YISRAEL COMES OUT OF EGYPT

The Dancing song of Miriam; a song of thanksgiving to YAHWEH

Mosheh’ sister; joy in song and dance

 Mosheh had been cursed by the people, but now songs of joy and victory broke out. There had been many vicissitudes, but at last Yacob’s sons were really free of Egypt, and they raised a song of thanksgiving to YAHWEH. It is a kind of spontaneous Te Deum chanted by Mosheh and the sons of Yisrael and on account of its noble imagery and style, its movement toward YAHWEH, its almost ‘romantic’ nature, deserves a place in an anthology of the great poetry of the Old Covenant:

The chariots and the army of Pharaoh HE has hurled into the sea;
the pick of his horsemen lie drowned in the Sea of Reeds.
The depths have closed over them;
they have sunk to the bottom like a stone.
A blast from YOUR nostrils 1 and the waters piled high;
the waves stood upright like a dyke;
in the heart of the sea the deeps came together;
‘I will give chase and overtake: the enemy said,
‘I shall share out the spoil, my soul will feast on it;
I shall draw my sword, my hand will destroy them,’
One breath of YOURS YOU blew, and the sea closed over them;
they sank like lead in the terrible waters.
Who among the gods is like YOU, YAHWEH?
Who is YOUR like, majestic in set apartness,
terrible in deeds of prowess, worker of wonders?…
YOU will bring them (the Yisraelites) and plant them
 on the mountain 2 that is your own, the place you have
made your dwelling, 3 YAHWEH,
the tabernacle, YAHWEH, prepared by YOUR OWN HANDS.
YAHWEH will be KING for ever and ever.

Scriptural scholars have long suggested that the literary perfection of this song is unlikely to have originated among a still primitive people so soon after the crossing of the Red Sea, and have concluded that it must have been composed at a later date. In the time of Mosheh, for instance, horsemen were unknown in tactical warfare; horses were used simply to draw chariots. Cavalry appear only very much later; they could not therefore have been drowned at the crossing of the Red Sea. Again, the poem mentions Edom and Moab, two tribes which opposed Yisrael’s entry into Canaan forty years later. This prophetic detail somewhat strains belief.

The most probable truth is that some archaic elements have been retained in the later edition of the poem, given in Scripture. Stylistic evidence proves this. At the same time, it is scarcely credible that this chant of victory, poetically and spiritually akin to a psalm, should have first appeared in the developed literary form that we find here.

We may think of an actual scene, common among Bedouins of today and yesterday. When a victory is proclaimed, or warriors come home, or some social or religious event of general interest is to be celebrated, the women are chosen to express the tribal joy in song and dance with accompanying music -all closely associated for the occasion.

It is possible that this song of the Red Sea, traditionally called ‘the song of Mosheh’ or ‘the song of Miriam’ can in fact be reduced to the two concluding lines of the chapter:

Sing of YAHWEH: he has covered HIMSELF in splendor, horse and driver he has thrown into the sea.

Thus, without great difficulty, Israel had succeeded in leaving the House of Bondage for good, and Mosheh at once began to lead his people along the caravan route to Sinai.

 

YAHWEH I sing: HE has covered HIMSELF in glory,

horse and rider HE has thrown into the sea.

YAH is my strength, my song,

HE is my yeshua.

This is my ABBA, I praise HIM. ..

Miriam, the prophetess, “Aaron’s sister, took up the timbrel, and all the women followed her with timbrels, dancing. And Miriam led them in the refrain:

‘Sing of YAHWEH: HE has covered HIMSELF in glory,

horse and rider HE has thrown into the sea’.

Shemoth 15

1 A poetic anthropomorphism. In those ancient times the wind was regarded as ‘the breath of YAHWEH’, HIS Ruwach, the creative life force.

2 The mountain is Canaan. The pasturelands are to be found in the mountain region.

3 A reference to the future Temple of Jerusalem which was built by Solomon (967 BC)

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