Brief Historical Summary: From Joseph to Moses

The story of the Exodus is pivotal to Old Testament history. It tells how Israel was delivered from slavery in Egypt in about in the 13th century B.C.E., and traveled to Canaan to found a new nation there. But it isn't too clear how they got into slavery in the first place. Genesis ends
with the story of Jacob and his eleven elder sons, with their families, migrating to Egypt to escape a famine, only to find Jacob's younger son, Joseph, who had been sold into slavery by his older brothers out of jealousy, had become second in command to Pharoah, the king of Egypt.

According to Exodus 12:40, "the time that the sons of Israel lived in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years." We are given only a brief summary of those 430 years, telling how they changed from honored guests to slaves as they multiplied (growing to perhaps 72,000 individuals) and finally were perceived as a threat:

“And Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation. But the sons of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly, and multiplied, and became exceedingly mighty, so that the land was filled with them.
Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of the sons of Israel are more and mightier than we. “Come, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply and in the event of war, they also join themselves to those who hate us, and fight against us, and depart from the land.” So they appointed taskmasters over them to afflict them with hard labor. And they built for Pharaoh storage cities, Pithom and Raamses.” (Exodus 1:6-11 NASB)

Leading up to Exodus 14, our reading, Moses is called by God to deliver the people from Egypt and bring them to the promised land, Canaan. He engages in a battle of wills with Pharoah, and God sends a series of nine plagues on Egypt. With each one, Pharoah agrees to let the people go if the plague ends, but when it ends, he changes his mind ("His heart was hardened"). Finally, the tenty plague results in the deaths of all the firstborn sons of Egypt, except for the sons of Israel; the angel of death "passes over" them, an event that becomes the basis for the religious celebration called Passover. Pharoah finally agrees to let the people leave, so they do.

But, one last time, Pharoah changes his mind, marshals his army, and goes in pursuit of Israel. And this brings us to our story, in Exodus 14, of the crossing of the Red Sea, the final stage of Israel's escape.

Note: The number of people who left Egypt is stated in Ex. 12:37 to be 600,000 men aside from children, plus "a mixed multitude," leading to traditional estimates of nearly 2 million people. Some scholars have reinterpreted the Hebrew word for "thousand" as meaning "clan," and have calculated a number of 72,000, which seems more reasonable.