but miserable
slaves. A man is only a true man when he trusts in God, and none but
God--when he fears God and nothing _but_ God. And that was the lesson
which God had to teach them. That was the lesson which He taught them by
bringing them up out of Egypt by signs and wonders, that _God was the
Lord_, _God_ was their deliverer, _God_ was their King--that let _them_
be as weak as they might, _He_ was strong--that if they could not fight
the Egyptians God could overwhelm them--that if they could not cross the
sea, God could open the sea to let them pass through. If they dreaded
the waste howling wilderness of sand, with its pillars of cloud and fire,
its stifling winds which burn the life out of man and beast, God could
make the sand storms and the fire pillars and the deadly east wind of the
desert work for their deliverance. And so He taught them to fear
Himself, to trust in Him, to look up to Him as their deliverer whose
strength was shown most gloriously when they were weakest and most
despairing.

This was the great lesson which God meant to teach the children of
Israel, that the root and ground of all other lessons, is that this earth
belongs to the Lord alone. That had been what God had been teaching them
already, by the plagues of Egypt. The Egyptians worshipped their great
river Nile, and thought it was a god, and the Lord turned the Nile water
into blood, and showed that He could do what He liked with it. The
Egyptians worshipped dumb beasts and insects, and fancied in their folly
that they were gods. The Lord sent plagues of frogs and flies and
locusts, and took them away again when He liked, to show them that the
beasts and creeping things were His also.

The Egyptians worshipped false gods who as they fancied managed the
seasons and the weather. God sent them thunder and hail when it pleased
Him, and showed the Jew