The Israelites fleeing from the Egyptians were not soldiers. Their weapons would have consisted mainly of home-made spears, farm implements like sickles, and a smattering of swords and knives. Their armor would have been non-existent. To hold off the Egyptian chariots, they would have had to come together in a tight mass (horses don't impale themselves on sharp things, nor do they charge apparently solid objects like a phalanx). Once they did so, they would be vulnerable to Egyptian arrows. Assume that the arrows are only marginally effective (a big assumption, given that the Hebrews had no armor, and thus were utterly exposed), Simply by swarming around the Israelite formation, the chariots would have pinned it in place, allowing the accompanying foot soldiers time to come up. At that point, the Israelites would have been facing well armed and armored infantry fighting in organized formations. It would have been butchery. However, the Israelites, seeing the infantry coming on, and with their cohesion already weakened by the archery barrage, probably would have broken long before contact, and then been ridden down by the chariots, whose riders would have switched from bows to spears at that point.

For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, whenever we call upon him? And what great nation is there, that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?

Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live? Or has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of which the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?

Oh that they had such a mind as this always, to fear me and to keep all my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever!

If you act corruptly by making a carved image in the form of anything, and by doing what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, so as to provoke him to anger…the Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord will drive you. And there you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands, that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. But from there you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in tribulation, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the Lord your God and obey his voice. For the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them.