What do you sing for? We sing songs in church, but often forget to think about why we sing the things we do. In today’s passage, we read of Moses and Miriam’s song. This isn’t just another song about how a lover feels for his or her beloved. This is a song that expresses gratitude and affection for salvation!
(A) Sing of our covenantal God that saves (Exo 15: 1-2, 19-21)
Two things happened right before Exo 15:1, where Moses and the people of Israel sing to the LORD. They saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore, and God’s great power on their enemies (Exo 14:30). It is in response to this sight of final deliverance that Moses and the people of Israel sing. This tells us that the following song is a song of response. Moses isn’t singing to placate or petition, but to praise.
Exo 15:2 reveals that Moses’ relationship with God is deeply personal. This is the “LORD” - the personal revealed name of God - that Moses sings to! In invoking the name of God, Moses calls to mind the happenings of Exo 3:5-6, where God called out to Moses from the burning bush when Moses was alone and displaced from his people. God spoke to in a marvellous way, by reminding Moses that He is the same personal covenantal God to Moses that He was to Moses’ forefathers. And Moses reacts with fear. Moses knew that the God of his forefathers is a holy God, and sinners cannot stand before a Holy God!
But Exo 15:2 shows us a different Moses. The Moses of Exo 15 is a Moses who dares to rejoice in the fact that the holy God is near to him. When Moses declares, “this is my God…and my fathers’ God”, Moses declares that he has seen the covenantal, faithful God act mightily and work powerfully through him.
Jump to Exo 15:20 for a moment, and consider Miriam. Miriam, the sister of Aaron, is described as a prophetess. Remember that a prophetess brings God’s word to God’s people. As soon as the Bible gets space after the song is over, it introduces Miriam to us, and reminds us that even prophets and prophetesses still need to be saved! Miriam is not anymore righteous or holy just because she brings God’s words. She is still God’s creation, and needs saving as well. She, like Moses, sings as a direct response to what God has done. Interestingly, she sings to the people who came out with her in comparison to Moses and the people who sang to the Lord. There’s a congregational aspect to this. This isn’t a duet. Miriam is calling out to her people with everything she has, to call them towards that same God in song. This helps us to understand singing as an extremely physical, responsive, and congregational act. God’s people sing in this way, for God is a covenantal God who saves.
(B) Sing of our gloriously powerful and perfectly holy God who has no equal (Exo 15:3-12)
In Moses' song, we learn some things about God (Exo 15:3-6).
Who is God, what is his name? (Exo 15:3)
Moses tells us that "the LORD is his name" and He is referred to as the "man of war". Earlier in Exo 3:14, God revealed Himself as "I am who I am”. God’s name is a reflection of His being. God is the only self-existent and self-sufficient Being. Only God has life in and of Himself.
What does God do? (Exo 15:4-5)
He throws chariots and officers into the sea and causes floods to cover them, causing them to sink like stones. This is a God that throws war machines into the sea, throwing the best of human leadership into the depths. God displays His power over best of human efforts. As the forces of nature covered them, they sank heavy like a stone. They were helpless, God’s power is over natural order.
What does that say of God? (Exo 15:6)
We see God's right hand glorious in power and this same right hand also shatters the enemy. Moses sings of God's omnipotence, for God is capable of performing anything he desires. God’s ultimate will is never frustrated by evil, so there is peace and confidence in the face of suffering for those who trust God.
Exo 15:7 goes on to tell us that God sends out His fury, which consumes the Egyptians like stubble. The word stubble here echoes what Israel went through in Exo 5:10-13 when Pharaoh made Israel gather “stubble to use for straw”. Using stubble in the song was a way of hinting that God gave Egypt exactly what they deserved - indicating that God’s wrath is a righteous and just. We might struggle to praise God for His wrath, but bear in mind that God’s wrath is distinctly different from human anger, which is often vindictive, irrational, and arbitrary. The difference is that God’s wrath is always righteous. Divine wrath is a holy hatred of sin and all those who defile, disrupt and destroy the world that he has made.
