Sunk to the Bottom like a Stone: Pharao's Army, Our Sins, and the Millstone of Babylon
Old Testament: Exodus 14:28; Exodus 15:4-5
And the waters returned, and covered the chariots and the horsemen of all the army of Pharao, who had come into the sea after them, neither did there so much as one of them remain. ... Pharao's chariots and his army he hath cast into the sea: his chosen captains are drowned in the Red Sea. The depths have covered them, they are sunk to the bottom like a stone.
Old Testament, also: Micheas 7:18-19
Who is a God like to thee, who takest away iniquity, and passest by the sin of the remnant of thy inheritance? he will send his fury in no more, because he delighteth in mercy. He will turn again, and have mercy on us: he will put away our iniquities: and he will cast all our sins into the bottom of the sea.
New Testament: 1 Corinthians 10:1-2; Romans 6:4, 6
For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. And all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud, and in the sea. ... For we are buried together with him by baptism into death; that as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life. ... Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer.
The connection
Pharao's army followed Israel into the sea, "And the waters returned, and covered the chariots and the horsemen of all the army of Pharao ... neither did there so much as one of them remain" (Exodus 14:28). Moses sang it on the far shore: "Pharao's chariots and his army he hath cast into the sea ... The depths have covered them, they are sunk to the bottom like a stone" (15:4-5). Micheas heard the same sea in God's mercy: "Who is a God like to thee, who takest away iniquity ...? He will turn again, and have mercy on us: he will put away our iniquities: and he will cast all our sins into the bottom of the sea" (Micheas 7:18-19). The enemy that chased Israel becomes the sins that chase us, and the sea that swallowed the one swallows the other. St Paul names the crossing a baptism: "our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. And all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud, and in the sea" (1 Corinthians 10:1-2). "We are buried together with him by baptism into death ... that the body of sin may be destroyed" (Romans 6:4, 6). St Augustine says it outright: our sins "are overwhelmed and extinguished in Baptism, just as the Egyptians were drowned in the sea", and he quotes Micheas, "Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea." St Jerome agrees: "it is to the grace of baptism that the prophecy of Micah refers". The Catechism teaches that the crossing of the Red Sea, the liberation of Israel from the slavery of Egypt, announces the liberation wrought by Baptism (CCC 1221).
Moral sense
Israel did not go back to the water to look for Pharao's captains. Whatever has been confessed lies at the bottom of the sea, and God does not send divers after it. The danger is the other drowning: "they that will become rich, fall into temptation ... which drown men into destruction and perdition" (1 Timothy 6:9), and Christ's warning that whoever scandalizes one of His little ones would be better off with "a millstone ... hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea" (Matthew 18:6).
Anagogical sense
At the end the sea takes the last enemy city: "a mighty angel took up a stone, as it were a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying: With such violence as this shall Babylon, that great city, be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all" (Apocalypse 18:21). Then the sea itself is gone: "I saw a new heaven and a new earth ... and the sea is now no more" (21:1). What was sunk like a stone is never seen again.
The Fathers
St Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, Psalm 113 (114 in Schaff): "those very enemies of ours, who followed us flying, that they might slay us, that is, our sins, which are overwhelmed and extinguished in Baptism, just as the Egyptians were drowned in the sea, saying, since He retaineth not His anger for ever, because He is of good will and merciful, He will turn again, He will have compassion upon us, He will drown our iniquities: and Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea." St Jerome, Letter LXIX, to Oceanus: "it is to the grace of baptism that the prophecy of Micah refers: He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us: he will subdue our iniquities, and will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea."
Warrant
Patristic. St Paul names the crossing of the sea a baptism (1 Corinthians 10:2); St Augustine makes the drowning of Pharao's army the drowning of our sins in Baptism, quoting Micheas 7:19 (Expositions on the Psalms, Psalm 113, 114 in Schaff), and St Jerome refers the same prophecy of Micheas to the grace of baptism (Letter LXIX, to Oceanus). Checked in the Greek: the army katedysan eis bython hosei lithos, sank into the deep like a stone (Exodus 15:5), and Micheas 7:19 says God katadysei tas adikias hemon, will sink our iniquities, the same verb, and they shall be cast eis ta bathe tes thalasses. The millstone of Apocalypse 18:21 is a lithos cast into the sea, as the army went down like a lithos. The crossing as the way through the water has its own entry in The Spirit over the Waters; this one follows what is left at the bottom. Dunk found the entry from the verses where men are drowned, from the Red Sea to the millstone.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1221.
The verses
Exodus 14:28 · Exodus 15:4 · Exodus 15:5 · Micheas 7:18 · Micheas 7:19 · 1 Corinthians 10:1 · 1 Corinthians 10:2 · Romans 6:4 · Romans 6:6
