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Exodus 15 - Song of Moses and Bitter Waters

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On the far shore Israel sings; three days later Israel has no water to drink. Exodus 15 places praise and thirst in one chapter so that deliverance will not be mistaken for the end of formation. The Lord overthrows the pursuer, leads His redeemed people toward His dwelling, and heals their bitter water. The people who confess His reign must learn to trust His care when the song has ended and their need is urgent.

The Lord who brings wars to nought (Exodus 15:1-5; Greek/Brenton 15:1-5)

A note on numbering. This study follows NKJV chapter and verse numbering and prints Brenton’s English Septuagint with its own verse labels. The numbered passage units here correspond in the two editions, although their wording can differ.

1 Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song to God, and spoke, saying, Let us sing to the Lord, for he is very greatly glorified: horse and rider he has thrown into the sea. 2 He was to me a helper and protector for salvation: this is my God, and I will glorify him; my father’s God, and I will exalt him. 3 The Lord bringing wars to nought, the Lord is his name. 4 He has cast the chariots of Pharao and his host into the sea, the chosen mounted captains: they were swallowed up in the Red Sea. 5 He covered them with the sea: they sank to the depth like a stone.

The first word after deliverance is praise. Moses and Israel sing about the Lord’s act, not their own courage or cleverness. The people walked through the sea, but the Lord saved them. Verse 2 joins personal confession, “this is my God,” to inherited faith, “my father’s God.” God’s work must become the present generation’s gratitude, not remain a story whose meaning belongs only to its ancestors.

Verse 3 calls Him “The Lord bringing wars to nought.” Brenton directs our attention to the overthrow of war’s instruments: Pharaoh’s chariots, host, and captains are swallowed by the sea. The song still speaks of judgment and real deaths. Its distinctive phrase does not erase those deaths, but refuses to make human military power the measure of the Lord’s greatness. God’s victory is not permission for us to imitate the pursuer’s violence. Judith’s thanksgiving likewise praises the God who breaks battles and delivers His people from their persecutors (Judith 16:3 (Septuagint) in this Brenton edition). The boast of the invader is answered by the rescue of the afflicted, not by the sanctification of human aggression.1

Hymnody is theology sung, remembered, and embodied. Praise places the truth of salvation in the mouth of a people who will soon be tempted to forget it. Gratitude becomes more durable when it is confessed to God rather than kept as a favorable feeling about ourselves.

The enemy’s boast and the Lord’s holiness (Exodus 15:6-12; Greek/Brenton 15:6-12)

6 Thy right hand, O God, has been glorified in strength; thy right hand, O God, has broken the enemies. 7 And in the abundance of thy glory thou hast broken the adversaries to pieces: thou sentest forth thy wrath, it devoured them as stubble. 8 And by the breath of thine anger the water parted asunder; the waters were congealed as a wall, the waves were congealed in the midst of the sea. 9 The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoils; I will satisfy my soul, I will destroy with my sword, my hand shall have dominion. 10 Thou sentest forth thy wind, the sea covered them; they sank like lead in the mighty water. 11 Who is like to thee among the gods, O Lord? who is like to thee? glorified in holiness, marvellous in glories, doing wonders. 12 Thou stretchedst forth thy right hand, the earth swallowed them up.

The enemy’s speech in verse 9 exposes domination from within: pursuit, spoil, satisfaction, sword, and the rule of his hand. Its repeated claims are answered by the Lord’s wind in verse 10. What Pharaoh imagined as certain gain ends beneath the waters. The contrast is between an appetite that devours other people and the power of God that breaks its claim.

The song names wrath because the suffering of the enslaved is not morally negligible. Yet those saved must not borrow the enemy’s appetite under the excuse of praising judgment. The right hand celebrated here belongs to the Lord. In the Christian struggle it is our own pride, cruelty, and unrepentant will that must be brought before His judgment and healing.

