There are many questions one might wonder about after the departure of Bnei Yisrael from Mitzrayim. For instance, what did Mitzrayim look like as the freed slaves paraded out of the territory. Devastated and decimated, one can only assume that Egypt had the feel of a war zone. Even beyond the damage of the plagues, well over a million of the residents of the land were leaving (a mass of 600,000 men plus the women and children, elderly and very young). The fact is that it doesn't matter that they had been the enslaved “outsiders,” because the sudden departure of that many human beings - even if they were not fully part of the society they were part of the economy - is going to have devastating effects on the nation.
In all of this, surrounded by his country laid waste and his populace in mourning, Pharaoh catches word that the Israelites had changed their direction in the wilderness (based on the understanding that Pharaoh saw Hashem’s redirecting Bnei Yisrael toward the Yam Suf as a means of avoiding Amalek and Philistia at war as a sign of the Israelites fleeing in fear, a comment I saw by the Alsheich and several other commentaries), and Pharaoh appears to immediately perk up at the idea of pursuing them. This is an interesting instance of blindness on Pharaoh’s part, one might say it is one of his constant faults. Pharaoh seems blind to the suffering of his people. All he can see is having been bested by this God of the Israelites.
In a completely different way, the fleeing Israelites also suffered from blindness. They left Egypt triumphant and riding on wave of honest, emergency-driven emuna. Once away from Egypt, they were surrounded by the Ananei Hakavod, the cloud of glory and a pillar of fire. Wrapped in such protection, Bnei Yisrael could focus on discovering who they truly were - getting In touch with the spiritual heritage they had just barely held onto through generations of servitude.
The clouds of glory, however, may have also prevented them from being aware that the Egyptians were pursuing them until, as the pasuk says, they lifted up their eyes and behold Egypt was upon them! You might say it would have been better for them to have seen the Mitzrim in the distance, but the truth was that there would have been little for them to do but panic and wallow in self pity. Instead, when they saw the army suddenly behind them, their days in the cloud paid off, at least initially. They saw the Mitzrim and they immediately called out to Hashem. They prayed instinctively. They understood that their ultimate salvation would come from the Divine hand. Only afterwards, as fear began to take over, did they turn to their emotions and let their fears become complaints. But because they had prayed to Hashem first and instinctively, neither Hasher nor Moshe responded to their complaints with anger. Because their first instinct was to pray, when Moshe told them to look forward, they could - some with more bravery and faith than others, but all of them did so nonetheless.
Had the Israelites not had that time to connect spiritually, they might have crumbled before Pharaoh, whose dominance and megalomaniac power over their lives until so recently must have had traumatic impact on their souls. Had they had more time to worry and fret over the pursuing army, they would have talked themselves off of the path to spiritual freedom.
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