the song of the sea.

i just realized in the last few posts i mentioned this sermon, so i thought i might as well post it.


The Song of the Sea

It’s actually very fitting that the final teaching in our exodus series was cancelled by a hurricane. Exodus chapter 15, the last in our series, is often called “The Song of the Sea.” At its basic level, it is a song sung by the Israelites on the far shore after the sea has let them walk through but drowned the Egyptian army that followed.

It may be helpful for you to know a we go through this that Hebrew poetry is written in couplets. This applies as much to the song tonight as it does to most of the psalms and other pieces of Hebrew poetry in the bible, such as the Song of Songs, or much of the prophecy. Two images or statements are put next to each other to either reinforce each other or to oppose each other and be resolved later in the poem. So when you see two statements that look redundant in English, or seem to be stating the same thing in a slightly different way, that’s part of the poetry.

I have also included for you tonight a copy of the song as it is written in the Hebrew bible. I assumed that most of you don’t have one, but, like we did in the series earlier this year when we went through some of the songs that we sing here at Encounter, I wanted you to see what the song looks like in Hebrew. It is always written like this. This is a photocopy out of my Hebrew bible, but here on screen is a picture of it as it is written in a torah scroll.

Hebrew, by the way, is read right to left. The larger letters which is actually the 15 for the chapter, should be in your top right corner. I only say this because once Chris was working for an internet advertising company and they were asked to do an ad for an Israeli company who sent them the advertising copy in Hebrew. When Chris sent them back the ad, they said, “why are all the letters upside down and backwards?” :) So just in case, I thought I would explain what you’re looking at.

You can see it is written down roughly in 3 columns, which over lap slightly. The traditional interpretations of this are that 1) it represents the bricks that the slaves had to make and build in Egypt, so it reminds us of what we were freed from 2) it is what the sea looked like when it parted or 3) the left and right side are the walls of water and the center is the Israelites walking between. You can pick whichever one you like best :) For me, what I thought was worth thinking about is that in the middle of the bible, there is this poem that is not only a verbal work of art, but is also a visual one as well, and both aspects are created to glorify God.

But, as with most pieces of ancient writing, there is more going on here than just a joyful song.

First, I would like to point out that it is poetry and it is worship. It is a theological statement, and interpretation. To try and force the song of exodus 15 to match up with the prose account in exodus 13 and 14 is to try and force it to say something it doesn’t say. Peter Enns, in his commentary, says it is asking something of the song that the ancient author did not put there. Because one is the prose account and the other is a highly stylized worship song, we should not expect the details to match exactly. That is a mistreatment of the text.

I say this because often things like this, discrepancies in multiple accounts of an event in the Bible, are often used to “prove” that the Bible is nonsense. The bible is not concerned with giving us some kind of pure historical account. The bible is the story of god and god’s people, and it includes theological interpretation and emotional expressions of worship because it tells us who god is and who his people are. If this just sticks in your craw, please come talk to me afterward - I’d love to keep this conversation going, but I did agree to cut my teaching down tonight :)

The other thing that we might miss in our twenty-first century reading is that the sea in the ancient world was thought of a the source of chaos and disorder. In many of the ancient myths, the gods or heroes are told of battling the sea or the monsters it produces. We can see the frightening, and in fact, chaotic power of water simply demonstrated today by hurricane Irene. The flooding in New Jersey has been devastating and it has even killed people. Imagine what floods and storms from the ocean would do to people three and four thousand years ago. No electricity, no radio, no twitter :) houses built simply of wood and mud.

Also, the near east is located on the eastern and southern shores of the Mediterranean. Without electricity, the sun was the major source of light, and of course, warmth. In most cultures, it was worshiped as a god who brought life. The sun sets, as we all know, in the west. Today, we know the earth is round and in fact circles around the sun, which is why it seems to rise and set and we have seasons. But the ancient world thought the earth was flat and the sun traveled around it. To someone living a couple thousand years ago in the middle east, it looked as though the sea ate the sun every night. The sun would set into the sea and darkness and danger would come.

beyond our science, this can actually be a strange viewpoint for us here, just because we’re on the east coast. I had never seen the sun setting into the ocean until 2006 when Chris and I went on vacation to California. For the first couple nights there, we were staying in a hotel in santa Monica, which is a suburb between Los Angeles and the pacific ocean. Our first night, I said to Chris, “I want to see the sun setting into the ocean.” So despite the fact that we had been traveling for like 9 hours, we got back in the car and drove to the beach so that I could see it. It really is a beautiful sight, but I can also understand the fear in the ancient world as the sun sinks and everything first gets red and then goes dark. The sea seems to be even more powerful than the sun.

