Шмот 14:16 Комментарий: Chizkuni, Da'at Zekenim, Kli Yakar & Sforno

ואתה, הרם את מטך, “as far as you are concerned “raise your staff, etc,” Moses was not to lift his staff in order to orchestrate a miracle, but on the contrary, he was to raise his staff so that the people could see that the miracle was possible not only by means of striking the sea with his staff. G-d told Moses that all he had to do was make a threatening gesture and the waters would already split. Our author quotes examples of similar constructions, citing Daniel 8,11 הורם התמיד, “the daily communal offering was removed;” or Isaiah 57,14: הרימו מכשול מדרך עמי, “remove obstacles from the path of My people.” Verse 21 tells us that as soon as Mosesextended his staff G-d was making the sea respond to the east wind etc.

ויבואו בני ישראל, “the Children of Israel came;” this verse describes what happened on the seventh night of Passover. The problem with this interpretation is that Rashi states on Numbers15,41 that the eight strands of the tzitzit are to act as a reminder of the eight days the Israelites had to wait until they were able to break out in their famous song of redemption composed by Moses when they saw the dead bodies of the Egyptians being tossed back by the sea that had swallowed them. We would have to say that the day on which they prepared for the Exodus and offered the Paschal lamb is included in the days that Rashi referred to, seeing that they had been given notice of their impending departure. At any rate they had not prepared themselves with adequate provisions as the Torah tells us specifically in Exodus 12,39.

And you, raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea. In the Midrash (Shemot Rabbah 21:9), they said that since the Egyptians were saying, “If not for the staff, he could not have performed all these miracles,” therefore God said, Remove your staff and stretch out your hand, because raise [harem] is an expression of removal.
I will now provide a reason for why specifically at the splitting of the Red Sea did God command to remove the staff. This is because God wanted Moses to create below a parallel to everything that was done above. All the plagues were performed by the finger of God, therefore they were also done below through Moses’ staff, as the staff resembles a finger. However, at the sea, they were struck with the entire hand, as it says, And Israel saw the great hand, etc. Therefore, God told Moses to also create a parallel below by removing the staff which resembles a finger, and stretch out your hand — the entire hand — corresponding to the mighty hand of the Supreme One, blessed be He.
For this reason it says, And Israel saw the great hand, and in addition, they saw that it was not by the power of the staff that Moses performed all of this great and awesome deed, for he needed to stretch out his hand corresponding to the mighty hand above. Therefore, they believed in the Lord and in Moses His servant, as they retracted their previous statement that it was by the power of the staff that he accomplished all this.