When the last Israelite left the western shore of the Red Sea, the cloud followed and permitted the Egyptians to see that the Hebrews had escaped. The Egyptians advanced immediately to the seashore, and finding the channel still dry, hastily entered and pressed forward in hot pursuit. Only when the entire Egyptian host was in the midst of the sea did the pillar of cloud become for them a pillar of fire and reveal to them their precarious location (1T 265; 4T 25).