Did Moses actually part the Red Sea?

I read in my Bible today and yesterday about Moses and the ten plagues God sent to Egypt because Pharaoh was too stubborn to let the Israelites go.

Even if you haven't read this story directly from the Bible, you will most likely be familiar with it, thanks to classic feature films such as The Ten Commandments starring Yule Brynner as Pharaoh and Charlton Heston as Moses, and The Prince of Egypt animated film.

Well, these last two days, I discovered something that I had never noticed before. I even pointed it out to my intelligent, Bible-scholar-type-and-also-a-history-buff husband James, and he, too, had not noticed it.

Funnily enough, these last two days he had also read the same Bible passages that I had, but somehow hadn't noticed what I did. LOL.

So, what is this interesting news? It is this: Moses was not the person who threw his staff down to the ground where it became a snake. Moses was also not the person who raised his staff and initiated the first three plagues (water turning to blood, frogs, lice).

It was Aaron, Moses' older brother!

Aaron was the one who threw his staff down (Ex 7:10b), who lifted up his rod and struck the waters of the Nile (Ex 7:19-20), who stretched out his staff over the waters of Egypt to cause frogs to come out of them (Ex 8:6), and who struck the dust of the land with his staff so that it turned into lice (Ex 8:17).

It was Aaron!

As for the remaining 7 plagues, the Bible does not specify who performed the initiating move to cause the plagues, only that Moses confronted Pharaoh and declared that if he didn't let the Israelites go, then ______ (fill in the blank) would happen.

I find it so interesting that I never noticed this before. I don't know if this was because I have been influenced by movies made about this very story, so that prior to this week, I hadn't read what actually happened, but instead read what I thought happened. It just goes to show that we all view our world, read books and hear what people say through our own individual set of filters.

Of course, James asked the clever question and we immediately looked it up: did Moses actually part the Red Sea?

Answer: Yes, he did (Ex 14:21). Well, at least we all got that part right!

Philosophical side note: yes, yes, you could be pedantic and say, no Moses didn't, God did, etc, etc, and I would agree with you on this point, but please remember the purpose of this post is to point out that Aaron was the one who followed God's instructions in order for God to do what God did. ;)