Ex. 14; 15
When Israel crossed the sea, there was a visible manifestation of power to a double end—the rescue that Jehovah effected for them, and the destruction with which He overwhelmed the pride and flower of Egypt. But the victory was so signally of God, so purely miraculous an interposition, in a way foreign to all human thought, that it fittingly betokens, with a force peculiar to itself, the crushing defeat of the enemy about to be displayed before all worlds, and suggests that which our souls welcome with divine joy and delight—the final and total eclipse of every agency, human or Satanic, which has ever raised an impious front before God Jehovah wrought so conclusively that day for His own glory, in vindication of His title to have and to hold His people, that one cannot but be struck with the sublimity and finality of the action. But how much more with its twofold fitness for stereotyping upon every heart, on the one hand by the deliverance He wrought, His desire and His purpose to bless; and on the other, by brushing away to utter destruction, with the breath of His mouth, all the hosts of Pharaoh, that the marshalled forces of the enemy, in their mightiest array, are but as a cobweb in the pathway of the onward march of His counsels from eternity!
What could be more sublime than the command before Pi-hahiroth— “Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord which he will show to you to-day. The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace!” Six hundred thousand men were to stand still in the profound silence that befitted them in a scene where so unparalleled a drama was about to be enacted, moving neither foot nor finger! How calculated was such an inspiriting word to draw the trembling heart of Israel from a fatal occupation with its own exigencies to faith in Jehovah of hosts! A Savior-God was there, and, according to the word of His power, was about to interpose for them to a degree not determined by their own conception of their extremity, but by the fitness and adequacy of the occasion for bringing into bold relief a revelation of Himself in that character, the character in which He loves to present Himself to faith. The One who “plants His footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm,” stood by the Red Sea shore on that momentous night, to give effect to the rod of Moses in cutting a narrow channel through the surging waters for His beleaguered people to slip through! Who shall arrest His hand, or have the temerity to curse whom He blesses? Apart from Jehovah those waters were death and destruction, but Jehovah and the sea (Christ's cup of death in principle) meant life and liberty, deliverance and redemption, for them, but an eternal collapse for their enemies and His, to whom, when He makes bare His arm, He will give no quarter.
The way in which God gave demonstration in that hour of signal victory of the validity of His title to Israel as His purchased possession (types of us assuredly), and the way in which the selfsame night He (lug a grave for Pharaoh and his chariots in the bed of the sea, wrapping its waters around them in one mighty winding-sheet, suggest to us the prophetic utterance of Hos. 13:1414I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes. (Hosea 13:14): “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes” —thus bringing into view further assured victories, both for an earthly and a heavenly people!
“Thus Jehovah saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea-shore. And Israel saw that great work which Jehovah did upon the Egyptians: and the people feared Jehovah, and believed Jehovah and his servant Moses.” (Ex. 14:30, 3130Thus the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore. 31And Israel saw that great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians: and the people feared the Lord, and believed the Lord, and his servant Moses. (Exodus 14:30‑31).) Now what could be more in keeping with these wondrous issues than that Moses (type of Christ, of course) should celebrate the achievement of Jehovah with a song, the only fitting mode of expressing the new and triumphant resurrection ground upon which the typical Redeemer stood in the midst of his typically redeemed brethren! For the very first time were lips opened, and opened of Himself, in melody before God, for He had wrought salvation!—a salvation of which they knew not the frill significance, it may be; but in all this it is our privilege to learn the higher lessons of His work of grace as now revealed to faith. They are now a typically saved people, not merely as so lately in Egypt, sheltered by the passover-blood, but brought out of Egypt for God, and the power of Egypt broken under their foot Under shelter of the blood God had pledged His word for their safety as against judgment, but now they were saved indeed, and they knew it They ate of the pass-over standing, as it were; loins girt, staff in hand, “in haste” to leave, being yet on the enemy's ground, and shackled beneath his stubborn power.
The very nature of the instruction given them precludes the thought of resting thus, and yet, alas! how many now-a-days tarry in such an attitude of soul, as though it were rest with God, whereas God took pains to prohibit the rest, and was Himself outside. Clearly it was, on the contrary, the prelude to departure, the sound of the give: trumpets, as it were, preparatory to the final break-up of their relations to Egypt, its associations and its penalties; they had been sheltered in Egypt that they might go forth to God. He who bought them with blood to make them His bondman, redeemed them by power to make them His freemen. He who, as the Paschal Lamb, would give His blood to shelter, was also God's Male of might to bear the judgment to deliver. He would have them a separated, enfranchised, people to Himself, and none should stay His hand. Short of this it was not salvation, and short of salvation there could be no divine song. God has been pleased to make salvation and song correlatives, and thus song has become the unique privilege of the redeemed, whether earthly or heavenly saints, as looking forward or backward to that stupendous work of redemption which could alone give perfect rest to the conscience, and suffice for leading the heart into communion with the Father and the Son. I require for this to know, not only that the blood has been shed to put away my sins, and is my perfect, security as against the destroying angel, but that I have been brought to God in redemption effected once and forever, and thus I have perfect peace with Him through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Instead of its being, as before, my sins between myself and Him, it is Himself who is now between me and my sins, and the One who has thus interposed has given me to know that in the doing it He has brought me to Himself, and tuned my heart to His own praise. He has borne the judgment due to my sins, and condemned sin in the flesh; in the Person of my Substitute I am clear from, and carried beyond, the judgment forever; the power of death is annulled, of Satan finally broken. I raise, with joyful heart, a song of victory; for sin, and death, and judgment, that gnashed their teeth upon me, are behind me now, and even “as he is, so are we in this world!”
