Charles Ellicott Commentary Exodus 14:9

"And the Egyptians pursued after them, all the horses [and] chariots of Pharaoh, and his horsemen, and his army, and overtook them encamping by the sea, beside Pihahiroth, before Baal-zephon." — Exodus 14:9 (ASV)

All the horses and chariots of Pharaoh. —That is, in Hebrew, all the chariot-horses of Pharaoh.

And his horsemen. —It is questioned whether “horsemen” are really intended here, and it is suggested that the word used may apply to the “riders” in the chariots. However, it certainly means “horsemen” in the later books of Scripture and, indeed, is the only Hebrew word with exactly that meaning. Although the Egyptians do not represent cavalry in any of their battle pieces, there is abundant testimony that they employed them. Diodorus Siculus states that Sesostris had 24,000 cavalry to 27,000 chariots (Book 1, Chapter 54, § 4).

Shishak invaded Judea with 60,000 (2 Chronicles 12:3). Herodotus reports Amasis leading an army on horseback (Book 2, Chapter 162). The Egyptian monuments also appear to mention cavalry frequently as forming a portion of the armed force (see Records of the Past, volume 2, pages 68, 70, 72, 83, etc.; volume 4, pages 41, 44, 45, etc.). It is suspected that some conventional rules of art prevented the representation of cavalry in the sculptures, which never show an Egyptian, and rarely a foreigner, on horseback.

And his army —that is, his infantry. The host of this Pharaoh, like that of Shishak (2 Chronicles 12:3), apparently consisted of the three branches: cavalry, infantry, and chariots.