“By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land, whereas the Egyptians, attempting to do so, were drowned” (Hebrews 11:29).
Genesis 15:13-14 records a scene from the life of the Biblical patriarch Abraham that relates to our text from Hebrews 11:29…
“The Lord said to [Abraham], ‘Your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land; they will be slaves there and will be treated cruelly for four hundred years. But I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and when they leave that foreign land, they will take great wealth with them…” (GNT).
That prophetic message was fulfilled upon Israel’s departure from Egypt…
“The Israelites had already done what Moses had told them to do. They had gone to their Egyptian neighbors and asked for gold and silver and for clothes. The Lord had made the Egyptians friendly toward the people of Israel, and they gave them whatever they asked for. In this way they carried away the wealth of the Egyptians when they left Egypt” (Exodus 12:35-36 CEV).
This led to one of the greatest miraculous events in Biblical history- the parting of the Red Sea…
“When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about the people and said, ‘What have we done? We have released Israel from serving us.’ So he got his chariot ready and took his troops with him… The Egyptians—all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots, his horsemen, and his army—chased after them and caught up with them as they camped by the sea…
But Moses said to the people, ‘Don’t be afraid. Stand firm and see the Lord’s salvation that he will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians you see today, you will never see again.’
…Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The Lord drove the sea back with a powerful east wind all that night and turned the sea into dry land. So the waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with the waters like a wall to them on their right and their left. The Egyptians set out in pursuit… and went into the sea after them…
Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the water may come back on the Egyptians, on their chariots and horsemen.’ So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea returned to its normal depth… The water came back and covered the chariots and horsemen, plus the entire army of Pharaoh that had gone after them into the sea. Not even one of them survived” (Exodus 14:5-6, 9, 13, 21-23, 26-28 CSB).
Thus, as one author concludes, “The difference between the Israelites crossing the Red Sea and the Egyptians who followed them was not courage, but faith. The Egyptians had as much (or more) courage than the Israelites, but not the same faith – and they each had different fates.” (1)
(1) David Guzik Hebrews 11 – Examples Of Faith To Help The Discouraged © Copyright – Enduring Word https://enduringword.com/bible-commentary/hebrews-11/