Matthew Henry on Exodus 14:1-9
We have here,
I. Instructions given to Moses concerning Israel's motions and encampments, which were so very surprising that if Moses had not express orders about them before they would scarcely have been persuaded to follow the pillar of cloud and fire. That therefore there might be no scruple nor dissatisfaction about it, Moses is told before, 1. Whither they must go, Exo 14:1, Exo 14:2. They had got to the edge of the wilderness (Exo 13:20), and a stage or two more would have brought them to Horeb, the place appointed for their serving God; but, instead of going forward, they are ordered to turn short off, on the right hand from Canaan, and to march towards the Red Sea. Where they were, a…
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Encamp before Pi-hahiroth - פי ההירת pi hachiroth, the mouth, strait, or bay of Chiroth. Between Migdol, מגדל migdol, the tower, probably a fortress that served to defend the bay. Over against Baal-zephon, בעל צפן baal tsephon, the lord or master of the watch, probably an idol temple, where a continual guard, watch, or light was kept up for the defense of one part of the haven, or as a guide to ships. Dr. Shaw thinks that chiroth may denote the valley which extended itself from the wilderness of Etham to the Red Sea, and that the part in which the Israelites encamped was called Pi-hachiroth, i.e., the mouth or bay of Chiroth. See his Travels, p. 310, and his account at the end of Exodus.
John Gill on Exodus 14:2
Speak unto the children of Israel, that they turn,.... Not return to Egypt, or to the place, or towards the place from whence they came, but turn off, out of the road in which they were; for, as a late traveller says (a),"there were two roads, through which the Israelites might have been conducted from Cairo (which he supposes may be Rameses) to Pihahiroth. One of them lies through the valleys, as they are now called, of Jendily, Rumaleah, and Baideah, bounded on each side by the mountains of the lower Thebais; the other lies higher, having the northern range of these mountains (the mountains of Mocattee) running parallel with it on the right hand, and the desert of the Egyptian Arabia, whic…
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