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When Pharaoh’s horses, chariots and horsemen went into the sea, the Lord brought the waters of the sea back over them, but the Israelites walked through the sea on dry ground. 20 Then Miriam the prophet, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women followed her, with tambourines and dancing. 21 Miriam sang to them:

‘Sing to the Lord,

    for he is highly exalted.

Both horse and driver

    he has hurled into the sea.’

With these words we come full circle; we are back to where we started (1,4). We surely cannot miss the emphasis on what the Lord has done, and He is joyfully praised. Above all, God is the Leader of His people, and He still makes a way “through the sea on dry ground” (19).

But we also have an insight into leadership among the people of God. This human leadership comes under the umbrella of Divine leadership, but it is something to notice (20) If, as someone said, ‘leadership is influence’, well, here is leadership. This influence is not limited to one sex only.

It’s also been said, ‘If you want to know whether or not you’re a leader, look behind you and see if anyone is following!’ Miriam, who is described as “the prophet” (20), had her followers.

Often, it takes just one person to give a lead.

It might be that they do a small thing; even a very simple thing (such as pick up a tambourine). But it’s enough to act as a catalyst, and, who knows, a whole movement may be born.

PRAYER: Lord God, I thank you that in Christ there is neither male nor female.May we all find our God-given place in your church, whether as leaders or followers, and worship you by life and by lip.

‘You stretch out your right hand,

    and the earth swallows your enemies.

13 In your unfailing love you will lead

    the people you have redeemed.

In your strength you will guide them

    to your holy dwelling.

14 The nations will hear and tremble;

    anguish will grip the people of Philistia.

15 The chiefs of Edom will be terrified,

    the leaders of Moab will be seized with trembling,

the people of Canaan will melt away;

16     terror and dread will fall on them.

By the power of your arm

    they will be as still as a stone –

until your people pass by, Lord,

    until the people you bought pass by.

17 You will bring them in and plant them

    on the mountain of your inheritance –

the place, Lord, you made for your dwelling,

    the sanctuary, Lord, your hands established.

18 ‘The Lord reigns

    for ever and ever.’

I note here:

• God’s Hand of restraint on His enemies: ‘What was poetically envisaged was historically borne out. The word of God as a weapon of our warfare is mighty to pull down strongholds (2 Cor.10:4). The reference to the neighbouring territories is a list of potential or inevitable opponents: Edom and Moab on the invasion route; Canaan, the promised possession; and Philistia, a more remote power but a future threat. In whatever category opponents fall, they are immobilised while Israel takes its promised possession (16).’ Alec Motyer: ‘The message of Exodus’, p.168.
• God’s fulfillment of His Word to His people (17,18): The Lord who “reigns for ever and ever” will do for them just as He promised;
• God’s glorifying of His own Name: At the heart of my prayers for the current conflict is a desire that God will bring honour to His own great Name and cause the nations to fear Him. He has done it before and He can do it again.

PRAYER: Lord may all nations come to see that you are God, and bow the knee to you.

In your unfailing love you will lead

    the people you have redeemed.

In your strength you will guide them

    to your holy dwelling.

This was first and foremost Israel’s story. God redeemed His people out of slavery in Egypt. Then He lovingly led them through the wilderness, and finally, in His “strength” He guided them into Canaan, ‘the promised land.’

Reflecting on this beautiful verse, I find myself thinking, this is also our story and this is our song. The Lord has graciously dealt with our past, and He undertakes for our present and future:

• He has redeemed us from slavery to sin;
• He is leading us through all of life;
• He will bring us home.

Someone said the idea behind “holy dwelling” is ‘homestead.’ It speaks of a shepherd’s home where He also keeps His sheep. We can say of all the believers who have gone before us through ‘the swelling torrent’ and landed ‘safe on Canaan’s side’, that they have ‘gone home’.

As the chorus of the beautiful Steve Green song, ‘Safely home’, goes: ‘They are strong, they are free. They are safe with me.’

(https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3HX2Pz3TBv4)

PRAYER: ‘Guide me O thou great Redeemer, pilgrim through this barren land. I am weak, but thou art mighty; hold me with thy powerful Hand.’

