1 Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the LORD, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.Then there was music and wonderful Moses....
2 The LORD is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation: he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation; my father's God, and I will exalt him.
3 The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name.
4 Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea: his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red sea.
5 The depths have covered them: they sank into the bottom as a stone.
6 Thy right hand, O LORD, is become glorious in power: thy right hand, O LORD, hath dashed in pieces the enemy.
7 And in the greatness of thine excellency thou hast overthrown them that rose up against thee: thou sentest forth thy wrath, which consumed them as stubble.
8 And with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered together, the floods stood upright as an heap, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea.
9 The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my lust shall be satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.
10 Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them: they sank as lead in the mighty waters.
11 Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?
12 Thou stretchedst out thy right hand, the earth swallowed them.
13 Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation.
14 The people shall hear, and be afraid: sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestina.
15 Then the dukes of Edom shall be amazed; the mighty men of Moab, trembling shall take hold upon them; all the inhabitants of Canaan shall melt away.
16 Fear and dread shall fall upon them; by the greatness of thine arm they shall be as still as a stone; till thy people pass over, O LORD, till the people pass over, which thou hast purchased.
17 Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place, O LORD, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the Sanctuary, O LORD, which thy hands have established.
18 The LORD shall reign for ever and ever.
19 For the horse of Pharaoh went in with his chariots and with his horsemen into the sea, and the LORD brought again the waters of the sea upon them; but the children of Israel went on dry land in the midst of the sea.
20 And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances.
21 And Miriam answered them, Sing ye to the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.
22 So Moses brought Israel from the Red sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water.
23 And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter: therefore the name of it was called Marah.
24 And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink?
25 And he cried unto the LORD; and the LORD shewed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet: there he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them,
26 And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the LORD that healeth thee.
27 And they came to Elim, where were twelve wells of water, and threescore and ten palm trees: and they encamped there by the waters.
I'm not sure what is meant by "this song" that they sang. Was it This Song?
Did the song about our sweet lord include the sweet passage "The LORD is a man of war" and the line that follows it "and LORD is his name-o," along with the loving descriptions of the captains he lured, drowned, and "consumed... as stubble"?
Yet another polytheistic reference: "Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods?" This book just isn't making a very good case that YHWH is the One True God, is it?
This line must wow 'em in the Palestinian territories: "The people shall hear, and be afraid: sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestina." It gets worse: "trembling shall take hold upon them; all the inhabitants of Canaan shall melt away."
And what's this about the people "which thou hast purchased"? That's the Israelites, right, whom God bought with the blood of the slaughtered Egyptians?
Verse #17 is the old inheritance promise. Now, maybe at some point we'll see some emotional or spiritual growth among the Israelites to justify the long delay of this, and to show they've earned it after some fashion. So far, their accomplishments are stolen and arbitrarily given birthrights, jewel-thievery, incest, polygamy, adultery, procurement, fratricide, and a lot of waiting around for the Big Guy to save their tucheses.
Vocabulary word: timbrel, a small hand drum or tambourine. It accompanies another musical tribute to the Lord's fatal entrapment of Egyptian troops.
As Woody Allen noted, "man cannot live by bread alone — occasionally there must be a beverage." They called the watering hole Marah, but the taste was too bitter until God chucked a tree into it. Sounds like Brita on steroids.
Having dragged the Israelites around the wilderness and made them thirsty as Hell, he gives them some commandments (hmm, I think that's going to come up again) upon finally quenching their thirst. Sounds like classic cult-indoctrination behavior, no?
God's playing of favorites knows no bounds, as he promises to keep the Israelites free of diseases (he saves those for the Egyptians). Well, there's another mystery solved. Haven't you ever wondered why there are no Jewish doctors?
8 comments:
Now, maybe at some point we'll see some emotional or spiritual growth among the Israelites to justify the long delay of this, and to show they've earned it after some fashion.
Well, not really.
The same is as true of gods as it is with everything else - you don't have to be the smartest, the most agile, or even the richest. All you need is the strength to kill all your competitors and the motivation to use it.
When it says "this song" it means "the song which follows", ie. the lines after the words "this song" - verses 1-19, starting from "I will sing unto Yahweh, for he has ..."
Did you notice how verse 21 is almost exactly the same as the start of the song? Its not another musical tribute, its the same one. This song is the "song of the sea" - its a poem, and its older than the surrounding text, both of which are more obvious in the Hebrew. But its still fairly obvious that it uses different vocabulary and style.
