Post by Lee on Feb 1, 2014 15:01:23 GMT
Interesting article from Central Christadelphians.....
“THY WAY WAS THROUGH THE SEA”
“And Israel saw the great work which the Lord did against the Egyptians, and the people feared the Lord.” (Exodus 14:31)
AND well they might. There was the memory of the frogs and lice, cattle dying mysteriously in the fields, and other disasters from which they had escaped unscathed. And then the night “long to be remembered” when the cry of bereavement heralded their freedom. And now this other night—to a people trapped and cornered, a way opened through the waters to salvation.
Time and again through the centuries of prophetic revelation Israel were to be reminded of this night and from the many descriptions of the great deliverance we learn that the few simple words of Exodus 14 do not tell all the story. Far from it. Indeed they only give a hint that something dreadful almost beyond imagining was happening at that moment. Psalmist, prophet and archaeologist fill in some of the rest.
There was tremendous thunder and exceptionally vivid lightning, cyclonic storm with torrential rain:
“The clouds poured out water; the skies gave forth thunder; thy arrows flashed on every side.
The crash of thy thunder was in the whirlwind; thy lightnings lighted up the world.” (Psalm 77:17–18)
There was an earthquake affecting both land and sea:
“When the waters saw thee, they were afraid, yea, the deep trembled.” (Psalm 77:16)
“The sea looked and fled . . . the mountains skipped like rams, the hills like lambs.” (Psalm 114:3–4)
As always in major earthquakes, there were startling changes in the water table and springs:
“Thou didst divide the sea by thy might . . . thou didst cleave open springs and brooks; thou didst dry up ever-flowing streams.” (Psalm 74:13, 15)
The catastrophe was widespread:
“He looked and shook the nations.” (Habakkuk 3:6)
Mountains disappeared and sank:
“Then the eternal mountains were scattered (LXX: ‘violently burst through’), the everlasting hills sank low.”
There was a great volcanic eruption somewhere and great tidal surges or tsunamis which brought devastation to the Mediterranean area, particularly the Nile delta:
“The mountains saw thee and writhed; the raging waters swept on; the deep gave forth its voice, it lifted its hands on high.” (Habakkuk 3:10)
“The Lord, God of Hosts, he who touches the earth and it melts, and all who dwell in it mourn, and all of it rises like the Nile, and sinks again, like the Nile of Egypt; who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out upon the surface of the earth . . .” (Amos 9:5–6)
The sun and moon were affected:
“The sun and moon stood still in their habitation at the light of thine arrows as they sped, at the flash of thy glittering spear.” (Habakkuk 2:11)
(The application of this to the incident at Gibeon in Joshua is precluded by the context which before and after is concerned with the deliverance from Egypt in both history and prophecy.)
All the above passages are in contexts which describe the deliverance of Israel from Egypt. Wider effects of the whole episode are also noted.
There were unusual climatic changes over the Middle East, with conditions both colder and wetter than normal, particularly in Sinai and Israel:
“He destroyed their vines with hail, and their sycamores with frost.” (Psalm 78:47)
“The earth quaked, the heavens poured down rain . . . rain in abundance, O God, thou didst shed abroad; thou didst restore thy heritage as it languished.” (Psalm 68:7–9)
Various peoples are singled out as affected by the events of the Exodus: Syria, Cushan, Midian and particularly the Cretans:
“Did not I bring up Israel from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor (Crete) and the Syrians from Kir?” (Amos 9:7)
Events preceding the crossing of the Red Sea (literally Sea of Reeds) begin to take on new significance as we see the whole dramatic picture: the Nile “foul, so that the Egyptians could not drink”, “fine dust over all the land of Egypt”, “a very severe plague of cattle” and “a darkness that could be felt, thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days”. Were all these events associated with Yahweh’s work to deliver His people separate and isolated acts or were they various aspects of some gigantic cataclysm veiled yet hinted at through all the different records? Are the Psalms and prophets exaggerating a prosaic event with elaborate Hebraic poetic hyperbole or are these vivid descriptions meant to be understood as quite sober facts of history?