Who among the gods

    is like you, Lord?

Who is like you –

    majestic in holiness,

awesome in glory,

    working wonders?

12 ‘You stretch out your right hand,

    and the earth swallows your enemies.

13 In your unfailing love you will lead

    the people you have redeemed.

In your strength you will guide them

    to your holy dwelling.

As we see in the book of Daniel, for example, there are spiritual battles taking place behind the scenes (see Daniel 10). We may not understand exactly how prayer plays a strategic role in the battle, but it certainly does, and believers need to pray, and be led in prayer by the Holy Spirit. (This is a theme we will return to when we look at chapter 17).

Alec Motyer says: ‘There is always a cosmic and spiritual dimension to the Lord’s historical acts.’He goes on to quote another writer who says, ‘The historical victory…participates in the cosmic victory.’ Then Motyer adds: ‘What happens in history is real, but part of its reality is its place in the warfare in the heavens.’ ‘The message of Exodus’, p.167.

Where we read of the Lord “working wonders” (11b), the idea is literally that He ‘does wonderfully/supernaturally.’ It is apparently the closest the Hebrew language gets to the idea of the supernatural or miraculous.

Prayer: Lord God, we ask for your miraculous intervention in history today, that your Name may be highly exalted and the plans of evil thwarted

Your right hand, Lord,

    was majestic in power.

Your right hand, Lord,

    shattered the enemy.

7 ‘In the greatness of your majesty

    you threw down those who opposed you.

You unleashed your burning anger;

    it consumed them like stubble.

8 By the blast of your nostrils

    the waters piled up.

The surging waters stood up like a wall;

    the deep waters congealed in the heart of the sea.

9 The enemy boasted,

    “I will pursue, I will overtake them.

I will divide the spoils;

    I will gorge myself on them.

I will draw my sword

    and my hand will destroy them.”

10 But you blew with your breath,

    and the sea covered them.

They sank like lead

    in the mighty waters.

There are two sections of this song on the theme of the Lord’s “hand” (6-10/11-13).

‘The hand is the organ of personal intervention and action.’ Alec Motyer: ‘The message of Exodus’, p.166.

Note what Motyer refers to as the ‘enemy’s vainglorious confidence in his own hand’ (9). See the proud and boastful repetition of “I” (9), and contrast this with the “Your” and “you” throughout this section. This victory was God’s alone. His people got to experience and enjoy it and enter into its fruits, but it was God who did it. He gets all the glory.

Human leaders can say what they like in their boastful arrogance (9), and they do! “But” (10) God always has the last, and decisive, word.

Again, Motyer points out that in verse 7 “stubble” is used as a picture of ‘the speed and irresistibility of divine hostile action’, p.167. As with yesterday, we continue to note expressions of overwhelming power: e.g. “shattered” (6); “you threw down”, “unleashed” and “consumed” (7); “blast” (8).

May we again take encouragement from God’s Word, and pray that he will show His mighty hand. May His Name alone be glorified in all the earth.

Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord:

‘I will sing to the Lord,

    for he is highly exalted.

Both horse and driver

    he has hurled into the sea.

2 ‘The Lord is my strength and my defence;

    he has become my salvation.

He is my God, and I will praise him,

    my father’s God, and I will exalt him.

3 The Lord is a warrior;

    the Lord is his name.

4 Pharaoh’s chariots and his army

    he has hurled into the sea.

The best of Pharaoh’s officers

    are drowned in the Red Sea.

5 The deep waters have covered them;

    they sank to the depths like a stone.

I have to say I marvel that we have reached these Red Sea deliverance passages at this dramatic moment in history. I could not have planned or organised it. Until just a few days ago, we did not even know that an invasion of Ukraine would take place. So is it just coincidence that we are reading these words today? Well it could be, but you will no doubt sense my leanings are in another direction.

How good it is to be reminded that “The Lord is a warrior” and more than once, in Scripture, we see Him dealing with tyrants and their armies. We could say God has a ‘track-record’ in this area.The word “hurled” (coming twice inverses 1 and 4) is a strong word, and indicates the display of overwhelming power. Furthermore, Alec Motyer says that the idea behind “I will praise him” (2b) is that of decorating a war hero with military honours. God is our great ‘Hero’ and He is able to deliver His own from tyranny. Let’s keep reming ourselves that He is the same God today.

