God wasn’t finished with Israel just yet. The wilderness wasn’t their home.
Having been brought through the sea on “dry ground,” and having not only witnessed but also experienced God’s miraculous deliverance firsthand, Moses and the congregation of Israel break out into song. “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously,” their anthems ring, “the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea” (Exod. 15:1). There are a slew of factors that make this so-called Song of the Sea so compelling, chief among them being that this is the first recorded song in Scripture. If you flip through Genesis, you can find some poetry sprinkled throughout, as in Chapters 4 and 49. But this is the first mention of actual singing, especially in a corporate sense.
This is no throw-away detail either, nor is this a literary accident. There’s something profoundly significant occurring as the people of God — his “church in the wilderness” (Acts 7:38) — sing praises to him in the aftermath of the great victory he won for them. They raise their voices to exalt the one who makes them his own. Whether they realized it in the moment or not, this was and is the defining event for all those who belong to the Lord (Ps. 106:7–12; Isa. 63:12), resonating even down to the age of the church, whom the apostle Paul suggests “were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Cor. 10:2). This song, therefore, isn’t an excursus on God’s saving ability; it’s a euphoric rhapsody of God’s saving initiative and action on behalf of those whom he saves and shields (Deut. 33:29).
1. A Singing People
It’s worth pausing to consider that God’s people have always been a singing people. This isn’t merely a Baptist tradition, a Methodist tradition, a Wesleyan tradition, or a Lutheran tradition, even though all those denominations have produced so many beloved hymns and hymn-writers throughout the centuries. From the Red Sea crossing to the cave-dwelling King David to Jonah in a fish’s belly to Paul and Silas belting out psalms while chained up in a Philippian jailhouse, a trademark of those who belong to God has been the way they sing, when they are found singing, and what they are singing about.
This goes beyond spirituality, of course. There are social, emotional, and even physiological benefits that come with singing, too. Studies from the likes of the British Medical Journal, Oxford, and the University of Helsinki, among others, all return fairly convincing evidence that singing, especially in large groups, can significantly improve one’s mood, increase social connection, and even reduce stress and anxiety. Maybe there’s a reason why you’re happiest when you’re belting out Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone” in the car or shower. (I know you do that because I do it, too.)
Singing is an expression of intense emotion — either joy or sadness, grief or gratitude. There are some good in-between songs, of course, but the majority of the most well-known and well-beloved songs of all time have either been about breaking up or being gleefully in love. This, of course, tracks with what’s found throughout Scripture as well, with musical interludes either emerging out of the deep darkness of negative times or springing from the positive delights of knowing God and being known by him. Whatever the case, singing is a conscious choice.
2. Joining the Chorus
Not for nothing, Moses’s song begins with a triad of “I will” declarations (Exod. 15:1–2), which insinuate the deliberate decision he and the rest of the congregation are making to God. The point is that you can’t force anyone to sing. Not only would that not end well, but it would sort of ruin the moment. Singing that comes on the heels of coercion or pressure kills the whole vibe. It misses the point. After all, singing is what happens “when the emotion becomes too strong for speech.” So goes the logic of Broadway and Hollywood. As in your favorite musicals, from Singin’ in the Rain to The Sound of Music to West Side Story, the musical interludes aren’t so much interruptions as they are the release of musical tension, like the inverse of a horror-movie jump-scare.
Something similar happens when the church assembles for worship. The hymns and songs that comprise the liturgy aren’t there for the mere sake of tradition. They’re an invitation to join the chorus of sinners and saints who’ve been extolling the Lord who is their strength and song and salvation since the inception of the church. No matter how much charm the so-called worship leader employs, no one can force you to join that song without ruining it. When Moses beckons Israel to “sing to the Lord,” he does so by reminding them of the myriad reasons they can and should sing. His song, therefore, is an open invitation for everyone to join the choir of sinners who are rescued and held fast by the steadfast love of God alone.
3. The Battle That Wasn’t
There’s no mistaking what this Song of the Sea is all about, especially since Moses keeps rehashing the same imagery over and over again (Exod. 15:4–5, 7, 10, 12). In the most obvious terms, this song is all about the defeat of Pharaoh and his minions. It’s a victory song, belted out on the heels of Israel’s pursuers getting trounced in one of the most unmistakable demonstrations of divine intervention and power ever recorded. However mighty the reputation of Pharaoh’s chariot army, they were no match for God Almighty, whose breath makes water stand at attention (Exod. 15:8). At the sound of his voice, the deep waters “congealed,” consuming the enemy “like stubble” in a swirling tide of justice and holiness (Exod. 15:7).