Some recent detective work by two Greek archaeologists, Professor Marinatos and Professor Galanopoulos, and a Russian geologist Ninkovitch has cast a fascinating light upon many of the passages of Scripture which describe events surrounding the Exodus. Their work was not Biblically-oriented at all, indeed they were far more interested in tracing origins of lost Atlantis, and only afterwards did Galanopoulos begin to realize the implications of his findings upon the Biblical record.1 Painstakingly, from archaeology, Greek literature, and geology they have documented that the most stupendous “natural” cataclysm in the history of mankind coincided with the period of the Exodus.
When Israel were slaves in the brickyards of Pharaoh, a civilization to rival that of Egypt flourished in Crete, the Minoan. The Minoans were not Greeks and their language has never been deciphered.1 In addition to the great cities like Knossos on Crete itself, a great maritime and trading centre prospered on the volcanic island of Thera a hundred miles to the north. About 1500 B.C., after unknown ages of dormancy, the volcanic peak, with a shudder that felled cities in Crete, began to erupt. Over 4,500 feet high, this “mountain giant, glowing like a bronze furnace”, continued its pyrotechnics, giving rise to Greek legends of Cyclops, the one-eyed stone thrower, and Talos the bronze giant hurling rocks at passing ships.
After twenty-five or thirty years of constant eruption, the activity intensified. Vast clouds of fine dust and ash, spewed out in paroxysmal tremors lasting several days, wafted southeastwards towards Egypt, darkening the sky and shutting out the sun. There were two types of ash, a red material rich in iron, potassium, sodium and phosphorus like human blood and a white rhyolitic tephra which fell chokingly on everything in its path. Sulphur and chloride falling on pastures and crops killed cattle and destroyed vegetation, befouled rivers and bred pestilence and insect pests. Finally, “an explosive eruption of unprecedented and devastating violence” blasted almost the entire mountain and island up to fifty miles into the sky. With a sound heard over a quarter of the earth, an explosion three thousand times greater than that which destroyed Pompeii pulverized thirty-three square miles of land, which were “blown up and sunk”; “vast trenches were scooped out in the seabed”. Instead of a 4,500 foot peak there was a giant circular chasm ten miles in diameter and hundreds of feet deep, into which the waters of the Mediterranean roared, only to be boiled out again by the subterranean fires. The effect on sea coasts was for the water to drain away, only to return hours later in the most devastating tsunamis (tidal surges) mankind has ever suffered. In the immediate vicinity of Thera the wave has been estimated at six hundred feet high. The Athenian army on an expedition was wiped out as it marched along a coast road. The Nile delta was inundated, the sacred city of Buto being affected. Pumice was so thick over wide areas of the Mediterranean that it was possible to walk on it as it floated. The blockage of solar radiation for a long time brought cold, wet weather to the whole Middle East—an effect noted after the similar but smaller eruption of Krakatoa in the East Indies in the 19th century.
ISLAND OF THERA BEFORE AND AFTER ERUPTION OF CIRCA 1470 B.C.
The combined effects of the cataclysm were catastrophic: first, terrible earthquakes, then ash everywhere, then tidal waves. Marinatos comments: “The violent and sudden destruction is made clear in every case by the excavations. In many places it was so unexpected that even valuable metal objects were not rescued in time and everything was buried in the ruins. Not only the palaces with their towns, not only the great villas, but all other settlements, harbours, tombs, even the cave of Arkalochori, whose roof collapsed over its treasures, were annihilated and abandoned.”1 Such was the effect on Crete. The great tidal surge reached Crete only half an hour after the principal explosion, so there was no time to escape. Destruction was total on the coastal plain, and survivors in the mountains faced certain death from the foot of ash which fell. So the entire surviving population of Minoans, with the exception of one village, took to the sea, left Crete for ever, landed on the coast of the Holy Land and became the Philistines, as Amos said (9:7). Afterwards Crete was resettled by Greeks from the mainland.
