Exodus
15-16: “The Song Of Moses And
By
1.
INTRO:
1.1.
In our last study, we looked at chapters
13-14 of the book of Exodus.
1.1.1. We looked at “that defining moment in history” which
the Lord provided for His people to always be able to look back upon and
remember His greatness and glory: “the
deliverance of Israel from Egypt and slavery through the Lord parting the Red
Sea so that they could walk across, and then drowning Pharaoh and his army when
the attempted to follow Israel through the Red Sea.”
1.1.2. We saw that this event is referred to in numerous
places in the Old Testament as being a time to always remember and to instruct
your children about.
1.1.3. We saw that the event was as significant and pivotal
to the Old Testament as the resurrection of Christ is in the New Testament.
1.2.
In our study
today, we are going to look at chapters 15-16 of the book of Exodus.
1.2.1. We will see that the Lord’s delivering Israel by the
parting of the Red Sea so that they could walk through on dry ground, and then
His drowning of Pharaoh and his army, caused Moses and the children of Israel
to write what is the first song that is found in the Bible (and perhaps also in
the ancient world in general). This is a
very significant section of scripture because of this, and there are many
things that we can derive from it.
1.2.2. It is significant also that this first poem or song
that is recorded in the scripture came about as a result of God’s people
experiencing God’s redemption on their behalf.
There was no precedent to the writing of poems or songs so how the Lord
inspired Moses and the Israelites to do this is significant. When you read David’s psalms you can see
reflected the structure and constructs found in this inspired song of Moses.
1.2.3. By His great and outstretched arm God had fulfilled
His promises made hundreds of years before to Abraham, bringing the children of
1.2.4. Note that in this song that the children of Israel
sing that they employ many ‘anthropomorphisms’ in this song, speaking of
God as appearing and acting in human-like ways and means. The greatest “anthropomorphism” in the
scripture was God sending His Son in the form of mankind so that He might
reveal His nature full through Jesus Christ, and so now if we want to know what
God is like we can just take a long look at the Lord Jesus Christ.
1.2.5. Arthur Pink claims that the angels are never found
singing praise to God and therefore that praise is the song of those who have
been saved and delivered.
2.
VS 15:1-3 - “1
Then Moses and the sons of
2.1.
This song causes
me to think about David dancing before the Lord. He too was rejoicing in God for His working
mightily on his behalf and delivering him.
2.2.
The children of
2.3.
The children of
2.3.1. The scripture tells us that “the joy of the Lord is
my strength.” Our very spiritual
strength as God’s people is derivative upon rejoicing in the Lord.
2.4.
This phrase ‘is
highly exalted’ can be translated ‘triumphed gloriously.’
2.5.
Moses had told
the children of
3.
VS 15:4-7 - “4
“Pharaoh’s chariots and his army He has cast into the sea; And the choicest
of his officers are drowned in the
3.1.
The drowning of
Pharaoh and his army was a supernatural event, perhaps like the earth opening
up and devouring Korah and his family after his rebellion, for it says that the
Egyptian army went down ‘like a stone.’
3.2.
Jacob had blessed
Joseph’s sons, placing his ‘right hand’ upon the head of the one to have
prominence. Now, here we have a “first
mention” of the Lord’s mighty power being spoken about as coming from His ‘right
hand.’ This concept of the ‘right
hand’ will be continued in this song.
Note also, that this precedent is then repeated all through the
scriptures. The ‘right hand’ of
God then is revealed to be that of honor and rule, and even that Jesus was
raised up and seated at the ‘right hand’ of God (Heb. 10:12; Col. 3:1;
Rom. 8:34) .
3.3.
Is God right
handed? No, of course not. This is just an “anthropomorphism”
created so that we might understand who He is by using human terms we are
familiar with.
4.
VS 15:8-10 - “8
“At the blast of Your nostrils the waters were piled up, The flowing waters
stood up like a heap; The deeps were congealed in the heart of the sea. 9 “The enemy said, ‘I will pursue, I will overtake,
I will divide the spoil; My desire shall be gratified against them; I will draw
out my sword, my hand will destroy them.’ 10 “You blew with Your wind, the sea covered them;
They sank like lead in the mighty waters.” - The children of Israel sang about how that it
was at the blast of the Lord’s nostrils that the waters were piled up and stood
up like a heap, and that the deeps were congealed in the heart of the sea, then
the enemy (the Egyptian army) pursued them and sought to overtake them thinking
he would divide the spoil, but the army sank like lead
4.1.
Using yet another
anthropomorphism, we see that the children of
4.2.
Note here that
the Egyptians had thought that they would fight and destroy the children of
5.
VS 15:11-16 - “11
“Who is like You among the gods, O Lord?
Who is like You, majestic in holiness, Awesome in praises, working wonders? 12 “You stretched out Your right hand, The earth
swallowed them. 13 “In Your lovingkindness
You have led the people whom You have redeemed; In Your strength You have
guided them to Your holy habitation. 14 “The peoples have heard, they tremble; Anguish has
gripped the inhabitants of
5.1.
