Texts in Conversation
Exodus 15 calls God a “man of war,” describing God like a human. The Samaritan Pentateuch changes this to “mighty in war,” reflecting a deliberate choice to avoid describing God like a human or depicting him having a body.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Exodus 15:3
Hebrew Bible
1 Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord. They said, “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously, the horse and its 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 war10— the Lord is his name. 4 The chariots of Pharaoh and his army he has thrown into the sea, and his chosen officers were drowned in the Red Sea. 5 The depths have covered them; they went down to the bottom like a stone.
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Samaritan Exodus 15:3
Samaritan Penteteuch
Samaritan
1 Then Moses and the children of Israel sang this song to Shema, and spoke, saying: “Praise Shema, for he has thrown into the sea a powerful nation, its horse and its rider. 2 [Shema] is my strength and glory, and he has become my salvation. This is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will honor him. 3 Shema is mighty in war, Shema is his name. 4 He threw Pharaoh’s chariot and his armies into the sea, and his chosen captains drowned in the sea of Sof. 5 The deep waters cover them, they went down into the depths like a stone.
Date: 130–120 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Exodus 15:3 “Hero in war” — The Israelite Samaritans insist in their pronunciation on distinguishing between verbs regarding the Almighty and regarding humans, and deny personification of the Almighty. Notice, for example, in the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15:3). “Shehmaa is a hero in war” — whereas in the Masoretic text it is written: “Adonai a man in war.” They also change the pronunciation of the verbs as we saw above ..."
Benyamim Tsedaka and Sharon Sullivan, eds., The Israelite Samaritan Version of the Torah: First English Translation Compared with the Masoretic Version, trans. Benyamim Tsedaka (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), 160.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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