How many significant lessons have you absorbed from the
history of neighboring provinces or states back in the 1640s, and how often do
you reference them when making important decisions today? My guess would be not
too many, and not very often.
At the Red Sea, shortly after the final vanquishing of the
Egyptian army, Moses and the people of Israel sang these words to the Lord: “The
peoples have heard; they tremble; pangs have seized the inhabitants of Philistia.” Perhaps at the time that was more anticipatory than precisely accurate:
Philistia was all the way across the Sinai Peninsula. It seems unlikely the
news of Pharaoh’s stunning defeat could have traveled so far so fast.