Ron Wyatt's Archaeology Site Discusses the Finding of Chariot Wheels in the Red Sea, This Being A Gold Plated One, in the Gulf of Aqaba.
The Parting of the Red Sea (Exodus Chap 14):
Moses led his rag-tag band of Israelite slaves out of Egypt on a path God gave to him. Pharoah, always a bad actor, had told Moses to take his people out of Egypt, but now Pharoah went back on his word. He and his advisors decided that they had made a mistake, and Pharoah brought his army out to pursue the fleeing Israelites. Soon he caught up, but God had provided a pillar of smoke by day and fire by night to lead them as they fled, and it now moved to stand between the Egyptians and His fleeing people. Strangely, the Egyptians pursued them anyway. I like to think I would have gone back home if I saw a people I was pursuing protected in such a way.
The trail led through a rough canyon that dead headed at the Red Sea maybe in todays Gulf of Aquba where a large beach of sand lays. The roughly two million Israelite slaves were now trapped, as Pharoahs soldiers were behind them in great numbers and with 600 chariots. The sea was in front, and cliffs came down to the sea on each side of the sandy beach where they found themselves. They began to complain that Moses had led them to disaster.
Moses told them to stand by and watch their God deliver them. As the pillar of fire stood behind them holding off the Egyptians, Moses spread his staff over the Red Sea, and a strong East wind began to blow, driving the water back to the one side and the other. It was a wind from God, and throughout the night it blew. By morning, there was a dry path across the ocean bed to the other side of the ocean where there was land waiting to flee to. The water of the ocean was forced back, standing in tall banks like walls. Across this unlikely road the slave nation fled.
When they had gotten to the other side, and the last of them were close to making it to land, Pharoah commanded his army to pursue them. So, bravely, the Egyptian army entered the road across the sea. Some six or seven miles wide (if the Aquba site is the correct one) they were partway across it when God sprang the trap on them, allowing the wind to stop and the water to return, inundating the entire pursuing army and Pharoah, as Israel watched safely from the far bank.
There are remains of Egyptian chariot wheels on the floor of the Gulf of Aquba, a finger of the Red Sea which extends upwards to the north west into the Sinai Peninsula. They are of a design typical of those from a dynasty of Moses time. Divers go and look at them today, as well as the coral crusted remains of men and horses. They are in an area that well fits the description of the terrain in the book of Exodus. There is no apparent reason except the one given in the scriptures for such a thing to be there in the ocean. God truly did this remarkable deed we read about so many centuries later. Holy and great is God.
Food From Heaven (Exodus 14:4):
The Israelites were a nation of slaves. They may not have been very self reliant yet, having been told just what to do for so many hundred years. And they complained quite a lot at first when they were lead by Moses into the wilderness. But they had no homes, and they were in a barren desert, so you have to sympathize. There were some definate changes going on in their lives.
Food was an issue, and it must have seemed unclear to them all just what they were supposed to eat out in a place like the one they were in. But God sent a food directly from heaven - a food which settled like frost and could be found in little beads all over the plants and rocks in the morning. They called it manna. That translates as 'What is this?' I have read. It was a very strange food: It tasted a little like coriander seeds (which I've never tried) or wafers of bread with honey. It went bad as the sun began to grow hot, so you had to gather it early, while it was cool.
With manna, you had to use up what you gathered each day, as it grew wormy and stank if you tried to save one day's manna for use on another day. But there was an exception. You were not supposed to work on the Sabbath, and gathering manna was work. So no manna fell on the Sabbath, and no manna could be gathered on the Sabbath. Did they fast on the Sabath then? No. God is so amazing. The manna that fell on the day before the Sabbath was twice as much, and it had the strange property of not going rotten after one day. So on Friday morning they could gather twice the normal amount. They could eat one days worth, but boil or bake the rest for use the next day on the Sabbath. It was a sort of 'smart food'.
