AS A STONE

Today’s picture features as part of a song of praise. Moses and the children of Israel were not only rejoicing in their escape from Egyptian bondage, but in the amazing manifestation of divine power that saw them safe on the wilderness side of the Red Sea. Their pursuers had drowned and were washed up on the sea­shore, Exod. 14. 30. When reflecting on the nation’s history, subsequent generations almost invariably focused on this occa­sion as an outstanding display of God’s ‘mighty power’, Ps. 106. 8, 9. Even their enemies quailed when news of the event reached them, Josh. 2. 9, 10. Our God is omnipotent.

So the people sang their praises, and spoke of a stone. Stones are used illustratively in different areas of the word, and the sig­nificance is determined by the context. The fact that the law was written on tables of stone is an indication of its inflexible nature, Exod. 24. 12. Stones from the Jordan were to remind the people of Israel that the river was dried up to facilitate their entrance into Canaan, Josh. 4. 1-24. Samuel raised a memorial stone too; he called it Eben-ezer, a ‘stone of help’, a perpetual reminder that ‘hitherto hath the Lord helped us’, 1 Sam. 7. 12. When Simon first encountered the Saviour, He was given a surname Cephas, Peter, ‘a stone’, John 1. 42, doubtless an indication that, whatever he been before, he would become a strong, stable servant of Christ. The adamant stone is illustrative of the hardheartedness that persistently rejects the word of God, Zech. 7. 12.

Frequently, a stone is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Jews regarded Him as a stone not fit for the building; God has made Him the head of the corner, Ps. 118. 22. To them He was ‘a stone of stumbling’; to God He is ‘a chief corner stone, elect, precious’, 1 Pet. 2. 6-8. Daniel depicts Him as a stone ‘cut out without hands’ that ‘became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth’, Dan. 2. 34, 35. It all foreshadows the smash­ing of Gentile dominion in the world, and the universal reign of Christ.

In today’s reading all that is being said is that Pharaoh’s army sank as swiftly and surely as if a stone had been dropped in the water, or as the dead weight of lead, v. 10.