“Who is like to thee among the gods?” gives the hymn its theological center. Israel’s God is glorified in holiness, not merely stronger than a rival army. Wonder should purify the worshiper from the desire to dominate. A grateful person who becomes cruel to the weak has adopted Pharaoh’s speech while retaining Israel’s song. Revelation 13:4 exposes the opposite kind of worship: the beast’s admirers ask who is like the beast and who can wage war against it. The verbal resemblance throws the contrast into relief. Israel marvels at the holiness of the Lord who delivers; the beast’s worshipers marvel at apparently invincible power. What we praise teaches us what we are willing to become.2

The redeemed people and God’s dwelling (Exodus 15:13-19; Greek/Brenton 15:13-19)

13 Thou hast guided in thy righteousness this thy people whom thou hast redeemed, by thy strength thou hast called them into thy holy resting-place. 14 The nations heard and were angry, pangs have seized on the dwellers among the Phylistines. 15 Then the princes of Edom, and the chiefs of the Moabites hasted; trembling took hold upon them, all the inhabitants of Chanaan melted away. 16 Let trembling and fear fall upon them; by the greatness of thine arm, let them become as stone; till thy people pass over, O Lord, till this thy people pass over, whom thou hast purchased. 17 Bring them in and plant them in the mountain of their inheritance, in thy prepared habitation, which thou, O Lord, hast prepared; the sanctuary, O Lord, which thine hands have made ready. 18 The Lord reigns for ever and ever and ever. 19 For the horse of Pharao went in with the chariots and horsemen into the sea, and the Lord brought upon them the water of the sea, but the children of Israel walked through dry land in the midst of the sea.

The hymn looks beyond the far shore. The people have been redeemed and guided toward God’s holy resting-place, and the prayer asks Him to bring them in and plant them in the mountain of inheritance. Verse 17 names that destination as the sanctuary, the dwelling the Lord Himself prepares. Salvation has a destination: life with the Lord. The defeat of the old master is the beginning of belonging, worship, and habitation, not the completion of every promise.

Brenton’s verse 13 says God has guided His people “in thy righteousness.” Verse 16 calls them the people He has purchased. The purchased people cannot go back to living as Pharaoh’s property or as self-owned consumers. God’s enduring reign in verse 18 answers every supposedly permanent human dominion. Those who serve Christ can act with courage without imagining that their own ministry must become indispensable.

Wisdom of Solomon 10:20-21 (Septuagint) remembers the saved people praising together and Wisdom opening the mouths of those unable to speak. Deliverance restores speech for thanksgiving. Revelation 15:2-4 carries the pattern into the victory of the Lamb: the redeemed stand by the sea of glass and sing the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb. Christ fulfills the exodus; He does not make its praise disposable. The Church’s hope is to belong to Him and worship in His presence.

Miriam and the answering people (Exodus 15:20-21; Greek/Brenton 15:20-21)

20 And Mariam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, having taken a timbrel in her hand - then there went forth all the women after her with timbrels and dances. 21 And Mariam led them, saying, Let us sing to the Lord, for he has been very greatly glorified: the horse and rider has he cast into the sea.

Miriam is named a prophetess and leads the women in the same confession that opened the song. The answering refrain spreads the memory of God’s work through the worshiping people. Salvation does not remain private in Moses or become the possession of specialists. The whole people are drawn into praise.

Miriam’s response gives the women a voice within the people’s thanksgiving. The refrain belongs to those who were saved. In the Church, the chanter and congregation share one confession: musical skill serves a praise the whole people can enter. The song becomes our own when our attention rests on the Lord who saved us.