When Moses sings praises to the Lord who “is a man of war” (Exod. 15:3), he is praising the one who unmistakably and unhesitatingly intervened on his behalf, and everyone else’s.
There’s a reason why this isn’t called the “Battle of the Red Sea” — namely, because it was over before it even started. This conflict is barely a blip on God’s radar. Even as the enemy strategizes and plots and makes arrangements for their victory parade and what they’re going to do with all the spoils of war (Exod. 15:9), God brushes aside all their best laid plans with nothing but his breath. “You blew with your wind,” the people chant, “the sea covered them” (Exod. 15:10). It’s akin to what the psalmist sings about in Psalm 2, where kings and nations plot to unseat the Lord’s Anointed, which earns little more than a snicker from him who sits on heaven’s throne (Ps. 2:1–4).
As much as they might’ve resisted, their resistance was futile, like a twig in a tornado. The Lord of all things threw the enemy into the heart of the sea like you flick an ant off the picnic table. God’s triumph was that conclusive, that decisive. And God’s people got to witness it all, as their enemies sank like lead stones to their doom (Exod. 15:4–5, 10). All of which is what’s referred to as God’s “right hand” of majesty and might (Exod. 15:6, 12; cf. Ps. 98:1), which is a literary device suggestive of power or strength that isn’t hidden or able to be withstood. When Moses sings praises to the Lord who “is a man of war” (Exod. 15:3), he is praising the one who unmistakably and unhesitatingly intervened on his behalf, and everyone else’s.
4. The Sea That Points to the Cross
This Warrior God is the very God who is sung about Sunday after Sunday. And lest you conjure some grossly misappropriated or mistaken image about this Lord who is a man of war, let me put a finer point on who he is and whom he fights for. This is the God who fights for his people, and all they have to do is “be silent” (Exod. 14:14). He is “the Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle” (Ps. 24:8). He is the one who is called “Faithful and True,” who “judges and makes war” (Rev. 19:11). He is the Christ of God, who fights by letting himself be defeated.
Moses’s song of God’s victory at the Red Sea points us forward to a place called Calvary, where the ultimate victory was won through God’s Son. Just as the enemy was shattered, sinking “into the depths like a stone,” so, too, has Christ Jesus crushed the enemies of Sin and Death, leaving them utterly defeated. Just as “not one of the Egyptian chariots remained,” so are all your sins taken care of by him. Just as they were “consumed like stubble,” so has your sin been consumed in a flood of grace. Just as the victory was won with his mere breath, so does Christ win the day by “uttering a loud cry, ‘It is finished,’ and breathing his last” (Mark 15:37; John 19:30). In love unfathomable, God in Christ “casts all our sins into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19). His triumph over sin, Satan, and the grave is as conclusive and decisive as his triumph at the Red Sea. And this is why we sing.
5. There Is No Other
At the end of Moses’s song, he employs a phrase that might almost seem boilerplate or formulaic (Exod. 15:18). If you scour the rest of Scripture, you’ll find allusions to the everlasting reign of the Lord all over the place (Ps. 93:2; 146:10; Jer. 10:10; Lam. 5:19; Dan. 4:34; 1 Tim. 1:17; Rev. 11:15). Moses, however, isn’t copping out by slapping a generic denouement to this anthem. Rather, he is making a bold claim about the Lord whom Israel serves and to whom they belong.
Unlike any other god in the pantheon of gods in Egypt or Babylon or wherever, where kings and potentates assume the honor of a god or a son of the gods, only to be put in a grave eventually, Israel’s God truly “reigns forever.” His rule never comes to an end (Ps. 45:6). He who sits on the throne of heaven doesn’t have term limits (Ps. 10:16; 29:10). And from the plagues to the Red Sea, this eternal God gives Israel a front-row seat to the unrivaled “greatness of his majesty” (Exod. 15:7), as all those so-called deities of Egyptian lore are shown to be nothing.