The Song of the Sea (ie. verses 1b-19) was originally a separate document, which the Jahwist added to their version of the Exodus story, with the first part of 1a to make it fit in. The Elohist added the poem to their version of the Exodus story too - but when the Jahwist and Elohist versions of the Exodus story were merged, the merger cut off most of the Elohist's copy of the poem (probably because its a bit pointless repeating the same thing so soon), leaving only verses 20-21.
Notice how Miriam is described as a prophetess - in other words, that it was perfectly ok for a woman to fulfil a senior religious function; that changed, later in Israelite history.
The Song of the Sea is where the prose accounts of the crossing (in chapter 14) originate; the Jahwist and Elohist each turned the poem into a prose narrative.
Its not "Palestina" but "Philistia" ("Palestina" is just the KJV translation, though it does ultimately derive from the same word); its actually referring to the Philistine territories. The Philistines controlled a coastal strip in the south west - like the Gaza strip but much larger; the term does not refer to the West Bank in the slightest. "Canaan", on the other hand, refers to the whole of the southern Levant - the Palestinian territories and state of Israel combined.
As for verse 17. Wait till you read about the God-sanctioned human sacrifice in the Book of Judges. Anyway, the more important point about verses 13-17 is that they imply that the Israelites have already got to Canaan, or at least stopped being in the desert; verse 17 even seems to be referring to the Jerusalem temple, or other central religious sanctuary, which doesn't get built until at least the Books of Joshua, in the latter case, and Books of Samuel in the former. Ie. even if the Exodus was real, the verses can't have been written at the time.
Verse 22 and 27 are snippets from that Stations List document (so it would have originally read "...three days they travelled in the desert without finding water. Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs..."). Inserting it around the Marah story makes the Marah story fit better into the narrative.
Verse 23+ is an aetiological myth - a place name origin story. Its a brief folk tale about why a place got the name, and it was originally independent of the Exodus narrative. "Marah" is the Hebrew word for "bitter".
The Marah story is the Jahwist's "they magically get water" account. The Elohist's version is in Chapter 17
Now that we have polytheism firmly established (or henotheism if you will) I wonder if they will ever explain how the LORD got to be so much cooler than the other gods.
Nice point about the Isrealites litany of spiritual accomplishments. Favoritism is a bit of an understatement, considering the LORD not only helps the Israelis out, he actively prevents others from believing in his abilities then kills them for it.
Frankly, at this point I'm scared shitless of the LORD. I hope stockholm syndrome kicks in soon or my path to salvation might end up derailed.
Ah, now that's what a large chunk of the gnostics thought too. So they concluded that God must be an evil bastard. They almost beat other forms of Christianity; under Marcion they nearly outnumbered the other Christians. Ah, what could have been...
Essentially its maltheism - the belief that there is a deity, but also that the deity in question is evil. Its not quite the same as believing that the God of the bible is evil - its believing that AND believing that the God in question is real. Most historic maltheists, the gnostics especially, thought that the evil God should be defied, rather than obeyed out of fear.
By the way, for a head start in working out why Yahweh-worship came to be in charge, try and work out what the names Elijah, Jael, Eli, and Jabin, each mean; they are all theophoric (ie. they deliberately contain the names of a deity - in this case Yahweh (in the guise Yah/Jah) and El(="God"), and sometimes both Yaweh and El). Here are two clues - "bin" means "son [of]", and in the Canaanite Pantheon El was the chief god, and most of the other gods were his sons.
For another headstart, you might like to work out who the kenites were, and what significance they have to Israelite history.
Jah... Rastafarians worship him. When they arent deifying Haile Selassie, wait they are the same person or hes the messiah... All that came from Coptic Christianity in Egypt or Somalia or Ethiopia or somewhere if I remember right.
They were right on the money with the whole weed as a sacrement thing tho.
Rastafarians believe that ras Tafar (the man who used the royal name Hiele Sellasie when he became Ethiopian Emporer) is the Messiah. They worship Yahweh - but use the short form "Jah" to refer to Yahweh.
Rastafarianism is quite a broad religion - some Rastafarians take a more Jewish view, and view ras Tafar as the Jewish type of Messiah - a human saviour - while others (who are the majority) take a more Christian view, and see ras Tafar as the second coming of Jesus. The main view is that ras Tafar is an incarnation of both Jesus AND simultaneously of Yahweh. Other aspects of the religion, particularly daily life practices and rituals, are more Jewish than Christian.
There's actually nothing miraculous about the tree making the waters sweet. There's a type of barberry that grows in the desert that would have this effect, for example.
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