How does this shape the way we face injustice in the world today? God sees, God knows, and God will judge. Moses experienced it, and his experiences remind us that the God of wrath will judge the world with perfect justice, righting every wrong and bringing wrath against all injustice. If you are a child of God, you are safe from this wrath.
It is worth pausing to consider what the enemy plans to do, and who is the center of the enemy’s plans (Exo 15:9). We quickly see that the enemy thinks primarily in terms of himself (I, my), which puts his posture in stark contrast with Moses’ songs that is all about God. Instead of glorifying God, the enemy seeks to glorify himself. The enemy’s posture tells us something about the nature of sin. Sin is a self-centredness that seeks to deny God. In sin, you are saying, "God, I am god! I don’t care about what you want, I only care about what I want.” Sin is also treacherous, and progressively so, as it also blinded Pharaoh to wade into his watery grave. It knows no end, for its appetite for self-glory cannot be sated. It transitions from seemingly harmless to downright evil (Exo 15:9). It’s also planned and intentional, which says something about how no one just sins because of social forces etc. That’s why judgment doesn’t merely fall against the sin, but also the sinner!
God’s response to Pharaoh’s 6 lines of repetition is stunning. Consider how tersely God’s reaction is expressed. In response to all the enemy’s planning and cunning, God simply blew with His wind, and the sea covered them. In just one line, God wipes them and their plans out. That’s incredibly scary, knowing that God isn’t a tame house cat, but a mighty God who wields righteous wrath against unholiness. How do we come before God like this?
The rhetorical question in Exo 15:11, "who is like you?”, calls to mind the God that we sing to. No one is like our God, who is majestic, awesome, and doing wonders. When we sing, we sing of our gloriously powerful and perfectly holy God who has no equal.
(C) Sing of God’s never ending reign and his steadfast love that redeems us to himself(Exo 15:13-18)
So how does the holy God leads his redeemed people? He leads them in His steadfast love, and guides with his strength to where He is (his holy abode). Why is his love described as steadfast? His steadfast love is for a people that are hard to love - a rebellious people that do not trust him, and for a people that desire the safety of what they have known in Egypt (as seen in them wanting to go back multiple times throughout the exodus). But his love is steadfast, and he loves his people when they are not lovely and when they sometimes even reject him. By drawing them out of their past, He calls them to look forward to when they will be with Him.
This is seen most clearly in Exo 15:14-16, where Moses and the Israelites look forward to the day Israel enters the promised land of Canaan. The nations that might oppose Israel are now seized with pangs of fear, terror and dread fall on them, until God’s people pass by and enter Canaan, their promised land.
If you are a believer today, this shouldn’t be an alien song to you. If you are a Christian, you have actually been redeemed by that same steadfast love, because God sent His Son to live a perfect life, taking on sin and the full wrath of God.
Consider the words of the song, “How Great Thou Art”:
“And when I think that God His Son not sparing, sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in…”
Why can’t we take it in? Because we are all mired in sin, and live lives centered on what we desire, but God did not spare His Son to redeem sinners like us.
“That on the Cross, my burden gladly bearing, He bled and died to take away my sin"
This is how Moses the sinner can sing about God’s wrath and righteous judgment against sin, for he knows that his God is a God of steadfast love. As a God of steadfast love, God promised to overthrow sin and redeem His people. Christians today have been purchased and redeemed - Though we struggle, we are still clinging on, and looking forward to a similar promise - where God will lead His people to His holy abode. As the Israelites sang in Exo 15:17, we hold on to the same promise that God will bring His people into His presence, where we will be with Him.
The song concludes with the proclamation that “the LORD will reign forever and ever”. This is a picture of God as eternal reigning king not just now but forever and ever; a picture of the perfect just God extended into eternity, where His people are subjected under Him.
So what does singing do?
Singing is instructional. It teaches us of who God is how we are to respond to him.
Singing is for remembering. For God has acted, and acted mightily.
Singing is congregational. It is sung together in unity, with complementary parts of Gods people making it better.
Singing is responsive. It is in response to what God has done for them.
Singing is physical. It involves our whole being in response to God.
Singing is personal. It is an expression of personal experience and relationship.
Like the Israelites, we sing because God has delivered us.