KJV Exodus 15:5,11 They sank into the bottom as a stone … Who is like Thee, O Lord, among the gods”
NASB Exodus 15:5,11 They went down into the depths like a stone… Who is like You among the gods, O LORD?”
KJV Micah 7:18 Who is a God like unto Thee, that pardons iniquity …”
NASB Micah 7:18 Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity …”
The story of the Passover and the Exodus from Egypt is familiar to each of us. But at the Red Sea, Israel faced another challenge. The feared might of Egypt had pursued and hemmed them in between the mountains and the Sea. Moses cried unto the Lord, and God divided the waters and enabled Israel to cross on dry land. Then, “by the breath of His nostrils” (Ex 15:8), the Egyptian army was slain.
Israel stood triumphant on the banks of the Red Sea. The feared enemy, Pharaoh and his army, had been vanquished. The hand of God had triumphed. The armies of Egypt, their chariots and soldiers, lay buried beneath the waters of the Red Sea. So complete was the victory that the inspired writer tells us that “there remained not so much as one of them” (Ex 14:28).
Fast forward (or, if you please, in reverse) to circa 700 B.C. Micah the prophet has been prophesying to Israel and Judah of the coming judgment of God. The failure of a materialistic society and the ills it had spawned are detailed for us. The righteous nature of the judgment of God is presented. The picture is bleak and tragic. Interspersed are gleams of hope, such as the coming of the Babe of Bethlehem in Chapter 5.
But ere his voice fades from our ears, Micah has one final message of hope and blessing. Speaking of a future day, a day still future for the nation, he envisions a day of forgiveness and recovery. Amazingly, his language almost repeats that of Moses seven centuries earlier, but it rises far above Exodus 15 in character.
He celebrates, once again, the uniqueness of God and His greatness (Ex 15:11 and Micah 7:18). The covenant of God with His people is either explicitly mentioned or inferred (Ex 15:17 and Micah 7:20). He also alludes to the Sea (Ex 15:4; Micah 7:19). But there is this fundamental and blessed difference. In Exodus, it is an army at the bottom of the Sea; in Micah, it is our sins at the bottom of the Sea (v 19).
While it was a miracle of divine power that laid the Egyptian army low, it is a miracle of divine grace that cast our sins “into the depths of the sea.” It cost God nothing to defeat Pharaoh and his army. It cost God everything to forgive our sins. How much greater is our spiritual blessing compared to Israel’s physical deliverance?
But we have known redemption, Lord
From bondage worse than there’s by far
Micah’s prophecy may have its first interpretation concerning the nation and may look to a future day, but we have known the same forgiveness that has forgiven us “all our trespasses and sins.” If there is a link with Exodus 14 and 15, it is that we will not see “not so much as one of them” ever rise up against us. Our sins and trespasses have all been buried in the Sea. The work of the cross, the value of the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, has settled the matter eternally.
You might be interested in reading this Gospel Message here: Mariana Trench and the Forgiveness of Sins
Consider
Think of some of the metaphors employed in the Old Testament for how God has dealt with our sins: blotted out, cast behind His back, as far as the east is from the west, etc.