It is typical of the ways of God that the very event which delivered Israel also brought testing and later punishment in the form of the Philistines. Deuteronomy states that when the Cretans arrived on the shores of the Holy Land, they found, living north-east from Gaza, the indigenous Avvim whom they destroyed, and settled there (2:23).
Greek descriptions of the eruption take on renewed interest in the light of the Biblical record:
“Night terrified them, the night which they call the pall of darkness. No stars nor moonbeams pierced this deadly darkness. It was black chaos coming down from the sky, or some other darkness rising from the innermost recesses of the earth. They did not know in the least whether they were voyaging on the water or in hades.”1
“And the heat gripped the purple sea, the heat of thunder and lightning and of fire from such a monster, a heat of fiery storm winds and flaming thunderbolt. And the whole earth and firmament and sea boiled. And long waves spreading out in circles went seething over the headlands, and unquenchable earthquakes broke out.”1
The tsunamis or tidal surges are particularly vividly described in the second passage.
The faithless view such devastating events as blind or capricious nature, and even seek to “explain away” the hand of God. Not so the Scripture: through the eyes of faith the Psalmist sees an invisible Yahweh striding victoriously through the dried up channel ahead of His people:
“Thy way was through the sea, Thy path through the great waters; yet Thy footprints were unseen.”
Amos looks beyond the volcanic phenomena to the One who holds the earth in the hollow of His hand:
“The Lord, God of Hosts, he who touches the earth and it melts . . .”
There has never been a convulsion of “nature” like the eruption of Thera in 1470 B.C. or thereabouts. But there will be another, perhaps even greater in magnitude, and it will herald the deliverance of all God’s people:
“The day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. And the Lord roars from Zion, and utters His voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth shake.” (Joel 3:14–16)
ALAN EYRE
“THY WAY WAS THROUGH THE SEA”
“And Israel saw the great work which the Lord did against the Egyptians, and the people feared the Lord.” (Exodus 14:31)
AND well they might. There was the memory of the frogs and lice, cattle dying mysteriously in the fields, and other disasters from which they had escaped unscathed. And then the night “long to be remembered” when the cry of bereavement heralded their freedom. And now this other night—to a people trapped and cornered, a way opened through the waters to salvation.
Time and again through the centuries of prophetic revelation Israel were to be reminded of this night and from the many descriptions of the great deliverance we learn that the few simple words of Exodus 14 do not tell all the story. Far from it. Indeed they only give a hint that something dreadful almost beyond imagining was happening at that moment. Psalmist, prophet and archaeologist fill in some of the rest.
There was tremendous thunder and exceptionally vivid lightning, cyclonic storm with torrential rain:
“The clouds poured out water; the skies gave forth thunder; thy arrows flashed on every side.
The crash of thy thunder was in the whirlwind; thy lightnings lighted up the world.” (Psalm 77:17–18)
There was an earthquake affecting both land and sea:
“When the waters saw thee, they were afraid, yea, the deep trembled.” (Psalm 77:16)
“The sea looked and fled . . . the mountains skipped like rams, the hills like lambs.” (Psalm 114:3–4)
As always in major earthquakes, there were startling changes in the water table and springs:
“Thou didst divide the sea by thy might . . . thou didst cleave open springs and brooks; thou didst dry up ever-flowing streams.” (Psalm 74:13, 15)
The catastrophe was widespread:
“He looked and shook the nations.” (Habakkuk 3:6)
Mountains disappeared and sank:
“Then the eternal mountains were scattered (LXX: ‘violently burst through’), the everlasting hills sank low.”