Now, no natural food could behave in such a way. It has been noted by some scholars that there is an insect larvae which bores into Tamarisk tree bark in some middle east areas, and it leaves a little bead of whitish foam behind on the outside of the tree bark, plugging its hole. This hardens, and can be eaten if gathered soon, and some have suggested that this was manna. But there were not enough Tamarisk trees in the desert to feed two million people on little dabs of beetle spit, and such a foam does not have the handy property of staying edible for the Sabbath but decaying on all other days. It's unworthy of us as people to try to play off God's deeds as some sort of misunderstanding of a natural occurrence. Such answers usually make no sense anyway, if you look closely into them.
A container of manna was directed to be saved and put into the Arc of the Covenant later, where it did not decay, and it was placed there purposely to show future generations what manna looked like. Hopefully we will one day see it, but I don't need to in order to believe.
For 40 years the manna fell, until the Israelites finally came into the promised land to stay. And just as an observation I think we should all notice that while the Lord viewed food as a necessity, He felt a very simple and adequate diet was quite sufficient for his people. God apparently wanted His people to see food as fuel. Just simple fuel, I think, if His wilderness provisions for the Israelites are to be seen as any indication of His thoughts in this matter. For me to bring it up is the heigth of hypocrisy I assure you, as I love a good meal. But we all know how we can become food-focused to our detriment. God's idea of good enough: manna!
Water Is Gotten From A Rock (Exodus Chap 17):
The people travelled the wilderness, and in a place called Rephidim they had no water and began to suffer greatly. So they quarreled with Moses and blamed him for bringing them out so far a distance just to have them die from lack of water.
Moses prayed to God, saying that it looked like the people would stone him. 'What should he do?', he asked God. God directed him to a rock in the area of Horeb, and told Moses to strike the rock with his staff, and water would flow from the rock for the people to drink. And of course, when Moses did so, the water flowed. Water enough for the couple millions of people.
God Gives Miriam, Moses's Sister, Leprosy For A Few Days (Numbers 12:9):
At a certain point in time, Meriam and Aaron both became jealous of younger brother Moses's clout with the people. They were both older than Moses and it may have been hard for them to see him be honored above their own selves. Using his marriage to a Cushite woman as a pretext (possibly the Ethiopian wife from before his banishment from Egypt) they started some sort of fight during which they sharply reminded Moses that God used them to do things too- not just Moses.
The Lord heard them and became angry that they spoke against His special servant Moses, so He appeared in a column of cloud outside the entrance to their tent and He actually scolded them for not fearing to speak poorly to Moses. (It is stated here that Moses was the meekest man on the Earth) When He departed, Meriam was white as snow with leprosy. Aaron was not struck, perhaps spared because the High Priest - which Aaron was - cannot keep his post if he is blemished.
Moses quickly fell to his knees and prayed for Meriam his sister that the Lord would heal her. The Lord answered him saying 'If a father spits in his daughters face would she not hide in shame for 7 days? Let her be confined outside the camp for 7 days, then she may be brought back.'
So, for 7 days Meriam had leprosy, and had to wait outside the camp. And the Israelite camp did not move for those 7 days. Imagine how embarassed she must have felt knowing she had angered God, been personally cursed with leprosy, and was holding up the movements of around 2 million people who had to wait 7 days because of her. Luckily Aaron was in some trouble too. Maybe he helped share the blame!
The Korahite Rebellion. Swallowed by The Earth. (Numbers Chapter 16)
While Moses and the Israelites wandered the wilderness whereever God led them, another jealousy took root. And what became of it is a good example to all of us about respecting the authorities God places over us.
Korah was of the tribe of Levi, and that whole tribe was set apart for service to God. Of the 12 tribes of Israel, God seperated the tribe of this 3rd oldest son of Jacob to be his close servants, and some to be his priests. They were not later allotted a large tract of land like each of the other tribes, but God said that He was to be their portion. Levites are set apart. (Both Moses and Aaron were from the tribe of Levi.) But Korah was an influential man from the tribe of Levi, and it chaffed him that Moses and Levi should have so much power. So with the help of two men from the tribe of Reuben, Dathan and Abiram, Korah stirred up a good share of the Israelites against Moses and Aaron.
