Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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we are in the best frame both to do our own work and to consider the work of God. Your strength is to sit still (Isa 30:7), for the Egyptians shall help in vain, and threaten to hurt in vain.
14 The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace. 15 And the Lord said unto Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto me?
speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward:
What he must do himself. He must, for the present, leave off praying, and apply himself to his business (Ex 14:15): Wherefore cryest thou unto me? Moses, though he was assured of a good issue to the present distress, yet did not neglect prayer. We read not of one word he said in prayer, but he lifted up to God his heart, the language of which God well understood and took notice of. Moses's silent prayers of faith prevailed more with God than Israel's loud outcries of fear, Ex 14:10. Note,
(1.) Praying, if of the right kind, is crying to God, which denotes it to be the language both of a natural and of an importunate desire.
(2.) To quicken his diligence. Moses had something else to do besides praying; he was to command the hosts of Israel, and it was now requisite that he should be at his post. Everything is beautiful in its season.
What he must order Israel to do. Speak to them, that they go forward. Some think that Moses had prayed, not so much for their deliverance (he was assured of that) as for the pardon of heir murmurings, and that God's ordering them to go forward was an intimation of the pardon. There is no going forward with any comfort but in the sense of our reconciliation to God. Moses had bidden them stand still, and expect orders from God; and now orders are given. They thought they must have been directed either to the right hand or to the left. "No," says God, "speak to them to go forward, directly to the sea-side;"