ossing is
supposed to have occurred, as there are now at Suez, the wind and the
tide clearing a passage there would leave deep water on both sides of
the passage-way, and this most probably is the meaning of the expression
that the waters were a wall to them on either side.

"They were a defense; not necessarily perpendicular cliffs, as they
were often pictured. God could make the water stand in precipices if
He should so choose, and such a conception is more impressive to the
imagination, but it is certain that the language of the text may
mean simply that the water was a protection on the right and on the
left flanks of the host. Thus, in Nahum 3:8, No (Thebes) is said to
have the sea (the broad Nile) for the rampart and a wall--that is,
a defense, a protection against enemies. It is true that in poetical
passages the waters are said to have stood 'as a heap' (Exod. 15:8;
Psa. 78:13); but so they are also, in the same style, said to have
been 'congealed in the heart of the sea,' and the peaks of the
trembling Horeb are said to have 'skipped like rams, and the little
hills like lambs' (Psa. 114:4). Of course these expressions are not
to be literally and prosaically interpreted."

[Illustration]

The wind thus prevailed all night, to keep the passage open until all
the Israelites had crossed and the pursuing Egyptians had got well into
the sea.

THE ENEMY FOLLOW CLOSELY.

"And the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them to the midst of
the sea, even all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots and his horsemen.

"And it came to pass that in the morning watch the Lord looked unto
the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the
cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians.

"And took off their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily; so
that the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel; for
the Lord fighteth for them against the Egyptians."

Surrounded by darkness and enveloped by the fog, the Egyptians did not
know that they were rushing into the midst of the sea. It is not said
that Pharaoh went in, and yet as the post of the king is usually
represented on the ancient monuments as leading his soldiers--marching
at their head--it may be, as some think, that his chariot led those six
hundred chariots, and that he perished with them.

"The chariots of Egypt were very famous. According to Diodorus
Siculus, Rameses II had twenty-seven thous