Commentaria in Exodum
Chapter 15
Moses and the Hebrews sing a song of victory to God: Mary does the same with the women, verse 20; secondly, the Hebrews come to Mara, where Moses turns the bitter waters into sweet, verse 23; thence they go on to Elim, which was the sixth halting-place in the desert.
1. “Then Moses and the children of Israel sung this canticle to the Lord, and said: Let us sing to the Lord: for he is gloriously magnified, the horse and his rider he hath thrown into the sea. 2. The Lord is my strength and my praise, and he is become salvation to me: he is my God, and I will glorify him: the God of my father, and I will exalt him. 3. The Lord is as a man of war, Almighty his name.” 4. “Pharao’s chariots and his army he hath cast into the sea: his chosen captains are drowned in the Red Sea. 5. The depths have covered them, they are sunk to the bottom like a stone. 6. Thy right hand, O Lord, is magnified in strength: thy right hand, O Lord, hath struck the enemy. 7. And in the multitude of thy glory thou hast put down thy adversaries: thou hast sent thy wrath, which hath devoured them like stubble. 8. And with the blast of thy anger the waters were gathered together: the flowing water stood, the depths were gathered together in the midst of the sea. 9. The enemy said: I will pursue and overtake, I will divide the spoils, my soul shall have its fill: I will draw my sword, my hand shall slay them. 10. Thy wind blew, and the sea covered them: they sunk as lead in the mighty waters. 11. Who is like to thee, among the strong, O Lord? who is like to thee, glorious in holiness, terrible and praiseworthy, doing wonders? 12. Thou stretchedst forth thy hand, and the earth swallowed them. 13. In thy mercy thou hast been a leader to the people which thou hast redeemed: and in thy strength thou hast carried them to thy holy dwelling. 14. Nations rose up and were angry: sorrows took hold on the inhabitants of Philisthiim. 15. Then were the princes of Edom troubled, trembling seized on the stout men of Moab: all the inhabitants of Chanaan became stiff. 16. Let fear and dread fall upon them, in the greatness of thy arm: let them become immoveable as a stone, until thy people, O Lord, pass by: until this thy people pass by, whom thou hast possessed. 17. Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thy inheritance, in thy most firm habitation which thou hast made, O Lord: thy sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established. 18. The Lord shall reign for ever and ever.” 19. “For Pharao went in with his chariots and horsemen into the sea, and the Lord brought back upon them the waters of the sea: but the children of Israel walked on dry ground in the midst thereof.” 20. “So Mary the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand: and all the women went forth after her with timbrels and with dances. 21. And she began the hymn to them, saying: Let us sing to the Lord, for he is gloriously magnified, the horse and his rider he hath thrown into the sea.” 22. “And Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea, and they went forth into the wilderness of Sur: and they marched three days through the wilderness, and found no water. 23. And they came to Mara, and they could not drink the waters of Mara, because they were bitter: whereupon he gave a fitting name to the place, calling it Mara, that is, bitterness. 24. And the people murmured against Moses, saying: What shall we drink? 25. But he cried to the Lord, and he shewed him a piece of wood, which when he had cast into the waters, they were turned into sweetness. There he made for him a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved him, 26. Saying: If thou wilt hear the voice of the Lord thy God, and do what is right before him, and obey his commandments, and keep all his precepts, none of the evils that I laid upon Egypt will I bring upon thee: for I am the Lord thy healer.” 27. “And the children of Israel came into Elim, where there were twelve fountains of water, and seventy palm trees: and they encamped by the waters.”