There was a great volcanic eruption somewhere and great tidal surges or tsunamis which brought devastation to the Mediterranean area, particularly the Nile delta:
“The mountains saw thee and writhed; the raging waters swept on; the deep gave forth its voice, it lifted its hands on high.” (Habakkuk 3:10)
“The Lord, God of Hosts, he who touches the earth and it melts, and all who dwell in it mourn, and all of it rises like the Nile, and sinks again, like the Nile of Egypt; who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out upon the surface of the earth . . .” (Amos 9:5–6)
The sun and moon were affected:
“The sun and moon stood still in their habitation at the light of thine arrows as they sped, at the flash of thy glittering spear.” (Habakkuk 2:11)
(The application of this to the incident at Gibeon in Joshua is precluded by the context which before and after is concerned with the deliverance from Egypt in both history and prophecy.)
All the above passages are in contexts which describe the deliverance of Israel from Egypt. Wider effects of the whole episode are also noted.
There were unusual climatic changes over the Middle East, with conditions both colder and wetter than normal, particularly in Sinai and Israel:
“He destroyed their vines with hail, and their sycamores with frost.” (Psalm 78:47)
“The earth quaked, the heavens poured down rain . . . rain in abundance, O God, thou didst shed abroad; thou didst restore thy heritage as it languished.” (Psalm 68:7–9)
Various peoples are singled out as affected by the events of the Exodus: Syria, Cushan, Midian and particularly the Cretans:
“Did not I bring up Israel from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor (Crete) and the Syrians from Kir?” (Amos 9:7)
Events preceding the crossing of the Red Sea (literally Sea of Reeds) begin to take on new significance as we see the whole dramatic picture: the Nile “foul, so that the Egyptians could not drink”, “fine dust over all the land of Egypt”, “a very severe plague of cattle” and “a darkness that could be felt, thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days”. Were all these events associated with Yahweh’s work to deliver His people separate and isolated acts or were they various aspects of some gigantic cataclysm veiled yet hinted at through all the different records? Are the Psalms and prophets exaggerating a prosaic event with elaborate Hebraic poetic hyperbole or are these vivid descriptions meant to be understood as quite sober facts of history?
Some recent detective work by two Greek archaeologists, Professor Marinatos and Professor Galanopoulos, and a Russian geologist Ninkovitch has cast a fascinating light upon many of the passages of Scripture which describe events surrounding the Exodus. Their work was not Biblically-oriented at all, indeed they were far more interested in tracing origins of lost Atlantis, and only afterwards did Galanopoulos begin to realize the implications of his findings upon the Biblical record.1 Painstakingly, from archaeology, Greek literature, and geology they have documented that the most stupendous “natural” cataclysm in the history of mankind coincided with the period of the Exodus.
When Israel were slaves in the brickyards of Pharaoh, a civilization to rival that of Egypt flourished in Crete, the Minoan. The Minoans were not Greeks and their language has never been deciphered.1 In addition to the great cities like Knossos on Crete itself, a great maritime and trading centre prospered on the volcanic island of Thera a hundred miles to the north. About 1500 B.C., after unknown ages of dormancy, the volcanic peak, with a shudder that felled cities in Crete, began to erupt. Over 4,500 feet high, this “mountain giant, glowing like a bronze furnace”, continued its pyrotechnics, giving rise to Greek legends of Cyclops, the one-eyed stone thrower, and Talos the bronze giant hurling rocks at passing ships.
