bottom of the sea, kept me there for fifty days, released me then,
and brought me up. Thus I could not but believe in Him." [54]

God caused the Egyptians to be washed ashore in their death
struggle. There were four reasons for this. The Israelites were not
to say that as they themselves had escaped, so also the Egyptians
had passed through the sea dryshod, only the latter had gone in
another direction, and therefore had vanished from sight. The
Egyptians, on the other hand, were not to think that the children of
Israel had been drowned in the sea like themselves. In the third
place, the Israelites were to have, as their booty, the silver, gold,
and other precious things with which the Egyptians were decked;
and, finally, the Israelites were to enjoy the satisfaction of seeing
their enemies suffer. With their finger thy could point them out
one by one, saying, "This one way my taskmaster, who beat me
with those fists of his at which the dogs are now gnawing, and
yonder Egyptian, the dogs are chewing the feet with which he
kicked me."

As they lay on the shore in their last agony, they had to witness
their own destruction and the victory of the Israelites, and they also
beheld the suffering of their brethren that had remained behind in
Egypt, for God poured out His punishment over the whole people,
whether in Egypt or at the Red Sea. [55] As for the corpses by the
shores of the sea, they did not remain unburied, the earth
swallowed them, by way of reward for Pharaoh's having
acknowledged the justice of the chastisement that had been
inflicted upon king and people. Before their corpses had been
disposed of in this way, there had been a quarrel between the earth
and the sea. The sea said to the earth, "Take thy children unto