Exodus 14:7

And he took six hundred chosen chariots,.... The chief and best he had, war chariots, chariots of iron; perhaps such as had iron scythes to them, to cut down men as they drove along; these were taken

And it was told the king of Egypt that the people fled: and the heart of Pharaoh and of his servants was turned against the people, and they said, Why have we done this, that we have let Israel go from serving us?

Quest. How. could he use or carry his chariots, when all his horses were killed by that plague? . Answ. That plague slew only the horses which were in the field, , not those kept in houses, as the chariot-horses generally were, and now are. All the chariots, i.e. a great number; all that could be got together in haste, which the present service required. Over every one of them; over the men that fought out of every chariot. Or, over all of them; the command of all these chariots being distributed to several captains or commanders.

Exodus 14:7 And he took six hundred chosen chariots, and all the chariots of Egypt, and captains over every one of them.Ver. 7. Six hundred chosen chariots.] They fought of old out of chariots armed with scythes and hooks; which at first were a terror, and after a scorn. Veget., lib. i. cap. 24.

(7) Six hundred chosen chariots.—The chariot force was that on which the Egyptians chiefly relied for victory from the beginning of the eighteenth dynasty. Diodorus Siculus assigns to his Sesostris (probably Rameses II.) a force of 27,000 chariots; but this is, no doubt, an exaggeration. The largest number of chariots brought together on any one occasion that is sufficiently attested, is believed by the present writer to be 3,940, which were collected by various confederates against an Assyrian king (Ancient Monarchies, vol. ii, p. 103, Note). In 1 Samuel 13:5, 30,000 chariots are mentioned, no doubt by some numerical error. A force of 2,500 is said by Rameses II. to have been brought against him in his great Hittite campaign (Records of the Past, vol. ii., pp. 69, 71). Sheshonk I. (Shishak) invaded Judaea with 1,200 (2 Chronicles 12:3). The “six hundred chosen chariots” of the present passage are thus quite within the limits of probability. Most likely they constituted a division of the royal guard, and were thus always at the king’s disposal. And all the chariots of Egypt.—The word “all” must not be pressed. The writer means “all that were available—that could be readily summoned.” These could only be the chariots of Lower Egypt—those stationed at Memphis, Heliopolis, Bubastis, Pithom, Sebennytus perhaps, and Pelusium. They would probably amount to several hundreds. Captains over every one of them.—Rather, over the whole of them. These “captains” are again mentioned in Exodus 15:4. The word in the original—a derivative from the numeral three—is supposed to have meant, primarily, “persons occupying the third rank below the king.”

Verse 7. Six hundred chosen chariots, c.] According to the most authentic accounts we have of war-chariots, they were frequently drawn by two or by four horses, and carried three persons: one was charioteer, whose business it was to guide the horses, but he seldom fought the second chiefly defended the charioteer; and the third alone was properly the combatant. It appears that in this case Pharaoh had collected all the cavalry of Egypt; (see Exodus 14:17); and though these might not have been very numerous, yet, humanly speaking, they might easily overcome the unarmed and encumbered Israelites, who could not be supposed to be able to make any resistance against cavalry and war-chariots.

7. all the chariots] i.e. all the other chariots. and knights upon (not ‘over’) all of them] The Heb. shβlξsh is not the word usually rendered ‘captain’; but denotes apparently some superior kind of military officer: in 2 Kings 7:2; 2 Kings 7:17; 2 Kings 9:25; 2 Kings 10:25; 2 Kings 15:25 it is used of a military attendant of the king,—or, in the plural, of a body of such attendants,—such as we might, for distinction, call a knight: the same rend. would suit also Exodus 15:4, Ezekiel 23:15; Ezekiel 23:23, 2 Chronicles 8:9 (in 2 Samuel 23:8 = 1 Chronicles 11:11 RVm. ‘three’ [ωμωδ] should probably be read for ‘captains’ [ωμων]). From the resemblance of the word to the Heb. for ‘three’ it has often been supposed to denote the third man in a chariot (cf. LXX. in Ex. and Kings, τριστάτης), i.e. the shield-bearer (by the side of the driver and the bowman). But (1) as appears from pictorial representations (see ill. in Wilk.-B. i. 223 f.), the Egyptian war-chariot was manned, except in triumphal processions (Wilk.-B. l.c.; EB. i. 726), by only two occupants, the driver and the bowman (EB. l.c.; Erman, p. 547); the chariots of the Hittites had three occupants (see ill. in EB. i. 729, or Erman, l.c.), but this, at the battle of Kadesh on the Orontes, under Rameses II, surprised the Egyptians (Erman, l.c.); the Assyrian chariots also carried only two occupants. (2) The shβlοshim, are not in any of the other passages where they are mentioned specially associated with chariots,—even in 2 Kings 9:25, Bidkar is not necessarily Jehu’s chariot-attendant; and in Exodus 15:4 the expression, ‘the choice of his shβlξshim,’ would seem to suggest some more select and distinguished body than those who took only the third place in the chariots. We cannot be sure of the precise sense which was felt to attach to the word; but knight seems to suit all the passages in which it occurs. It may mean properly (Di.) ‘a man of the third rank.’ 8–9 (P). The sequel to v. 4.

Six hundred chosen chariots - The Egyptian army comprised large numbers of chariots, each drawn by two horses, with two men, one bearing the shield and driving, the other fully armed.

7. Six hundred — This was a picked chariot force, and Josephus adds, from traditional sources, that there were fifty thousand horsemen and two hundred thousand footmen.