All of the gods
in
5.2.
Notice that the
children of
5.3.
The children of
5.4.
Through God’s
deliverance of
6.
VS 15:17-19 - “17
“You will bring them and plant them in the mountain of Your inheritance,
The place, O Lord, which You have
made for Your dwelling, The sanctuary, O Lord, which Your hands have
established. 18 “The Lord shall reign forever and ever.” 19 For the horses of Pharaoh with his chariots and
his horsemen went into the sea, and the Lord
brought back the waters of the sea on them, but the sons of
6.1.
The Lord’s ‘dwelling,’
His ‘sanctuary,’ which His hands have established is thought to be the
land of Canaan which the children of Israel are at this time planning to go and
take possession of.
6.2.
Likewise, it
appears to be the children of
7.
VS 15:20-21 - “20
Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took the timbrel in her hand, and
all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dancing. 21 Miriam answered them, “Sing to the Lord, for He is highly exalted; The
horse and his rider He has hurled into the sea.”” - Moses’ sister Miriam, the prophetess, took a
timbrel in her hand and went out dancing with the women in
7.1.
Some have been
critical here of this passage about Miriam and questioned whether it contradicted
scripture that states that women are not supposed to be the leaders in God’s
people. However, note that Miriam was
leading ‘all the women’ in doing this.
7.2.
Miriam, the
sister of Moses and Aaron, led the women the singing and dancing with ‘timbrels.’ A ‘timbrel’ is the same thing as a ‘tambourine.’
8.
VS 15:22-27 - “22
Then Moses led
8.1.
The children of
8.1.1. When Jesus’ crucifixion was about to happen, He was
teaching His disciples all of the things that they would now need to be
understanding and doing since He in His physical presence was going to be
removed from them. In John 16:24, Jesus
taught them that they were now to begin to lift up to the Lord all of their
needs, and that God would answer them, “24 “Until now you
have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy
may be made full.”
8.2.
After three days
without water, the children of
8.3.
The children of
8.3.1. If we as God’s people
will simply walk in obedience to the Lord then we will not have to experience
the disciplining of the Lord.
9.
VS 16:1-5 - “1
Then they set out from Elim, and all the congregation of the sons of Israel
came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the
fifteenth day of the second month after their departure from the land of Egypt.
2 The whole congregation of
the sons of
9.1.
The children of
9.2.
We would have
thought that after the Lord had delivered the children of Israel through the 10
plagues and then brought them through the Red Sea, drowning Egypt’s army in the
process, that the children of Israel would now have great faith to look to and
trust the Lord in their many times of need.
However, this was not the case.
9.3.
Here we see that
within three days after being delivered through the Red Sea the children of
9.3.1. It is amazing sometimes how we as God’s people can
sometimes long for our prior life before coming to Christ, even imagining that
things were somehow better for us then when we were living in our sin. Yet, if we were to think rationally and more
objectively we would realize that God saved us from the pit of our sin and we
are now much better off.
9.4.
The Lord though
is patient with the children of
9.5.
The Lord tells
Moses that He is going to test the obedience of the children of
9.6.
The manna is a
symbol of the word of God. God gave them
bread from heaven to eat in the mornings, and God’s word is supposed to be the
believer’s spiritual food. 1 Peter 2:2
tells us that we are to be like newborn babies who long for the pure milk of
God’s word so that we can grow, “like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word,
so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.”
9.7.
Unfortunately, many believers in Christ are very malnourished
spiritually because they only gather the manna of God’s word once a week when
the come to church. It is not a wonder
that so many of God’s people are carnal and walk outside of God’s perfect will
in their lives.
9.8.
God’s word protects us equips us to deal with life each
day. Someone once gave a person a Bible
and wrote on the inside cover, “This book will keep you from sin or sin will
keep you from this book.”
9.9.
The fact that the manna was given to the children of
9.10. This manna fell “every morning” throughout the
40 years of their wandering in the wilderness, and this speaks to the fact that
God’s word is always supposed to be our nutrition and sustain us every day of
our lives. It is best to begin your day
in God’s word rather than try to find time to do so later in the day.
9.11. The manna was bread from heaven and thus it also
symbolized the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
On that last supper He handed His disciples the bread and said, “This
is My body which is broken for you.”
Likewise, in Jesus’ Bread of Life discourse Jesus taught His disciples
that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood in order to have life in
themselves. We as God’s people must
learn to partake of Jesus and have Him be our sustenance. We must depend upon Him and look to Him and
allow Him to live through our lives.
9.12. Arthur Pink has written the following about the sheer
volume of manna that the Lord provided for the children of
10.
VS 16:6-9 - “6
So Moses and Aaron said to all the sons of Israel, “At evening you will
know that the Lord has brought you
out of the land of Egypt; 7 and in the morning you
will see the glory of the Lord,
for He hears your grumblings against the Lord;
and what are we, that you grumble against us?” 8 Moses said, “This will happen when the Lord gives you meat to eat in the
evening, and bread to the full in the morning; for the Lord hears your grumblings which you grumble against Him.
