Exodus 13:18

18 Instead, he led them in a roundabout way through the desert toward the Red Sea. The Israelites were armed for battle.

Exodus 13:18 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 13:18

But God led the people about
Instead of their going to the west, or northwest, towards Gaza and the Mediterranean sea, the Lord going before them in a pillar of cloud and fire, as after related, directed them to turn off to the right, between the east and south, to the southeast: through the way of the wilderness of the Red sea:
the wilderness of Etham, by the Red sea: and the children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt
or "girt" ^F13 about the loins under the fifth rib; not with armour, as some ^F14 understand it, for it is not likely that they could, or that Pharaoh would suffer them to be furnished with armour, but their garments were girt about them, and so fit for travelling; or they went up "by fives" ^F15, as it may be rendered, either by five in a rank, or rather in five bodies or squadrons, and so marched out, not in a disorderly and confused way, but in great order and regularity. The latter is much more reasonable to suppose, for five in a rank is too small a number for an army of 600,000 men to march in; since allowing the ranks to be but three feet asunder, and a mile to consist of about two thousand yards, the front and rear of the army would be sixty miles distant from each other ^F16.

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FOOTNOTES:

F13 (Myvmx) "accincti", Fagninus, Vatablus, Cartwright; so Onkelos, Aben Ezra.
F14 Kimchi & Pen Melech.
F15 "Quintati", Montanus: "quini", Piscater, Rivet.
F16 See the Bishop of Clogher's Chronology of the Hebrew Bible, p. 272.

Exodus 13:18 In-Context

16 This observance will be a reminder, like something tied on our hands or on our foreheads; it will remind us that the Lord brought us out of Egypt by his great power.' "

17 When the king of Egypt let the people go, God did not take them by the road that goes up the coast to Philistia, although it was the shortest way. God thought, "I do not want the people to change their minds and return to Egypt when they see that they are going to have to fight."

18 Instead, he led them in a roundabout way through the desert toward the Red Sea. The Israelites were armed for battle.

19 Moses took the body of Joseph with him, as Joseph had made the Israelites solemnly promise to do. Joseph had said, "When God rescues you, you must carry my body with you from this place."

20 The Israelites left Sukkoth and camped at Etham on the edge of the desert.

Footnotes

• [a]. red sea: [(in Hebrew literally "Sea of Reeds") evidently referred to (1) a series of lakes and marshes between the head of the Gulf of Suez and the Mediterranean, the region generally regarded as the site of the events described in Exodus 13, and was also used to designate (2) the Gulf of Suez, and (3) the Gulf of Aqaba.]