After twenty-five or thirty years of constant eruption, the activity intensified. Vast clouds of fine dust and ash, spewed out in paroxysmal tremors lasting several days, wafted southeastwards towards Egypt, darkening the sky and shutting out the sun. There were two types of ash, a red material rich in iron, potassium, sodium and phosphorus like human blood and a white rhyolitic tephra which fell chokingly on everything in its path. Sulphur and chloride falling on pastures and crops killed cattle and destroyed vegetation, befouled rivers and bred pestilence and insect pests. Finally, “an explosive eruption of unprecedented and devastating violence” blasted almost the entire mountain and island up to fifty miles into the sky. With a sound heard over a quarter of the earth, an explosion three thousand times greater than that which destroyed Pompeii pulverized thirty-three square miles of land, which were “blown up and sunk”; “vast trenches were scooped out in the seabed”. Instead of a 4,500 foot peak there was a giant circular chasm ten miles in diameter and hundreds of feet deep, into which the waters of the Mediterranean roared, only to be boiled out again by the subterranean fires. The effect on sea coasts was for the water to drain away, only to return hours later in the most devastating tsunamis (tidal surges) mankind has ever suffered. In the immediate vicinity of Thera the wave has been estimated at six hundred feet high. The Athenian army on an expedition was wiped out as it marched along a coast road. The Nile delta was inundated, the sacred city of Buto being affected. Pumice was so thick over wide areas of the Mediterranean that it was possible to walk on it as it floated. The blockage of solar radiation for a long time brought cold, wet weather to the whole Middle East—an effect noted after the similar but smaller eruption of Krakatoa in the East Indies in the 19th century.
ISLAND OF THERA BEFORE AND AFTER ERUPTION OF CIRCA 1470 B.C.
The combined effects of the cataclysm were catastrophic: first, terrible earthquakes, then ash everywhere, then tidal waves. Marinatos comments: “The violent and sudden destruction is made clear in every case by the excavations. In many places it was so unexpected that even valuable metal objects were not rescued in time and everything was buried in the ruins. Not only the palaces with their towns, not only the great villas, but all other settlements, harbours, tombs, even the cave of Arkalochori, whose roof collapsed over its treasures, were annihilated and abandoned.”1 Such was the effect on Crete. The great tidal surge reached Crete only half an hour after the principal explosion, so there was no time to escape. Destruction was total on the coastal plain, and survivors in the mountains faced certain death from the foot of ash which fell. So the entire surviving population of Minoans, with the exception of one village, took to the sea, left Crete for ever, landed on the coast of the Holy Land and became the Philistines, as Amos said (9:7). Afterwards Crete was resettled by Greeks from the mainland.
It is typical of the ways of God that the very event which delivered Israel also brought testing and later punishment in the form of the Philistines. Deuteronomy states that when the Cretans arrived on the shores of the Holy Land, they found, living north-east from Gaza, the indigenous Avvim whom they destroyed, and settled there (2:23).
Greek descriptions of the eruption take on renewed interest in the light of the Biblical record:
“Night terrified them, the night which they call the pall of darkness. No stars nor moonbeams pierced this deadly darkness. It was black chaos coming down from the sky, or some other darkness rising from the innermost recesses of the earth. They did not know in the least whether they were voyaging on the water or in hades.”1
“And the heat gripped the purple sea, the heat of thunder and lightning and of fire from such a monster, a heat of fiery storm winds and flaming thunderbolt. And the whole earth and firmament and sea boiled. And long waves spreading out in circles went seething over the headlands, and unquenchable earthquakes broke out.”1
The tsunamis or tidal surges are particularly vividly described in the second passage.
The faithless view such devastating events as blind or capricious nature, and even seek to “explain away” the hand of God. Not so the Scripture: through the eyes of faith the Psalmist sees an invisible Yahweh striding victoriously through the dried up channel ahead of His people:
“Thy way was through the sea, Thy path through the great waters; yet Thy footprints were unseen.”
Amos looks beyond the volcanic phenomena to the One who holds the earth in the hollow of His hand:
“The Lord, God of Hosts, he who touches the earth and it melts . . .”
There has never been a convulsion of “nature” like the eruption of Thera in 1470 B.C. or thereabouts. But there will be another, perhaps even greater in magnitude, and it will herald the deliverance of all God’s people:
“The day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. And the Lord roars from Zion, and utters His voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth shake.” (Joel 3:14–16)
ALAN EYRE