What Does Exodus 14:31 Mean?

Israel saw the great power that the LORD used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the LORD, and they believed in the LORD and in his servant Moses. The sea crossing's final verse reports two responses: fear and faith. "They feared the LORD" (Hebrew: vayiru et YHWH): the transition from "they feared greatly" when they saw Pharaoh's army (verse 10) to "they feared the LORD" when they saw YHWH defeat Pharaoh's army. The same fear-verb (yira) applied first to the Egyptian threat and now to YHWH himself: the sea crossing redirects the people's fear from Egypt to YHWH. The right object of fear has been established through the miracle.

"They believed in the LORD and in his servant Moses": the faith response to the sea crossing is both theological (believed in the LORD) and relational (believed in Moses). The compound faith, in YHWH and in his prophet, is the covenant faith structure: you cannot separate trust in YHWH from trust in the human mediator through whom YHWH has spoken and acted. Moses' ministry is validated by the sea crossing: the prophet who led Israel to the sea and stretched his hand over it has demonstrated that his words are YHWH's words and his actions are effective.

John 12:37-38 cites Isaiah 53:1 after noting that despite Jesus' signs the people did not believe, connecting the lack-of-belief to the sea crossing's positive faith model: at the sea, seeing YHWH's great power produced faith.

John's Gospel is structured around signs (semeia) that should produce faith; the sea crossing's faith-from-signs is the Old Testament prototype. Hebrews 11:29 explicitly cites the sea crossing as a faith-act: "By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as if on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned." The faith that Exodus 14:31 reports is the faith that Hebrews 11:29 attributes to Israel at the sea.