1. “THEN MOSES AND THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL SANG THIS SONG,” the most ancient of all songs (for it preceded the hymns and songs of Linus, those of Musaeus and Orpheus by more than three hundred years), is hidden from modern Hebrews and Latins; for the ancient poetry of the Hebrews has perished. Josephus asserts that this song was composed in hexameter verse, but what its feet are, which are comprehended, such as that alternating song of the women, 1 Kings xvi, 7. Likewise, as to what the Hebrews sang when they had safely crossed the sea and the Egyptians were drowned in its waves, he thinks that the triumphal song consisted only of verses 4 and 21, which, with Moses, Aaron and Miriam leading, were repeated again and again by choirs of men and women in turn, the people now and then chiming in. The rest, as to its measures, he explains. We can now observe only this in the Hebrew of this song, that it has a different style and vein, and poetic figures; for it so abounds in paronomasias, anaphoras, similar endings and other figures, and is so full of exulting spirit, that you would seem not so much to hear as to see the choir leaping in a festal song.
this, in which, rejoicing at so happy a passage of the sea and the drowning of the Egyptians, they give thanks to God and celebrate his magnificence and power; then they prophesy their own entrance into Chanaan. This song is therefore a song of victory, prophetic and eucharistic.
Allegorically, Christians, and above all the Blessed, who by baptism and the blood of Christ have overcome sin and the devil, and have entered into the promised land, sing this canticle in heaven; for this is what St. John says, Apocalypse xv: “I saw,” he says, “as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire, and them that had overcome the beast and his image, standing upon the sea of glass, having the harps of God, and singing the canticle of Moses, the servant of God, and the canticle of the Lamb, saying: Great and wonderful are thy works, O Lord God Almighty.” O how glorious, how delightful it is and will be for us to sing this canticle through all eternity!
“LET US SING.” In Hebrew it is ashira, that is, “I will sing”: for Moses composed this song at the prompting of the Holy Spirit, in the name not so much of himself as of the whole people as one, and the whole people with Moses leading chanted it as one commonwealth and Church. Hence he speaks in the singular, saying: “My strength” (not ours) “and my praise is the Lord, and he is become salvation to me; he is my God,” etc.
Philo relates that Moses dictated the several verses and led the singing, and that the people then took them up in response, as is done in choirs and dances. Abulensis adds that the Hebrews, taught this song by Moses, afterwards sang it very often. The author of the book On the Wonders of Holy Scripture, in St. Augustine, ch. xxi, notes here a manifest miracle, namely that boys, old men, men and youths in so great a number, as it were with one mouth, inspired by the same breath, chanted the same words and sentences: for although Moses led the singing, in so great a crowd he could not be heard by very many. The same happened among the women, who, with Mary leading, sang the same in response as if it were their own.
Note here, and imitate the piety of the ancient Saints, who, having received benefits from God, are wont straightway to burst into praises and hymns of God. So did David in the whole Psalter; so did Anna at the birth of Samuel; So did Debbora after Sisara; so did Judith after the slaying of Holofernes; so did Zachary at the birth of John; so did the Blessed Virgin on conceiving Christ; so did the Saints, on receiving a benefit, break forth into praises.
Simeon, having seen Christ, sang that swan-song: “Now thou dost dismiss thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word in peace.”
“FOR HE IS GLORIOUSLY MAGNIFIED.” The Hebrew is ki gaoh gaah, that is, “for in magnifying he is magnified,” that is, he is exceedingly magnified, because he exercised great power and vengeance.
The horse and the Egyptian horsemen, and especially Pharao himself, he cast into the sea. So St. Hilarion, hearing the howls of wolves, lions and other beasts, which demons feigned in order to terrify him, arming himself with the sign of the cross, wished to see those whose voices he heard; presently he saw a terrible chariot rushing upon him, but at his crying out upon Jesus it vanished; then he said: “The horse,” he said, “and the rider he hath thrown into the sea,” says St. Jerome in his Life.
Tropologically, the horse is the carnal, proud and unjust man; the rider is the demon. “If therefore the wicked man pursues thee, know that it is the horse, but the horseman is the devil; the one runs, the other strikes with his lance; the one is driven by the spurs and rages against his will; the other drives and goads,” says St. Jerome on Psalm lxxv; so Origen and Rupert here.
Again Philo says: The horses are anger and concupiscence; the one a male, the other a female. The charioteer is the intellect, which, if it slackens the reins to these horses, they drive themselves, the charioteer and the whole living creature headlong.
2. “MY STRENGTH,” not formal but causal, that is, the Lord is he who strengthens me; as if to say: We ascribe this victory not to our own strength but to God’s; for this is what is said in Psalm xix: “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will call upon the name of the Lord our God.”