Moses and Miriam sing songs of victory
In 15.1-21: These songs of Moses and Miriam represent some of the earliest traditions of the Bible.
The elevated language of Hebrew poetry in the songs contains many examples of parallelism, or doubling of thoughts and images in consecutive lines.
A recurring image in the poem is the stone.
Israel's enemy sinks or freezes in fear like a lead stone (vv. 5, 10, 16) in contrast to the eternal security of God's stone mountain sanctuary (vv.17-18).
The song of Moses (vv. 1-18) retells the story of ch 14 with some differences in details.
For example, Israel's crossing the sea on dry land (14.22) is not described in the song.
In verse 3: The Lord is a warrior: see comment on 14.14.
In verse 4: On the Red Sea, see comment on 11.13.
In verse 11: Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods?
This question assumes that the Lord is the one superior god above a number of other lesser gods gathered in a heavenly council.
This theme occurs in other in other ancient biblical poems ( (Ps 86.8; 89.6-8).
In verse 13: The poem turns from victory against the Egyptians and describes God leading Israel to the land of Canaan.
In verses 14-16: Philsta (v. 14), Edom, Moab, and Canaan (v. 15) are nations in and around the promised land land of Canaan whom Israel will encounter on the way there.
In verse 17: The mountain may be a reference tot he much later establishment of the Lord's Temple on Mount Zion in the city of Jerusalem (Ps 48.1-3) or to the hill country of Canaan in general (Ps 78.54)
In verses 20-21: The prophet Miriam may have been the original bard or singer in an earlier version of the tradition.
It was women who typically sang victory songs after military victories in ancient Israel (Jug 11.34; 1 Sam 18.6-7).
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