The Church’s Voice in Worship: Miriam and the answering people

The First Hoos, the first canticle of Coptic Midnight Praise, sings Exodus 15:1-21, including Miriam’s answer. The Second Hoos sings Psalm 136 (LXX 135), whose account of the divided sea and the overthrow of Pharaoh repeatedly answers with God’s enduring mercy. These are consecutive acts of biblical remembrance within the service, not merely a general resemblance to Christian hymnody.3 Bright Saturday’s Midnight Praises also explicitly includes “The First Canticle (Exodus 15).” At Covenant Thursday’s Laqan, a short excerpt printed “Exodus from 14, 15” recalls the crossing and the song rather than reading both entire chapters.4 The Sixth Hour of Wednesday of Holy Pascha also reads Exodus 14:13-15:1, carrying the crossing into the first words of the song.4 The praise of verses 1 and 20-21 thus belongs both to the memory of deliverance and to the Church’s Paschal thanksgiving.

As the Church repeats the song, she receives a memory stronger than the fear that will meet her at the next bitter place. We sing words of deliverance before we know what tomorrow will require of us. The refrain trains our gratitude to outlast the feeling of relief. “Hoos” names the canticle or song of praise; its following “Lobsh” is an explanatory hymn. The service’s English rendering differs from Brenton in places, including verse 3; the source note identifies the difference.3

Bitter waters and the tree of healing (Exodus 15:22-26; Greek/Brenton 15:22-26)

22 So Moses brought up the children of Israel from the Red Sea, and brought them into the wilderness of Sur; and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water to drink. 23 And they came to Merrha, and could not drink of Merrha, for it was bitter; therefore he named the name of that place, Bitterness. 24 And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? 25 And Moses cried to the Lord, and the Lord shewed him a tree, and he cast it into the water, and the water was sweetened: there he established to him ordinances and judgments, and there he proved him, 26 and said, If thou wilt indeed hear the voice of the Lord thy God, and do things pleasing before him, and wilt hearken to his commands, and keep all his ordinances, no disease which I have brought upon the Egyptians will I bring upon thee, for I am the Lord thy God that heals thee.

The chapter’s spiritual realism appears immediately after the hymn. The people pass through the sea, sing, and then walk three days without water. After consolation comes dryness. After victory comes testing. Their thirst is real, and the Lord provides water rather than telling them that their bodies do not matter.

Israel has truly been delivered, yet Israel is not yet inwardly healed. The Lord has brought His people out of Egypt; He must now free their hearts from the habits of bondage. Murmuring turns need into accusation against Moses. Moses turns the same need into a cry to the Lord. The difference is not that one person feels thirst and the other does not; it is where the need is taken. We can name exhaustion or suffering honestly without deciding that God’s former mercy was a deception.

The Lord shows Moses a tree. The wood enters the bitter water, and the water becomes sweet. Christian typology reads this real provision in the light of the Cross: Christ enters suffering and death to heal their final dominion. The Cross does not make harm imaginary, excuse an abuser, or require an injured person to remain unsafe. Bringing bitterness to Christ may include seeking protection, receiving appropriate medical care, asking for counsel, and refusing to let resentment govern the heart.

Language insight: “tree” and “wood”

The Greek of Exodus 15:25 calls the tree “ξύλον” (xylon), a word used for wood or a tree. Acts 5:30, Galatians 3:13, and 1 Peter 2:24 use forms of the same word for the wood on which Christ was crucified. This gives the comparison a real scriptural vocabulary: the wood associated with healing at Marah is heard alongside the wood on which Christ bears our sins. A shared word supports the reading; the saving meaning comes from Christ and the whole biblical witness, not from a hidden meaning in the word alone.5

Gems from the Fathers : The Cross and the water

St. Justin Martyr places Marah among the scriptural figures of the wood of Christ’s Cross. His reading concerns the crucified Savior, not the isolated power of an object: “Moses was sent with a rod to effect the redemption of the people; and with this in his hands at the head of the people, he divided the sea.”6 He continues, “when he cast a tree into the waters of Marah, which were bitter, he made them sweet.”6 The typology joins the deliverance at the sea to the healing in the wilderness through the saving work fulfilled in Christ.