No matter to whom Pharaoh paid homage, the Lord of heaven and earth is unequaled. The Red Sea, you might say, is an object lesson of this very point: “I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God” (Isa. 45:5). There’s no one else even in the same ballpark as him. This is the reason why Moses rhetorically asks, “Who is like you? Who is like you?” (Exod. 15:11; cf. Deut. 3:24; 2 Sam. 7:22). The answer, of course, is no one. “There is no God like you, in heaven or on earth,” King Solomon would eventually concur (2 Chron. 6:14). “There is none holy like the Lord,” prayed Hannah, “for there is none besides you” (1 Sam. 2:2). “There is none like you, O Lord,” the great prophet Jeremiah once declared, “you are great, and your name is great in might” (Jer. 10:6).
From Moses to Micah, God’s people are summoned to sing and stand in awe-struck wonder at the unparalleled God of the universe, who takes up his people’s plight as his own. “Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love” (Micah 7:18).
Here’s the marvel of it all. This God, who has no peer, who is supreme in all senses of the term, who is beyond comparison, is the same God who is mindful of us (Ps. 8:4). What leaves Moses and us absolutely gobsmacked is God’s prerogative to condescend from his greatness to our littleness. “What is man that you regard him?” the Psalmist later inquires (Ps. 144:3). What kind of God would do that? What other God would make that decision? What God is choosing to perform wonders among the wretched and unremarkable? Indeed, none.
Ours is a God of unrivaled grace, mercy, and patience. And he reigns forever on a “throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16).
6. Clearing the Way
One detail that may go unheeded at first glance is when Moses refers to other nations hearing about what happened that afternoon (Exod. 15:14–16). Israel’s deliverance at the Red Sea was headline news in the ancient world, with word spreading far and wide about how the sea parted and how a host of former slaves made it across on dry ground. It makes sense that rumors of this event would be bandied about, especially if one were looking to make sure their pantheon of deities was sufficiently stocked. In fact, the news surrounding this promise-keeping, miracle-making God spread so far that even the former prostitute Rahab, hundreds of miles north in Jericho, heard and believed (Josh. 2:9–13).
God wasn’t finished with Israel just yet. The wilderness wasn’t their home.
It’s worth mentioning because of what this news did to those who didn’t believe. They trembled and melted with fear. Terror and dread enveloped them like a cloud (Exod. 15:14–16). Even though Israel was a far cry from a nation of warriors, no one was eager to go to war with them since the one who marched into battle with them was none other than the God who could split seas in half, turn rivers into blood, and even control the weather with a whisper.
The reason this is important is that God wasn’t finished with Israel just yet. The wilderness wasn’t their home. The Lord wasn’t looking to emancipate his people from Egyptian tyranny, only to abandon them in the wasteland of Sinai. Rather, as Moses sings, he was the one who had led and will lead them, all along their way (Exod. 15:13, 17). God was shepherding his people to a specific destination, a.k.a. Canaan, a.k.a. the Promised Land.
As Moses and Israel sing, they do so by gazing backwards and forwards, looking upon what God has done to confirm what he will do. The victory at the Red Sea, in other words, wasn’t a one-time deal. It was a message, a promise, that the Lord who brought them to this point wouldn’t cease being their God till he has brought them to himself. No matter what they might endure, no matter the obstacles, failures, rebellions, and all the stuff in between, he has led them, and he will lead them till they are with him. The Lord who “redeemed” and “purchased” them would never stop shepherding them until they were settled in the place that he had made for them (Exod. 15:17).
7. A Glorious Remix
What happened at the Red Sea, therefore, was the Lord clearing a way ahead for his people, just as he does for us through the person of the Son. Christ the Redeemer clears the way through sin and death by taking it all on himself. He subsumes the swelling tide of justice in his passion and resurrection. And he stays with us, leading us along till the good work he began in us by his Spirit is complete, till we are with him where he is (John 14:1–3).
We can sing even amid the turmoil and turbulence of our days, because we are those who belong to the Shepherd, and we know where our Shepherd is leading us.
The endgame of God saving us and shepherding us is an endless union and future spent with him, forever. The “holy abode” that waits for us is a place of ceaseless light, love, and praise — a place where pain, suffering, and death don’t exist, since those things are no more (Rev. 21:1–4). And the song that’ll be reverberating throughout the halls of heaven will be none other than a remix of the Song of the Sea (Rev. 15:3). From now till when time is no more, the church can be found singing “to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously” for them.
And though this will be our theme in glory, the gospel of grace invites us to join the choir right now. We can sing even amid the turmoil and turbulence of our days, because we are those who belong to the Shepherd, and we know where our Shepherd is leading us. The good news of Christ’s triumph for us and ongoing presence with us frees us to sing.
