Exodus-15

Exodus 15:1-3(ESV)
¹Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying,      “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously;      the horse and his rider^£ he has thrown into the sea.
²    The Lord is my strength and my song,      and he has become my salvation;      this is my God, and I will praise him,      my father’s God, and I will exalt him.
³    The Lord is a man of war;      the Lord is his name.

·         Moses composed this instant expression of praise over what they had just experienced.

·         They would continue to need God’s help as they would never be able to win without it against such odds.

Exodus 15:4-10(ESV)
⁴    “Pharaoh’s chariots and his host he cast into the sea,      and his chosen officers were sunk in the Red Sea.
⁵    The floods covered them;      they went down into the depths like a stone.
⁶    Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power,      your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy.
⁷    In the greatness of your majesty you overthrow your adversaries;      you send out your fury; it consumes them like stubble.
⁸    At the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up;      the floods stood up in a heap;     the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea.
⁹    The enemy said, ‘I will pursue, I will overtake,      I will divide the spoil, my desire shall have its fill of them.     I will draw my sword; my hand shall destroy them.’
¹⁰    You blew with your wind; the sea covered them;      they sank like lead in the mighty waters.

V.4-5 repeats the theme of the song.  The powerful enemy military force was defeated by Yahweh and this was done by Yahweh by his power and protection for his people.

It expresses that these Egyptian warriors that went after them were ‘the chosen officers’, thus, they were the best fighters that Egypt had.  In fact, they were have been the best found in the then world of that day.

This account goes through the events of their the LORDs final conquest against the Egyptian army. 

V.9 – expresses the attitude of the enemy:  ‘I will pursue, I will overtake,      I will divide the spoil, and my desire shall have its fill of them.     I will draw my sword; my hand shall destroy them.

Exodus 15:11-13
¹¹    “Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods?      Who is like you, majestic in holiness,     awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?
¹²    You stretched out your right hand;      the earth swallowed them.
¹³    “You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed;      you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode.

V.11 – Yahweh is described as the ‘glorious among the holy ones’   – ‘awesome in praiseworthy acts’ – meaning what he does is always good and right as well as impressive at the same time. 

V.13 – the grand theme of Scripture appears at this point in the song.

A Song of redemption recalling  Exodus 6:6says:
Exodus 6:6(ESV)
⁶Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. 

Exodus 15:14-16 –  Reaction of Future Foes
¹⁴    The peoples have heard; they tremble;      pangs have seized the inhabitants of Philistia.
¹⁵    Now are the chiefs of Edom dismayed;      trembling seizes the leaders of Moab;     all the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away.
¹⁶    Terror and dread fall upon them;      because of the greatness of your arm, they are still as a stone,      till your people, O Lord, pass by,      till the people pass by whom you have purchased.

These verses address the aspect of the divine deliverance at the sea; its impact on the peoples/nations that the Israelites knew they would have to encounter as they proceeded to conquer the Promised Land. 

Moses penned this and having grew up as a princeling would have been educated in the political/military/economic events in Canaan and its area.  The conquest of the Promised Land would mean they would have to eliminate the opposition. 

V. 14 – The Philistines were a formable foe and would not be beaten without divine help.  Part of the divine help was the now fear that was struck in the hearts of the Philistines by the loss of the Egyptian cavalry force at the sea.

V. 15 – Neither Edom nor Moab were actually part of the Promised Land, but access through the land required passage through those countries.   The hint of “chiefs of Edom” and “leaders of Moab” would show they were not fully unified nations with kings.   The Edomite people required more convincing as we recall the account when Balaam occurred and the conflict continued into the days of Saul. 

Exodus 15:16-18  –  Israel, God’s Sanctuary
¹⁶    Terror and dread fall upon them;      because of the greatness of your arm, they are still as a stone,      till your people, O Lord, pass by,      till the people pass by whom you have purchased.
¹⁷    You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain,      the place, O Lord, which you have made for your abode,     the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established.
¹⁸    The Lord will reign forever and ever.”

 Three great biblical themes conclude the song:

1.       God’s creation of a people  (v16b)

2.       God’s eternal holy dwelling place as the home for that people  (v17)

3.       The eternal reign of God supreme over all things (v.18)

Exodus 15:19-21– Prose Summation and Miriam’s Reprise of the Hymn

Exodus 15:19-21(ESV)
¹⁹For when the horses of Pharaoh with his chariots and his horsemen went into the sea, the Lord brought back the waters of the sea upon them, but the people of Israel walked on dry ground in the midst of the sea. 
²⁰Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing. 
²¹And Miriam sang to them:      “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously;     the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.”

