In 1956, director/producer Cecil B. DeMille tried to do in motion pictures what artists had attempted to do for centuries on canvas: capture this moment.

It is the ancient writer of the book of Exodus who reports and describes the moment for us. And the children of Israel, in prayers and songs for centuries afterward, remembered the moment, and the God who brought it all to pass.

The Hebrew people, newly freed from their slavery in Egypt, had just begun their journey toward the promised land. They would go by way of Mount Sinai, where they would receive God's law.

If the people had charted their own course, their logical choice would have been to travel the shortest distance between the two points of their origin and their destination. Leaving Egypt in the west, they would have traveled…