In a recent book entitled YHWH Fights for Them!, Charlie Trimm analyzes the use of martial imagery to describe God in the first fifteen chapters of the book of Exodus. Peter Leithart writes in his review:
[Trimm] isolates divine-warrior passages partly by looking for military terminology; even when God is not identified as a “mighty man” (gibbor), he might be carrying on a war by “striking” the Egyptians. . . . God uses the weapons of nature to carry on his war against Pharaoh, and he looks at the “psychological” effects of the divine warrior, especially the panic he strikes in his enemies. . . .
Putting the divine-warrior motif in the context of the exodus narrative demonstrates that God’s is a just war. Trimm runs through the appearances of Egypt in Genesis, showing that it is depicted positively in the main. This [depiction] climaxes with the offer of the land of Goshen to Jacob and his family; Trimm sees in this a sign of God’s intention to bless nations through Israel.
[But] this generosity is in the background when Exodus begins, and we see Pharaoh and indeed all Egypt rejecting God and reneging on the gift of land.
Read more on First Things: http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/leithart/2015/08/the-hero-of-israel