"It is fiercely Jewish. There is a touch of Judith, of Jael, of Deborah in it,--no quarter, no delay, no mercy for the enemies of the Most High; 'He smote.' And when for variety's sake the scimitar-phrase is transferred from orchestra to voices, it is admirable to see how the same character of the falchion--of hip-and-thigh warfare, of victory predominant--is sustained in the music till the last bar. If we have from Handel a scorn-chorus in the 'Messiah,' and here a disgust-chorus, referred to a little while since,[3] this is the execution, or revenge chorus,--the chorus of the unflinching, inflexible, commissioned Angels of the Sword."
After their savage mission is accomplished, we come to a chorus in pastoral style ("But as for His People, He led them forth like Sheep"), slow, tender, serene, and lovely in its movement, and grateful to the ear both in its quiet opening and animated, happy close, after the terrors which have preceded it. The following chorus ("Egypt was glad"), usually omitted in performance, is a fugue, both strange and intricate, which it is claimed Handel appropriated from an Italian canzonet by Kerl. The next two numbers are really one. The two choruses intone the words, "He rebuked the Red Sea," in a majestic manner, accompanied by a few massive chords, and then pass to the glorious march of the Israelites, "He led them through the Deep,"--a very elaborate and complicated number, but strong, forcible, and harmonious throughout, and held together by the stately opening theme with which the basses ascend. It is succeeded by another graphic chorus ("But the Waters overwhelmed their Enemies"), in which the roll and dash of the billows closing over Pharaoh's hosts are closely imitated by the instruments, and through which in the close is heard the victorious shout of the Israelites, "There was not one of them left." Two more short choruses,--the first, "And Israel saw that Great Work," which by many critics is not believed to be a pure Handel number, and its continuation, "And believed the Lord," written in church style, close this extraordinary chain of choral pictures.