The angels who kept their first estate, if we may safely interpret the silence of scripture, are not privileged to sing; the vault of heaven has never yet resounded with the accents of song. The earthly paradise was the handiwork of God, and, as everything else, He made it “very good;” but even so fair a scene with man, in innocence and uprightness, its intelligent and richly-endowed center, furnished no suited conditions for song. God spake with man, and man with Him, as also the angels are said to do; but it is the crowning work of redemption, and that alone, which strikes a chord in the heart of God, and tuned the heart of man to respond. It is when redemption is an accomplished fact, and God is glorified therein, that He in whose person it was wrought says, “I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.” (Psa. 22:2222I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee. (Psalm 22:22).) Then only can He lead the praises of His saints, for song is born of salvation!
Salvation is a signal interposition of God, when every other resource has failed, between us and the state of things into which we have plunged ourselves by our sins, not only averting from us in a way consistent with His righteousness, the eternal penalties incurred, but delivering us from our old, and translating us into a new, position in the activity of His grace, to be permanently enjoyed with Himself, according to His eternal purpose. It is this which legitimately gives birth to song, and it is as natural to the saints of God, as for a bird to carol when the shades of night are chased away by the morning sun. And what a song was that we are considering for compass and for power! How it must have gladdened for the moment the heart of God, as it ascended from the serried ranks of Israel, fresh from their baptism unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea! How suggestive of all the after-consequences of what God had achieved! For the first time an indulgent God permits us to speak of a habitation amongst His redeemed family for Himself; such a thought could only be acceptable to Him in connection with a people set apart as they, by blood and by power. Had Israel but understood its rich and precious import, what a cheering, invigorating, thought would it have been to their hearts, that Jehovah of hosts would deign to dwell in a habitation they should build for Him in their midst, the God of such sheltering grace, and such wonder-working power! “Glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders” —consistently enough do we now for the first time hear of “holiness.” God was pleased to withhold the revelation of this attribute of His character until redemption had been typically accomplished, for not only is it one of His attributes, but through grace are we made partakers of it, and without it shall not see Him! How beautifully, then, is it in keeping with His blessed ways that He should first present it as based upon the great redemption work!
In short, the song is the celebration of victory, in view of the full accomplishment of the counsels of God for Israel, and also typically for us. It accordingly takes no account of the wilderness, which is no part of His counsels, but rather of His ways; but the crossing of the Jordan enters into it (ver. 16), and the conquest of Canaan, the setting up of His sanctuary in the land, and the establishment of His kingdom on earth. Thus the habitation for Him, in verse 2, contemplates the temple in Zion, and concurrently with this, for the first time we hear of the Lord's reign—in a word, His house and His throne in Jerusalem. All the special features of God's counsels of blessing to Israel are thus before us in this divine carol: salvation for a redeemed people, a habitation for God in their midst, God revealed in holiness, the enemy dashed in pieces, the Jordan crossed, all opposition subdued, the land enjoyed, Jehovah King forever and ever!
In conclusion, how beautiful and how significant is the fact that, though they sang in the wilderness, it was as upon resurrection ground, and thus they sang not a word about it. Faith, privileged to be occupied with the counsels of God, bridged all the distance from the sea to the promised land, from the cross to the glory. Not a note could be raised until the vanquished enemy sunk “as a stone,” and the people were free; but when that was achieved, the song which God inspired, and which Moses led them to take up on the farther shore of the sea, raised melodies in the desert which shall reverberate in mightier volume throughout eternity
For us, along with this, a sweeter song is reserved (Rev. 5:99And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; (Revelation 5:9).) Here are our hearts tutored in its touching strains, its tender cadence, and, as in spirit, already within the scene which ever opens freshly to faith, and where alone it can be fully rendered, we rehearse, but all too feebly, its heavenly harmonies. May He who is the burden of our song forever inspire, as He loves to do, our poor hearts to take up in loftier notes its blessed refrain, as the sweetest privilege we know this side the glory! R.