Entangled in the land. — Literally, confused, perplexed. (Comp. Esther 3:15.) Pharaoh, seeing that the Israelites had placed the Bitter Lakes on their left, and were marching southward, in a direction which would soon put the Red Sea on one side of them and a desert region — that about the Jebel Atakah — on the other, thought that they must be quite ignorant of the geography, and have, as it were, “lost their way.” He observed, moreover, that “the wilderness had shut them in.” The desert tract between the Nile Valley and the Red Sea lay upon their left and in their front: they would soon be unable to proceed, and would not know which way to turn.
Related Commentaries of Exodus 14:3
Exodus 14:3
3 For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, They are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in.