On Eagles’ Wings (Ex. 19:4)? - NEW

Many of you know that God describes how he bore, or carried, Israel out of Egypt “on eagles’ wings”. Have you wondered what that could mean?

Exodus 19:3-4 “And Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, "Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel: 4 'You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to Myself.”

I’m convinced that from where they left Goshen to arriving at the Red Sea crossing, our great YHVH did some supernatural miracles to allow them to travel 272 miles in perhaps as short as 5-6 days.

WE will have our own Red Sea moments, especially in the years ahead, when only the supernatural will deliver us, so that’s why I’m focusing on this. But we humans like to be over-factual. Things to us have to make sense. But when we’re dealing with the spirit world of God and his abilities, He can go way beyond what makes sense to us. If you over analyze what “must” happen, you might miss some miracles, LIKE flying out on our own eagle’s wings. I’ll explain.

I also believe the evidence that God hurried them along, beyond the normal possible human limits as you will see, leads me to believe He wanted them to be at a certain spot by the Last day, a holy day, of Unleavened Bread. There would be no need to hurry them along if they didn’t have to arrive someplace – the real crossing of the real Red Sea – within a certain time frame. Yes, I believe they crossed on the Last day of Unleavened Bread.

I urge you to listen to the audio sermon on how WE will also increasingly have our own “Red Sea moments” in these last days and see powerful miracles if we believe.

God made sure they were all strong and healthy when they left. Nobody was feeble according to Psalm 105:37. Did you realize God even arranged things so they could travel day or night?

Exodus 13:21-22 NIV   “By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could TRAVEL BY DAY OR NIGHT. 22 Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.”

They camped only three times but that’s all (Numbers 33:3-8) – at Succoth, Etham and near Migdol. It’s all clearly explained in my audio sermon. So the other days they were apparently traveling day and night. We would say “IMPOSSIBLE” to expect 2-3 million people and their herds and flocks to travel day and night. That’s where our miracle-working God comes in though. 

Psalms 105:36-40 NKJV   “He also destroyed all the firstborn in their land,

The first of all their strength. 37 He also brought them out with silver and gold, And there was none feeble among His tribes. 38 Egypt was glad when they departed, For the fear of them had fallen upon them. 39 He spread a cloud for a covering, And fire to give light in the night.”

Then again remember, in Ex 19:4 God says HE brought Israel out “on eagles’ wings”. Here’s what one of the commentaries had to say. 

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(4) I bare you on eagles' wings.--Comp. Deuteronomy 32:11, “When its young are first fledged, the eagle is said to assist them in their flight by flying beneath them, so that they may settle upon its wings or back, if necessary. God means that He has bestowed upon His people the same tender and powerful care, has borne them up mightily when they might have fallen, supported their first flight as fledglings, and so saved them from disaster”.

This theme from God of carrying or bearing Israel up continues in many other scriptures. Notice a bunch more scriptures that gives clues as to what God may have been doing. (I go into many more possibilities in the sermon.)  In Deut 32, focus especially on verse 11. 

Deuteronomy 32:9-12 NKJV   “For the LORD’s portion is His people; Jacob is the place of His inheritance. 10 "He found him in a desert land and in the wasteland, a howling wilderness; He encircled him, He instructed him, He kept him as the apple of His eye.

11 As an EAGLE stirs up its nest, Hovers over its young, Spreading out its wings, taking them up, carrying them on its wings, 12 So the LORD alone led him, And there was no foreign god with him.”  

WOW, did you read all that carefully? Here are 2 more translations of verse 11.

Deut 32:11 NIV “like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them aloft”. 

Deut 32:11 Legacy  “Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, That hovers over its young, He spread His wings and caught them; He carried them on His pinions.”

Deut 32:11 – Aramaic Bible in Plain English   “As the eagle that flies over his nest and broods over his chicks, he spreads his wings and takes them and picks them up on the strength of his wings:”

Deut 32:11 Brenton Septuagint Translation “As an eagle would watch over his brood, and yearns over his young, receives them having spread his wings, and takes them up on his back,”

There’s more going on here than just walking fast, with children, old people and flocks, etc.

Other Scriptures verify that whatever God did, He equated it to carrying them.

Deuteronomy 1:29-33 NKJV   "Then I said to you, 'Do not be terrified, or afraid of them. 30 The LORD your God, who goes before you, He will fight for you, according to all He did for you in Egypt before your eyes, 31 and in the wilderness where you saw how YHVH your God CARRIED YOU as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went until you came to this place.'

