In the Bible it is recorded that after the Israelites had been freed from slavery in Egypt and were being led by Moses to the Promised Land, Pharaoh changed his decision to free them and pursued them to bring them back into slavery.
When the Israelites saw their previous captors pursuing them with horses and chariots—the advanced military vehicles of that age—they became afraid. They bitterly complained to Moses, “It had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness” (Exodus 14:12). Their anticipation of death in the near future, combined with their fear-filled focus on the past, kept them from expecting good in the present.
Used to a life that was hard, unjust, and filled with constant suffering, these former slaves likely could see only two possible outcomes of a confrontation with the Egyptian army: They would again serve the tyrant in a life of limits and misery, or they would follow Moses and die in the wilderness. Either one spelled disaster.