He posed as a man of the people, saying to Moses and Aaron 'Look, the whole community is holy. After all, God is right here among us all. So why do you try to set yourself over us? ' He probably knew quite well that God himself was directing Moses and Aaron to lead, but the tough desert life was discontenting to the people, so there was dissatisfaction to exploit.
Moses was stunned, and fell prostrate. He was apalled aparently that they should attribute his position of authority to him having some sort of naked ambition to rule over them. Moses answered them then. He told them to come forward with incense burners the next morning, ready to offer incense to the Lord, and the Lord would accept their offering if He chose to.
Moses sent for Dathan and Abiram, Korah's co-conspirators, that he might talk to them also. But they refused to even come and talk with Moses.
The next day Korah's 250 followers showed up with their incense burners. And Aaron came alone with his own incense burner and Moses standing at his side. They stood at the entrance of the tent of meeting where God was worshipped, and it was a showdown that all of the people came to observe the outcome of. Moses and Aaron v.s. 250 would be usurpers.
The Glory of the Lord then appeared to the entire community. His voice spoke, telling Moses and Aaron to stand apart from everyone else - as in EVERYONE else - so He could consume them. But Moses and Aaron fell prostrate and begged the Lord not to punish the entire community of the Israelites because of the sins of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram! So God told them to speak to the community and have them withdraw from the space around the dwellings of these men and their families.
Then Moses, speaking by God's direction, told them that if these men died in an ordinary way, say it was not the Lord who sent Moses. But if they died by a new way, not before seen - being swallowed by the Earth - then they would know that these men defied the Lord. As soon as Moses spoke these words, it happened. The Earth split open beneath these men and their posessions. They, their families, their tents, everything fell down into this ravine and then the Earth closed back up so that they were gone from the community.
Next, fire came down from the Lord and consumed the 250 men who were not authorized to wave incense before the Lord, and only their ashes and their incense censers were left. God told Aaron to gather these sensers of bronze, and beat them into a plate to cover the Alter of the Lord as a reminder to future generations that only those selected by the Lord could approach Him to wave incense. This was done.
But the next day, the community of Israelites were grumbling against Moses and Aaron that all the deaths were their fault. They deliberated what to do with Aaron and Moses. This made God so angry that he told Aaron and Moses to stand aside and he would destroy all of these people. Moses and Aaron fell prostrate instead, hoping God would change His purpose. So God told Aaron to run with his senser and get fire from the alter and lay incense on it, and bring it quickly to the community to make atonement for them.
Aaron hurried off to get this and came back with it, but God had sent a plague already. This was a devastating holy plague from God that spread with unworldly swiftness. Aaron ran to stand between the living and the dead, waving his senser and making atonement, but in these few minutes before God allowed His plague to be ended, 14,700 persons had already died.
For these people who have the unfortunate habit of trying to ascribe everything in the Bible to a natural cause, consider that either the scriptures are lies in whole or part, or else God directs His creation to respond immediately to His commands, and it obeys. No plague moves with this sort of swiftness and no fire comes from nowhere to selectively incinerate just those that have made themselves enemies to God. And as for a little bitty spot in the Earth opening up to swallow only those things that were propheseyed to be swallowed up ...we can see that it did not take place for perfectly logical and explainable reasons. Such specificity could only come from the Lord - and only if He really is in complete and perfect control of this world He created.
Aaron's Staff - Hey There Bud! (Numbers Chapter 17:16)
In order to settle in His people's minds, once and for all, that Aaron and Moses really did have His given authority to lead and rule His people, God provided an interesting proof. He had Moses direct a leader from each of the twelve tribes to bring forward a staff with their name written on it. And Aaron would have the staff for Levi with his name carved onto it. All the stafs would be layed down in the tent of meeting, in front of the commandments. The staff that belonged to the man that was God's choice would sprout.
All 12 tribes brought their staff, and they were placed as directed. The next day when Moses entered, Aaron's staff had not only sprouted, but had buds, leaves, blossoms, and even ripe almonds. The other staffs had not sprouted. All the princes came and took their unsprouted staffs and saw Aaron's blooming one. And the message must have been clear to them. Aaron's staff was thereafter kept in the tent of meeting in front of the commandments from that time forward as a warning to grumblers and rebels.