And what are we? Your grumblings are not against us but against the Lord.” 9 Then Moses said to Aaron, “Say to all the
congregation of the sons of
10.1. Moses and Aaron relay the Lord’s words to the children
of
10.2. Moses and Aaron tell the children of
10.3. Moses tells the children of
10.3.1.Let your needs bring you near to the Lord, for He
desires to meet you in your needs and supply you in them.
11.
VS 16:10-14 - “10
It came about as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the sons of
Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. 11 And the Lord
spoke to Moses, saying, 12 “I have heard the grumblings
of the sons of
11.1. As Aaron is in the midst of speaking to the children
of Israel and trying to get them to simply look to the Lord and His provision,
we see here that the children of Israel began to look towards the wilderness as
the ‘glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud.’
11.2. The Lord tells Moses that at twilight that they ‘shall
eat meat’ and that in the evening they ‘shall be filled with bread.’ In this way they would know that the Lord is
God.
11.3. That evening ‘quails came up and covered the camp,’
providing the meat that the children of
11.4. In the morning when the dew had evaporated there was
on the surface of the wilderness ‘a fine flake-like thing fine as frost on
the ground.’ This was the manna or bread
from heaven which the Lord had promised to send.
12.
VS 16:15-18 - “15
When the sons of
12.1. The name of the bread that rained down from heaven
each day on the Israelites was first called by the Israelites, ‘What is it?’
and this what the word “manna” means.
God called it “bread from heaven” and the Israelites called it, “What
is it?”
12.2. Each of the children of
13.
VS 16:19-26 - “19
Moses said to them, “Let no man leave any of it until morning.” 20 But they did not listen to Moses, and some left
part of it until morning, and it bred worms and became foul; and Moses was
angry with them. 21 They gathered it morning
by morning, every man as much as he should eat; but when the sun grew hot, it
would melt. 22 Now on the sixth day they
gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each one. When all the leaders of
the congregation came and told Moses, 23 then he said to them, “This is what the Lord meant: Tomorrow is a sabbath
observance, a holy sabbath to the Lord.
Bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over
put aside to be kept until morning.” 24 So they put it aside until morning, as Moses had ordered,
and it did not become foul nor was there any worm in it. 25 Moses said, “Eat it today, for today is a sabbath
to the Lord; today you will not
find it in the field. 26 “Six days you shall
gather it, but on the seventh day, the sabbath, there will be none.”” - Moses told the children of Israel to not
leave any of it until morning, but some did and by morning it had bred worms
and became foul, and Moses became angry with them, but on the sixth day they
gathered twice as much but the manna stayed good through the Sabbath, so for
six days only were they to gather the manna
13.1. Some refused to listen to Moses and obey the Lord, and
thus they tried to keep some of the manna that they had gathered, but in the
morning it was foul and filled with worms.
13.2. If a person didn’t eat the manna around his tent or which
he had gathered, the afternoon sun would melt it away. Look at this in a symbolic sense, you can see
that some days if we wait to try to get into the word until the afternoon or
evening, we have so many concerns and distractions that trying to read God’s
word is not very effective in our lives.
13.3. The children of
13.4. The people tried all different ways to prepare the
manna that the Lord gave to them, and probably made Manna-aise, Manicotti,
Manachetti, Mana-wiches, etc.
14.
VS 16:27-30 - “27
It came about on the seventh day that some of the people went out to
gather, but they found none. 28
Then the Lord said to Moses, “How
long do you refuse to keep My commandments and My instructions? 29 “See, the Lord
has given you the sabbath; therefore He gives you bread for two days on the
sixth day. Remain every man in his place; let no man go out of his place on the
seventh day.” 30 So the people rested on
the seventh day.”
- Some of the people disobeyed the Lord
and tried to gather the manna on the Sabbath but they did not find any, just as
the Lord had said, so the people learned to rest on the seventh day
14.1. Just as the Lore had told the Israelites, there was
absolutely no manna that rained down upon them on the mornings of the Sabbaths.
14.2. In rebellion against the Lord some of the children of
14.3. The children of
15.
VS 16:31-36 - “31
The house of
15.1. We see here that the ‘house of
15.2. We find out some more characteristics of the bread
that the Lord rained down on the Israelites.
15.2.1.It was ‘like coriander seed,’ and the The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth
Edition, states the following about it:
“coriander , strong-smelling
15.2.2.Manna tasted ‘like wafers with honey.’
15.3. Moses had the children of
15.4. Moses tells us that the children of
16.
CONCLUSIONS:
16.1. Lets look to the Lord to be our strength and thus He
will also be our song.
16.2. Spend time each day in the manna of God’s word so that
you will not be malnourished.
16.3. Let Jesus be your all in all, and partake fully of
Him. Let Him be your sustenance and let
Him live His life fully through you.