Earlier this morning (Tues 1^st March) I was in a prayer meeting, where we praying mainly for the situation in the Ukraine, a verse came to mind:“Because you rage against me and because your insolence has reached my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will make you return by the way you came.” Isaiah 37:29. God spoke them to another cruel and ruthless tyrant, and did as He said.

I’m sure you will join me today in praying, ‘Do it again Lord! Do it again!!

Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord:

‘I will sing to the Lord,

    for he is highly exalted.

Both horse and driver

    he has hurled into the sea.

2 ‘The Lord is my strength and my defence;

    he has become my salvation.

He is my God, and I will praise him,

    my father’s God, and I will exalt him.

Sinners saved by grace tend to become singers saved by grace. When the Lord ‘becomes’ your salvation, He puts a song in your heart. You will see the repeated ‘I” and “my” in these verses. Personal salvation leads to personal praise. This is the first song of praise recorded in the Bible. Many more such songs were to be written, both in Scripture and in church history. All the way down to present times the song composition continues, in an outpouring of thanks to the saving God.

Notice here:

• A statement of theological truth: God is “highly exalted” (1). He is far above all;
• An expression of personal praise: “…and I will exalt him” (2b). To “exalt” the Lord does not mean we can lift Him any higher than He already is, but it means to recognise and acknowledge Him in the highest place. It is another way of saying that we “praise him” (also verse 2).

“Sing to the LORD a new song, for he has done marvellous things” (Psalm 98:1).

‘They had no part to play in, or contribution to make to, the acts they were celebrating, and so their song expressed their joy at entering freely into the good of what the Lord had done for them…the whole people were caught up in the excitement of what the Lord had done and they had experienced.’ Alec Motyer: ‘The message of Exodus’, pp.164, 165.

And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.

“You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron” (Ps.77:20).

This 31^st verse almost takes your breath away. It sounds quite daring. But then you remember it is the Bible itself saying this. We again see the Divine-human partnership. We also note the principle that God honours those who honour Him (1 Samuel 2:30); and he can raise up a human-being in the eyes of others, so that they follow that person’s lead. What God does is regularly mysterious to us, but it is His own business. The people “put their trust” in Moses, I believe, because they saw what God did as Moses obediently played his part.

But let’s not get too carried away. The court of public opinion is fickle and on more than one occasion this ‘congregation’ would give their leader cause for deep grief (e.g. 32:1). Let all leaders in God’s church take note and take heart. Like David, we must learn to encourage ourselves in the Lord. He is the source of everlasting encouragement – even when the stream of human support dries up.

On good days and bad, it is an enormous privilege to be used by God.

Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen.’ 27 Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing towards it, and the Lord swept them into the sea. 28 The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen – the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived.

29 But the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. 30 That day the Lord saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore.

‘Psalm 77:16-20 indicates that a severe rainstorm accompanied the high winds, and after Israel had crossed, the rain turned Israel’s dry pathway into a muddy road. When the Egyptian soldiers tried to follow, the mud disabled their chariots and impeded their progress, and when the waters returned, all the Egyptian soldiers were drowned. It was indeed a night to be remembered.’ Warren W. Wiersbe: Old Testament commentary, p.168.

In years to come, pious Jews would look back on the Exodus as the supreme demonstration, in their history, of God’s rescuing power. It is referred to many times in the psalms and in the prophetic books.

We should never lose sight of the fact that God is in control of history. He is able to deal decisively with tyrants (murderers, thugs, political bullies). He is the same God forever and ever.

We do not know what His purpose is in this historical moment, but let us not doubt for one minute that He is running the universe and ‘history is His story.’

PRAYER: Lord, you make wars “cease to the ends of the earth.” You break “the bow” and shatter “the spear”; you burn “the shields with fire” (Ps.46:9). We pray you will have mercy on the peoples of Russia and the Ukraine, and bring about a swift and lasting peace. Lord have mercy on your world; Christ have mercy on us all.