St. Ambrose gives the Marah tree an explicitly baptismal application: “For water without the preaching of the Cross of the Lord is of no avail for future salvation”7. In the surrounding passage the proclamation of the Lord’s Cross belongs to the consecration of the font. The water’s meaning rests in Christ’s saving action, not in a superstition about wood.

The Lord’s final word in verse 26 is personal: “I am the Lord thy God that heals thee.” He joins healing to hearing and obeying. Israel needs a restored relation to God, as well as drinkable water. This covenant promise should not be turned into a diagnosis that every sick Christian has disobeyed. The verse names God’s healing care and calls this people to fidelity; it gives no license to blame an ill person or refuse treatment.

The Church’s Voice in Worship: Bitter waters and the tree of healing

At the Apostles Feast Laqan and the consecration of a baptistery, Coptic Reader appoints Exodus 15:22-16:1. The tree and healed water of verse 25 are heard within rites that bless water and a place of baptism, turning our attention to Christ’s cleansing gift.4 The Ottawa Katameros of the Holy Pascha additionally places the Marah-to-hunger passage beside Exodus 17:8-16 at the First Hour of Covenant Thursday. Its heading prints Exodus 15:23-16:3, but its text begins at 15:22.8 Coptic Reader’s First Hour appoints Exodus 17:8-16 without that additional Exodus prophecy. The healing water and hunger remain a meaningful connection to the Last Supper and Passion, while the two editions’ appointments must be distinguished.

The Coptic Litany for the Sick prays, “O You, the true Physician of our souls and our bodies,” and asks for healing of both.9 This prayer gives voice to the breadth of the promise at Marah. Our bodies need care; our souls need freedom from resentment, unbelief, and sin. In prayer we bring both before the Lord, without making bodily recovery the measure of a person’s faith.

Rest by twelve fountains and seventy palms (Exodus 15:27; Greek/Brenton 15:27)

27 And they came to Ælim, and there were there twelve fountains of water, and seventy stems of palm-trees; and they encamped there by the waters.

Elim is a place to encamp by water. Its twelve fountains and seventy palm stems give the exhausted people a concrete provision after Marah. The Lord does not despise the weak who complained. He continues to shepherd them. Rest is a gift within the journey, not a denial of its testing.

The Church’s early readers also heard apostolic promise in this resting-place. The fountains and palms first sustain Israel in the wilderness; their fruitfulness can then help us see how Christ sustains His Church through those He sends.

Gems from the Fathers : Refreshment through apostolic teaching

St. Irenaeus reads the wilderness gifts within the saving work of the Word of God. In his account of the exodus fulfilled in Christ, he identifies “twelve fountains, that is, the teaching of the twelve apostles.”10 The comparison makes apostolic teaching a source of refreshment: the Gospel is given to thirsty people, not merely to satisfy curiosity.

Tertullian, an early Christian writer, makes both comparisons while defending the unity of the God of Israel and the God revealed in Christ: “Now why, if the twelve followed the number of the twelve fountains of Elim, should not the seventy correspond to the like number of the palms of that place?”11 His point is the continuity of God’s provision, not a license to decode every biblical number. Luke 10:1 supplies the Gospel scene. Through the apostolic witness, Christ continues to gather and nourish a people. We receive that teaching with the gratitude of people who have found water, and let it bear fruit in obedience and mercy.

Spiritual Fruit

Let gratitude become praise. After an answered prayer, name God’s mercy to Him before making the next request. Pray part of the First Hoos with attention to the Lord’s act rather than your own success. Gratitude kept only as a passing feeling is quickly displaced by the next need.

Take thirst to the Lord instead of using it to accuse. At Marah the need is genuine; Moses’ cry gives it a different direction. Name one bitter condition plainly in prayer, and take one appropriate step toward care or repair. Refuse the conclusion that God’s earlier mercy was false because today is difficult.

Let the Cross heal resentment without denying harm. Forgiveness is not pretending that bitterness never existed. Bring the person or event to Christ, seek safety where necessary, and resist the deliberate rehearsal of revenge. The wood enters the water; it does not call the bitter water sweet before healing it.

