e most
southern.

They were at first surprised at this order of march; but it was the only
safe one for them. The most northern would have taken them right through
the country of the warlike and hostile Philistines, and the middle route
(after passing the great wall which stretched from Pelusium on the
Mediterranean Sea to the Gulf of Suez) would have brought them right out
upon the desert.

Several days had elapsed since the Israelites started on their flight.
Pharaoh already missed them. His important works were brought to a
standstill; there was no one to make or handle bricks, and the loss of
so large and so efficient a body of workers was severely felt.

A reaction takes place in the mind of the king; he charges himself with
folly in letting the people go, and resolves to pursue them. He learns,
also, that they have not yet got out of the land of Egypt, and he thinks
that by the fact that they have turned south, and not gone directly to
the east, they are confused, and he plans to catch them when they are
hemmed in by the mountains and the sea.

With six hundred of his swiftest chariots he at once sets out after
them, leaving orders, doubtless, for other chariots as well as foot
soldiers to follow as soon as possible.

The Israelites were in the greatest alarm; there was no visible means of
escape. They could go no further south, for the mountains were in front
of them; they could not turn to the right for the same reason; the
Egyptians were in their rear, and the Red Sea was before them. They were
in a trap. This is what Pharaoh expected. The strategy on which he had
reckoned (ver. 3) had worked admirably.

THE PRESENT HELP IN TROUBLE.

"And the angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed
and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from before
their face, and stood behind them:

"And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of
Israel: and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light
by night to these: so that the one came not near the other all the
night."

It is singular that this blind king should so soon forget that there was
a God in Israel, and that he was to come into collision again with that
Being who had so often foiled, and finally, in the death of the
first-born, had utterly crushed him.

But none are so blind or so heedless as the obstinate and the
unbelieving. It will be seen that the battle that is soon to follow will
en