However, in the Hebrew Bible, YHWH, their god, is universally described as having power over the sea.

First, in Genesis 1, God creates simply by speaking and by telling the waters what to do. There is no mighty cosmic battle here that you often see in other ancient stories. YHWH simply speaks, and the sea and land obey.

In the story of Jonah, God sends the storm and calms it. It’s not even really the point of the story, but God being more powerful than the forces of the sea is just part of the background for the author.

And here, in this song, the sea is just another tool of God, especially in verses 6-8:

“Your right hand, O LORD,
was majestic in power.
Your right hand, O LORD,
shattered the enemy.
In the greatness of your majesty
you threw down those who opposed you.
You unleashed your burning anger;
it consumed them like stubble.
By the blast of your nostrils
the waters piled up.
The surging waters stood firm like a wall;
the deep waters congealed in the heart of the sea.”

This is not a god who has to fight against the chaos of the sea, but a god who simply commands in power as the creator.
The crossing of the sea seems to be written to deliberately evoke the language of Genesis 1 - again the waters are divided, and again, dry land appears to sustain life. The passage of the sea and the completing of the freedom from Egypt mark a new start for god’s people.

The song continues to celebrate god’s power and creation a little further down in verses 11 through 13.

“Who among the gods is like you, O LORD?
Who is like you—
majestic in holiness,
awesome in glory,
working wonders?
You stretched out your right hand
and the earth swallowed them.

“In your unfailing love you will lead
the people you have redeemed.
In your strength you will guide them
to your holy dwelling.”

There is no god like this one and we are his people! This song is a triumphant announcement.

also, look at the turn there in verse 13. Suddenly, the verbs are in future tense! You will... you will... Worshiping God always has a future aspect to it, not just past and present.

It’s not really completed until God establishes his temple in Jerusalem, and then, if you know the story, Israel keeps turning away from God to worship other gods. The prophets often look back to the exodus to remind Israel who they should be Worshiping and why. Not just because he delivered them from Egypt, but because he is the powerful creator god whom even the sea obeys.

And god’s people keep going. As Christians, we worship the same god.

And so we are part of this story. The God that we worship is the powerful creator God who not only controls the chaotic forces of the sea, but who loves us and takes care of us.

This is seen most clearly in Jesus, who was God, and who came and died for us to conquer the ultimate power of chaos, sin. Sin is anything that does not worship God. And we also have a promise of new creation when he comes back. Right now, we are still broken people in a broken world that is only partly healed. Jesus has come, but things still aren’t right yet. We have the promise that in the future someday they will be.

But you know, sometimes, because we are broken people, and we turn away from God the same as the Israelites did, we get confused about sin. In the history of the church, visual art, music, dance, and many other creative endeavors of people have been declared sinful. That is why I love so much that there is, among other things, a piece of visual art in the bible.

There is not just one or two ways to worship God, there are as many ways to worship God as there are people who worship him. But the other thing this song teaches us is that we worship together. Moses and the Israelites sing this song, and Miriam leads the women of Israel in dancing as they sing together the song to worship God. The other name for this sing is “The Song of Moses and Miriam.” God is worshiped both in our individual expressions and in our expressions together as his people. In both ways is his wonderful, amazing creative power shown.

What inspires you to worship?

I asked Darren Campbell, a member of the encounter community and a very good poet and artist to write a poem for the community tonight. It is here on the easel. But I also wanted to give everyone a chance to worship god in your own creative way. So on the back of the song handout or on your program, or wherever, maybe you will write your own song to god. Or maybe you will go to the pillows in the back and pray or kneel or dance to God. You can feel free to get up and go wherever, or come up here and read Darren’s poem as well.

Then I will call everyone back together, and we’ll do some worshiping together. This will be our community building tome tonight, and you can choose two things (I’ll repeat this later so don’t worry). If you want to, you can share what inspires you to worship and what expression you used tonight. Or you can just discuss what you want to take away from this whole teaching series.

So I am going to release you all now to just... worship God however you want to for a few minutes.. Write, pray, kneel, dance, draw, whatever it is you do.