Receive Elim without clinging to it. Rest, nourishing friendship, and relief from hardship are gifts. Give thanks for a real refreshment and allow another weary person to share it. The Lord who gives rest also continues to lead.

Lord Jesus Christ, let our praise remember Your victory when thirst returns. Enter the bitter water we cannot sweeten by ourselves. Heal our hearing and our trust, and lead us toward Your dwelling.

Footnotes

  1. Judith 16:3 (Septuagint) in Brenton’s edition 🔗: “For God breaketh the battles.” In this edition the line is numbered 16:3. ↩

  2. Revelation 13:4 and 15:2-4, NKJV 🔗. The contrast is a comparison of the two scenes of worship, not a claim that Revelation labels its question a quotation of Exodus. ↩

  3. Coptic Midnight Praise, First Hoos 🔗, Exodus 15:1-21 including Miriam’s answer, and Second Hoos 🔗, Psalm 136 (LXX 135). St. Shenouda Monastery, “Tasbeha: Heaven on Earth” 🔗, explains their placement in Midnight Praise and the following Lobsh. This is a service appointment, not a claim that every parish performs it every night. ↩ ↩2

  4. Coptic Reader, Coptic Orthodox Metropolis of the Southern United States, official app: Special > Pascha > Wednesday > Wednesday Day > 6th Hour, printed Exodus 14:13-15:1; Special > Pascha > Thursday > Thursday Day > Liturgy of the Waters, printed Exodus from 14, 15; Special > Pascha > Saturday > Praises, printed The First Canticle (Exodus 15); Special > Consecrations > Baptistery, printed Exodus 15:22-16:1; Special > Lakkan > Apostles Feast, printed Exodus 15:22-16:1; Special > Pascha > Thursday > Thursday Day > 1st Hour, printed Exodus 17:8-16. The app link does not select a service; follow the menu path. Printed references are retained separately from the Brenton text displayed here. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  5. Exodus 15:25, Swete’s Septuagint 🔗, “ξύλον”; Acts 5:30 🔗 and Galatians 3:13 🔗, “ἐπὶ ξύλου”; 1 Peter 2:24 🔗, “ἐπὶ τὸ ξύλον.” Shared vocabulary is distinguished from an assertion of direct literary dependence. ↩

  6. St. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, chapter 86, translated by Marcus Dods and George Reith, ANF vol. 1, text 🔗. Justin’s separate Elim sentence speaks of willows and misnames the crossing as Jordan; the editor corrects the latter. It is not the basis of this guide’s Elim interpretation. ↩ ↩2

  7. St. Ambrose, On the Mysteries, III.14, translated by H. de Romestin, E. de Romestin, and H. T. F. Duckworth, NPNF Second Series, vol. 10, text 🔗. ↩

  8. Katameros of the Holy Pascha, St. Mary Coptic Orthodox Church, Ottawa, English eBook, 2018, “The First Hour of Great Thursday,” pp. 372-374: Exodus 17:8-16 followed by the reading labeled 15:23-16:3, whose content begins at 15:22. Coptic terminology is corroborated by the Liturgy of St. Basil reference book 🔗, pp. 88, 129; that link corroborates the terminology, not the Pascha reading boundaries. ↩

  9. Coptic Litany for the Sick 🔗, the petition beginning “As for us also, O Lord, the maladies of our souls, heal.” The prayer continues with the true-Physician address and a plea for His saving visitation. ↩

  10. St. Irenaeus, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching 46, translated from the Armenian by Armitage Robinson, SPCK, 1920, pp. 111-112, text 🔗. ↩

  11. Tertullian, Against Marcion, IV.24, translated by Peter Holmes, ANF vol. 3, text 🔗. The opening paragraph compares the twelve fountains and seventy palms with Christ’s two missions; its context argues for the same divine Giver in both Testaments. ↩

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