Often explained with reference to his more frequent expressions that believers are "baptized into Christ," or "baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus," Paul asserts that the wilderness generation was "baptized into Moses" (1 Cor. 10:2). Clearly, the apostle sees a correlation between these two realities. This paper will explore the ancient Near Eastern background to Paul's typological reading of the Red Sea crossing. Specifically, it will consider how the Red Sea event reflects the ancient Near Eastern legal phenomenon known as the judicial ordeal in which a physiological response to a test (in this case a water ordeal) reveals the guilt or innocence of the accused. Moses and Israel's crossing the Red Sea in safety and Pharaoh and his army's perishing in the same waters serves as the dramatic climax to the contest between YHWH and the Egyptian pantheon. When read against the widespread ancient Near Eastern literary-legal tradition, the event also conveys a judicial verdict revealing guilt and innocence of Egypt and Israel respectively. One of the perennial questions in studies on the doctrine of union with Christ regards the presence (or absence) of a forensic element to the believer's union. A consideration of the ancient Near Eastern legal background to Paul's typological reading offers a support to the forensic understanding of this central Pauline concept.