Who but God could do such a wonderful thing? Now there are those who read Genesis and the account of the six day creation, and they have trouble with the fact that it takes plants time to grow and animals time to grow, etc. It seems all the more fanciful to them for the reason that the natural timeframe for the maturation of created things must basically be ignored if you have a 6 day creation. Here is an example of an occurence that was observed by a group of about 2 million people. (there is an element of trust required to say no tampering occurred, granted, but since the Levites were a little jealous of Moses and Aaron we can be sure that a lot of people watched to make sure no funny business went on, and most Levites could come very close to the tabernacle to keep an eye on things.) These almond wood staffs are only one specimen of only one type of plant, but clearly it shows that it would trouble our God not a bit to speed up the growth processes of living things however he might choose to.
The Bronze Serpent - A Lot Like The Coming Jesus (Numbers Chapter 21:4)
The people travelled under Aaron and Moses through a particularly tough stretch of desert, where it was so hard that they began to complain a lot against Aaron and Moses about bringing them to this terrible place with it's bad food and shortness of water. God became angry and fed up with them, and led them into an area where a local type of serpent bit many of them, causing them to die.
The people suffered greatly from these little serpents, and they told Moses 'We have sinned in complaining against you and against the Lord. Please pray for us.' So Moses prayed for the people, and God relented and told him to make a serpent out of bronze (a rare instance of God directing the creation of a 'likeness of a thing' ) and place it on a pole. Whoever was bitten could go and look at the serpent, and would live. And this worked. Whoever was bitten by a serpent could live merely by having faith and looking at the bronze serpent on the pole. I'm guessing that this was remedy met with some initial skepticism, but once it worked, then I suppose the questions stopped.
Today Christians believe that Jesus, the Messiah, died to atone for the sins of all those that could not otherwise be saved. They have only to stop sinning, be baptized, and look to Jesus for eternal life, just as these wandering Israelites once looked to the lifted bronze serpent for life. Through Jesus's sacrifice and atoning shed blood, God will grant forgiveness to those that claim Jesus, God's son, as their Lord. I claim Jesus, and gratefully, as my Lord and savior, as the Son of God and the Messiah that was first sent to the Jews. Jesus say's that those who claim Him before other men, He will in turn claim before His Father on the day of judgement. And they will live when they should otherwise have died. It seems too simple, but so was looking at the bronze serpent. Yet what was promised was delivered, and looking to it for a cure really did work.
So it was with this bronze serpent on a pole. A serpent was synonymous with sin, as sin had come through the serpent to man, in the Garden of Eden. A bronze serpent on a pole was three things at least: 1) Attached to a pole and raised up. Jesus was later attached to a cross and raised up. 2) Made, as in fabricated. This bronze was fabricated into a serpent. Jesus, the scriptures say, was made to be man-flesh and made to be sin for our sakes. He otherwise lived a life without sin. 3) Bronze: Bronze denotes resistance to fire and heat, and Jesus was not harmed by His short stay in the flames of the underworld after his death. Also, taking bronze in another context, in Daniel's interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream there was a great statue made of differing metals as you looked from top to bottom, and bronze represented the Greek empire, not to come until the time of Alexander the Great over 200 years after this dream. (Daniel Chapter 2). But when the Jews were not convinced that Jesus was the Messiah it was the Greeks (Non-Jews) who accepted Him as their savior and as the true son of God made flesh. Foreigners in Jesus's day were sometimes referred to as 'the Greeks', regardless of their place of origin. It is this crucified Jesus that is currently acknowledged by us modern day 'Greeks' as the Messiah. One day the scriptures say that the Jews will see it also, and be cut to the heart. But it will not be too late for them.
**As for God having the 2nd of the 10 commandments basically say not to create any graven images of creatures and not to worship any such, it is well justified when you consider that this 'bronze serpent on a pole' had to be destroyed hundreds of years later by a God fearing King of Judah because people in His kingdom had for some time been worshipping it like a cult object - the very thing God knows people tend to do.**
End of Selected Deeds of Moses