Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them: they sank as lead in the mighty waters.
Thou didst blow with thy wind. Yahweh, like a consummate general, concealed, as it were, his plan of onset, until the Egyptians were in the middle of the channel; and the moment the Israelites were securely landed on the Arabian shore, 'He who gathered the winds in His fists, and bound the waters in a garment' (Proverbs 30:4), sent them forth as His messengers of destruction. The strong wind, by which the waters had been divided, and the bed of the sea was dried, subsided as suddenly and miraculously as it rose; or, as perhaps may be inferred from the words, the wind changed to the contrary direction, compelling the separated waters to collapse. With resistless impetuosity they rushed on in one stupendous billow, until commingling amid the foam and roar of confluence, they rolled like a cataract over the host, sweeping into the abysses of the gulf the pride, power, and chivalry of Egypt. "Horse and his rider," or charioteer, might be seen here and there upon the boiling surface, and perhaps with desperate convulsive struggle for self-preservation,
`Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto.'
But it was a vain effort. The gulf, after chafing for a little like a caldron, exhibited erelong its accustomed calm; but the host of armed warriors which during the night had sped over its bared channel, 'where were they?' 'They had sunk as lead in the mighty waters.'