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Exodus

About this book

The Song at the Sea

Chapter 15

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.⁠ 6 Your right hand, O Lord, was majestic in power; your right hand, O Lord, shattered the enemy. 7 In the abundance of your majesty you have overthrown those who rise up against you. You sent forth your wrath; it consumed them like stubble.⁠ 8 By the blast of your nostrils the waters were piled up,⁠ the flowing water stood upright like a heap, and the deep waters were solidified in the heart of the sea.⁠ 9 The enemy said, ‘I will chase, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my desire will be satisfied on them. I will draw my sword, my hand will destroy them.’⁠ 10 But you blew with your breath, and the sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters. 11 Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods?⁠ Who is like you—majestic in holiness, fearful in praises, working wonders? 12 You stretched out your right hand, the earth swallowed them. 13 By your loyal love you will lead the people whom you have redeemed; you will guide them by your strength to your holy dwelling place. 14 The nations will hear and tremble; anguish will seize the inhabitants of Philistia. 15 Then the chiefs of Edom will be terrified, trembling will seize the leaders of Moab, and the inhabitants of Canaan will shake. 16 Fear and dread will fall on them; by the greatness of your arm they will be as still as stone until your people pass by, O Lord, until the people whom you have bought pass by. 17 You will bring them in and plant them in the mountain of your inheritance,⁠ in the place you made for your residence, O Lord, the sanctuary, O Lord, that your hands have established.⁠ 18 The Lord will reign forever and ever! 19 For the horses of Pharaoh came with his chariots and his footmen into the sea, and the Lord brought back the waters of the sea on them, but the Israelites walked on dry land in the middle of the sea.” 20 Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a hand drum in her hand, and all the women went out after her with hand drums and with dances.⁠ 21 Miriam sang in response to them, “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and its rider he has thrown into the sea.”⁠

Food, Water, and Conflict in the Wilderness

22 Then Moses led Israel to journey away from the Red Sea. They went out to the wilderness of Shur,⁠ walked for three days into the wilderness, and found no water.⁠ 23 Then they came to Marah, but they were not able to drink the waters of Marah, because they were bitter. (That is why its name was Marah.) 24 So the people murmured against Moses, saying, “What can we drink?”⁠ 25 He cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. When Moses threw it into the water, the water became safe to drink.⁠ There the Lord made for them a binding ordinance, and there he tested them. 26 He said, “If you will diligently obey the Lord your God, and do what is right in his sight, and pay attention to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, then all the diseases that I brought on the Egyptians I will not bring on you, for I, the Lord, am your healer.”⁠ 27 Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve wells of water and seventy palm trees, and they camped there by the water.

Texts in conversation

Compare Exodus 15:5 and Jonah 2:6

Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Exodus and Jonah draw on ancient Near Eastern cosmology in their use of chaotic water. Exodus describes Pharaoh’s army sinking into the deep sea, while Jonah pictures himself sinking to the bottom of the mountains with the gates of the underworld.

Passages

Exodus 15:5

Hebrew Bible
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. 6 Your right hand, O Lord, was majestic in power; your right hand, O Lord, shattered the enemy. 7 In the abundance of your majesty you have overthrown those who rise up against you. You sent forth your wrath; it consumed them like stubble.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Exodus

Jonah 2:6

Hebrew Bible
4 I thought I had been banished from your sight and that I would never again see your holy temple. 5 Water engulfed me up to my neck; the deep ocean surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head. 6 I went down to the very bottoms of the mountains; the gates of the netherworld barred me in forever, but you brought me up from the Pit, O Lord, my God. 7 When my life was ebbing away, I called out to the Lord. And my prayer came to you, to your holy temple. 8 Those who worship worthless idols forfeit the mercy that could be theirs.
300–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Jonah

References

"... Batto, however, does not say that יםסוף is only geographical and, building on the suggestion of Norman H. Snaith, argues that יםסוף simultaneously refers to the cosmographical Sea at the End. Snaith proposes that יםסוף “means that distant scarcely known sea away to the south, of which no man knew the boundary ... the sea at the end of the land.” To support this hypothesis, he points to the terms to which יםסוף stands in parallel in Exodus 15:4–5: sea (ים), deeps (תהמת), and depths (מצולת), and notes, “In verse 5 with references to the Deeps and the depths we have passed into the realm of the great Creation-myth, that story of the fight against the monster of Chaos which is interwoven with the story of God’s rescue of the people from bondage both in Egypt and in Babylon ... This is the depths of the primeval ocean, of Tiamat the great sea monster.” Batto builds on Snaith’s observations and argues that “sûp is attested in the Hebrew Bible in the precise [mythological] meaning required by Snaith’s thesis.” He finds this meaning in Jonah 2:4,6 ... Batto argues that the usual translation of סוף as reeds or some kind of plant in Jonah 2:6 is “demonstrably wrong” and that “the context requires sûp to have something to do with a cosmic battle against chaos.” “Given the context of images of non-existence and in parallelism with mythic waters and the Abyss, here sûp (or sôp) must be derived from the Semitic root sûp, ‘to come to an end,’ ‘to cease (to exist).’” If Batto is correct, then יםסוף in Exodus 15:4b may be translated as “the Sea at the End” ..."
Paul K.-K. Cho, Myth, History, and Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 113–114.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Exodus 15:5 and Jonah 2:6

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