And were all baptized unto Moses
"In or by Moses"; and so the Syriac version renders it,
(avwm dyb) , "by the hand
of Moses"; by his means and direction, he going before, they
followed after him into the sea, and passed through on dry land,
and came out on the shore, which carried in it a resemblance of
baptism; when they believed the Lord, and his servant Moses, (
Exodus
14:31 ) and gave up themselves to him as their leader and
commander through the wilderness: and this their baptism was
in the cloud, and in the sea;
which may be considered either as together or separately; if
together, the agreement between them and baptism lay in this; the
Israelites, when they passed through the Red sea, hid the waters
on each side of them, which stood up as a wall higher than they,
and the cloud over them, so that they were as persons immersed in
and covered with water; and very fitly represented the ordinance
of baptism as performed by immersion; and which is the way it was
administered in the apostles' time, to which he refers; and is
the only way it ought to be administered in; and in which only
the Israelites' passage through the sea, and under the cloud,
could be a figure of it: or this may be considered separately,
they were baptized in the cloud; which was either, as Gataker
F7 thinks, when the cloud went from
before the face of the Israelites, and stood behind them, and was
between the two camps, to keep off the Egyptians from them, which
as it passed over them let down a plentiful rain upon them,
whereby they were in such a condition as if they had been all
over dipped in water; or their being all under the cloud, and all
over covered with it, was a representation of the ordinance of
baptism, in which a person is all over covered with water; and
then they were baptized in the sea, as they passed through it,
the waters standing up above their heads, they seemed as if they
were immersed in it. Very great is the resemblance between that
passage of theirs, and baptism. For instance, their following
Moses into the sea, which is meant by their being "baptized into
him", was an acknowledgment of their regard unto him, as their
guide and governor, as baptism is a following of Christ, who has
left us an example that we should tread in his steps; and is an
owning him to be our prophet to teach us, and lead us the way;
and it is a profession of our faith in him, as our surety and
Saviour, and a subjection to him as our King and Governor. This
their baptism in the sea was after their coming out of Egypt, and
at their first entrance on their journey to Canaan's land, as our
baptism is, or should be, after a person is brought out of worse
than Egyptian bondage and darkness, and has believed on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and at the beginning of his profession of him, and
entrance on his Christian race. The descent of the Israelites
into the sea, when they seemed as buried in the waters, and their
ascent out of it again on the shore, has a very great agreement
with baptism, as administered by immersion, in which the person
baptized goes down into the water, is buried with Christ therein,
and comes up out of it as out of a grave, or as the children of
Israel out of the Red sea; and as they, when they came out of it,
could rejoice and sing in the view of their salvation and safety,
and of the destruction of all their enemies, so the believer can,
and does rejoice in this ordinance, in the view of his salvation
by Christ, and safety in him, and of all his sins being buried
and drowned in the sea of his blood; witness the instances of the
eunuch and jailer. But though the Israelites were all in this
sense baptized, yet they did not all inherit the land of Canaan.