32 Yet, for all that, you did not believe the Lord your God, 33 who went in the way before you to search out a place for you to pitch your tents, to show you the WAY You SHOULD GO, in the fire by night and in the cloud by day.” (Ex 13:21)

Isaiah 46:3-4   "Listen to Me, O house of Jacob, And all the remnant of the house of Israel, Who have been upheld by Me from birth,

Who have been carried from the womb: 4 Even to your old age, I am He,

And even to gray hairs I will CARRY you! I have made, and I will bear; Even I will carry, and will deliver you”.

Isaiah 40:31 NKJV   “But those who wait on YHVH shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like EAGLES, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint”.

Isaiah 63:9   “In all their affliction HE was afflicted, And the Angel of His Presence saved them; In His love and in His pity He redeemed them; And He bore them and CARRIED them all the days of old.”

Surely something supernatural had to be going on. They could travel up to 272 miles total, when needed, day and night. They were not tired or feeble. Scripture quotes God saying He CARRIED them. Many more possibilities are in my sermon on this. It will make you think.

And remember, things don’t have to “make sense” when it comes to what God is capable of.

Manna made no human sense. Walking on water –including Peter walking on water – makes no human sense. Resurrecting a man dead 4 days already (Lazarus) makes no sense either. Supernatural events were going on even before the crossing of the Red Sea.

You know about the walls of water above the Israelites as they crossed 8-9 miles to Midian, to Arabia – where the real Mt Sinai is (Galatians 4:25). The so-called “Sinai Peninsula” was never part of Arabia or ever in Midian!

Galatians 4:25 “for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children”

I also mentioned in the sermon that they walked the entire route not on soft sand, but on a highway. They could travel much faster this way. 

Isaiah 11:16 Holman Apologetics    “There will be a highway for the remnant of His people who will survive from Assyria, AS THERE WAS for Israel when they came up from the land of Egypt.”

Moses and Miriam led Israel in a song and dance of celebration after God’s victory over Egypt in the Red Sea. Now notice part of their song in Ex. 15:8 

Exodus 15:8   “And with the blast of Your nostrils the waters were gathered together; The floods stood upright like a heap; The depths CONGEALED in the heart of the sea.”

The Hebrew word translated “congealed” means “congealed”. The ground became rock hard. That made it easier to hurry across and possible for chariots and horses to cross easily as well – that is, until God took their chariot wheels OFF!

Most translations on Exodus 15:8 also say “congealed”. But look at these. NIV also says congealed. New Living translation says, “the deep waters became HARD.”

Good News translation says, “the deepest part of the sea became SOLID.”

Just thinking out loud now as Dr E Martin and others have also wondered: Is it possible that with God’s storm-like winds against the Red Sea that the walls and bottom of the sea became frozen, rock hard, like walking across a deeply frozen lake in Canada? Some have floated that possibility. All I know is that the Bible says the deeps became rock hard solid dry surface. To Israel, it was like walking across on a concrete-like surface.

The deepest part of the Gulf of Aqaba Red Sea by the way is 6,070 feet deep (1,850 meters). If they crossed at the shallower underwater land bridge from Nuweiba Beach to Midian, even there, the walls could have easily been hundreds of feet high – say 20-50 stories high or higher, and not even touch the real possible heights.

And yet God says in the very last days, when he brings his people back from around the world where they will have been sold as slaves, those events of bringing them back to the land of Israel will be so spectacular that nobody will even remember the Red Sea story. So some VERY exciting miracles are yet ahead of us.

Be getting closer to God than ever before. Spend more time in constant contact prayer with God and in his word. BELIEVE, and you will see and experience some amazing things in the years ahead.

We’re told that God’s children of the Philadelphian type will be protected from the Great Tribulation, coming soon to test those on the earth (Revelation 3:10). Those of the Laodicea type will not be protected but may have to give up their lives to show God they are in earnest, as they “buy from me gold refined in the fire” (Rev. 3:18).

How will God’s people be protected? Revelation 12 says God will fly them to their place, singular, in the wilderness – are you ready for this? “ON EAGLES” WINGS”.

Revelation 12:13-14 “ Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child. 14 But the woman was given two wings of a great EAGLE, that she might FLY into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent.”

Once again, being borne on the wings of a great eagle. Keep your eyes open.