The One True God of Israel had worked great miracles for the nation of Israel in the early chapters of Exodus, finally bringing his people out of Egypt, having plundered the wealth of the nation and destroying the Egyptian army.  Moses and the people praised God with a new song whose first verse is still sung all over the world: “I will sing unto the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously, the horse and rider thrown into the sea” (Exodus 15.1).

The song continue to describe the events at the Red Sea, and in verses 14-16 proclaims even more than they knew:  “The peoples have heard; they tremble; pangs have seized Philistia.  Now are the chiefs of Edom dismayed; trembling seizes the leaders of Moab; all the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away.  Terror and dread fall upon them; because of the greatness of your arm, they are still as a stone…”

God moves ahead of the people.  Even though they spend forty years in the wilderness as a result of their disobedience, the nations remember what God has done.  Years have passed when the Israelites approach Jericho, but Rahab can explain her actions to the Hebrew spies in Joshua 2.8-11: “I know that the LORD has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you.  For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Read Sea before you when you came out of Egypt… And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you, for the LORD your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.”

God had promised the land to Abraham’s descendants 500 years prior. Making people remember and their hearts melt because of forty-year- old events is part of His glorious plan to redeem his people.  That same plan continues today as God’s people share the Good News of Jesus Christ, and God continues to change hearts.