There has been some question if those that went after the Israelites were others besides the chariots that were mentioned in the text.  Looking at this reference it will confirm that the Israelites were perused by chariot warriors exclusively.  This account mentions only Pharaoh’s “horses, chariots and horsemen” no foot soldiers.

V.20-21 the first mention of Miriam by name.  She is considered to be Moses older sister that was at the Nile watching over him.  Aaron would be 3 years older than Moses and in respect would mention that she was his sister.  She was given the title “prophetess” in the OT as a godly woman. 

She became a leading singer and taught the song to the people making it popular among them as a way to sing the praise of their salvation. 

Exodus 15:22-27– Grumbling Begins:  Water at Marah and Elim and God’s Promise of Healing
 

Exodus 15:22-27(ESV)
²²Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea, and they went into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days in the wilderness and found no water. 
²³When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter; therefore it was named Marah.^£ 
24And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” 
²⁵And he cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a log,^£ and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet. There the Lord^£ made for them a statute and a rule, and there he tested them, 
²⁶saying, “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, your healer.”
²⁷Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they encamped there by the water.

They had just come through a vast and rugged, and sparsely populated wilderness region in the northern Sinai.  It was a three day journey and they were no doubt out of water by then for themselves and their herds. 

The question: What are we to drink?   In itself is not a sin, but it was the “Attitude”  used in asking it.   They are speaking to Moses and he was to be respected as God’s appointed leader.    They failed to ‘trust God’!

The wood branch would not be the means of curing the waters or its pollution.  The tossing of the branch into the water would be a demonstration/action of faith on Moses part to throw the log in the water.  As he did that Moses stated that the water was now drinkable or the problem was resolved. For there to be an instant reversal of the water’s condition it had to be a miracle by God.

God’s care was demonstrated!

Location:  Wadi Gharandelis a wadi in western Sinai, Egypt, associated with Elim, the fourth station where the Israelites camped during their Exodus journey away from slavery in Egypt.

Bedouin traditions speak of flash floods in Wadi Gharandel, reminiscent of the re-flooding of the Red Sea in the Exodus narrative ^[1] once the Israelites had passed through the sea on dry ground. Edward Henry Palmer, the Palestine Exploration Fund’s Secretary, undertaking work for the Fund’s Sinai Survey in 1869, met with Bedouin who described such floods

V.  25 –  the Lord^£ made for them a statute and a rule   This does not mean two things, but one as it is the classic case of a “hendiadys”, the expression of a single concept by two or more words used in grammatical parallel.

Dictionary:  a literarydeviceexpressingan ideaby meansof twowordslinkedby “and,” insteadof a grammaticallymorecomplexformsuchas an adverbqualifyingan adjective.

15:25b–26

The niv wording “a decree and a law” does not refer to two things but to one; this is a classic case of hendiadys, the expression of a single concept by two or more words used in grammatical parallel. As in a few other instances prior to the formal establishment of covenant law beginning in chap. 20, God gave a law intended to provide a general understanding for his people of his policies and principles. What v. 26 called for was loyalty and obedience: loyalty in the sense of a willingness to pay close attention to what God’s will was and to want above all else to please him by doing what he thinks is right (“listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes”—also a hendiadys, a way of ensuring clarity by making the same point twice with different wordings) and obedience by not failing to “pay attention to all his commands and keep all his decrees” (another hendiadys—one concept stated with two different wordings). God’s expectation was sweeping. His people must give him full, not partial, loyalty and obedience. If he wanted it, they were to do it.  Quote:  NAC

Verse 25b, “There the Lord made a decree and a law for them, and there he tested them,” is both predictive of what was coming and examination of what had occurred.   
It could as well be translated: “There he made for them a statute, that is, a rule, because there he had tested them.”
In other words, the testing was already past—it was the leading of the people to a place where the water was no good.

Exodus 15:26(ESV)
²⁶saying, “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, your healer.”

Verse 26 provides shows the advantage that comes from such loyalty and obedience is perfect divine protection.  It states   NKJV – “I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, who heals you,” 

We need to not misunderstand that it was not a general guarantee that faithful believers cannot get sick or if so they would be healed in this life.    Instead:  the best translation of these sentences probably would be:“Any illness I brought on the Egyptians, I will not bring on you. For I am Yahweh, your doctor.”

The promise here was that the Israelites would be free from worry about the plagues occurring to them.    God’s promise was that he would not become angry at them in such a way as to subject them to the miseries he had subjected the Egyptians to.  All they had to do was to remain loyal and obedient.  A lesson here would be that we need to turn to God for healing when we find ourselves afflicted as a result of sin.  (The principle found in Numbers 21:1-9 of the story of healing from snakebites.)