Exodus 15:12-22

12 When your right hand was stretched out, the mouth of the earth was open for them.

13 In your mercy you went before the people whom you have made yours; guiding them in your strength to your holy place.

14 Hearing of you the peoples were shaking in fear: the people of Philistia were gripped with pain.

15 The chiefs of Edom were troubled in heart; the strong men of Moab were in the grip of fear: all the people of Canaan became like water.

16 Fear and grief came on them; by the strength of your arm they were turned to stone; till your people went over, O Lord, till the people went over whom you have made yours.

17 You will take them in, planting them in the mountain of your heritage, the place, O Lord, where you have made your house, the holy place, O Lord, the building of your hands.

18 The Lord is King for ever and ever.

19 For the horses of Pharaoh, with his war-carriages and his horsemen, went into the sea, and the Lord sent the waters of the sea back over them; but the children of Israel went through the sea on dry land.

20 And Miriam, the woman prophet, the sister of Aaron, took an instrument of music in her hand; and all the women went after her with music and dances.

21 And Miriam, answering, said, Make a song to the Lord, for he is lifted up in glory; the horse and the horseman he has sent into the sea.

22 Then Moses took Israel forward from the Red Sea, and they went out into the waste land of Shur; and for three days they were in the waste land where there was no water.

Exodus 15:12-22 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO EXODUS 15

This chapter contains the song of Moses, and of the children of Israel, on the banks of the Red sea; in which they celebrate their passage through it, the destruction of Pharaoh and his host in it, and the glory of the divine perfections displayed therein, interspersed with prophetic hints of things future, Ex 15:1-19 which same song was sung by the women, with Miriam at the head of them, attended with timbrels and dances, Ex 15:20,21, an account is given of the march of the children of Israel from the Red sea to the wilderness of Shur, and of the bitter waters found at Marah, which occasioned a murmuring, and of their being made sweet by casting a tree into them, Ex 15:22-25 when they were told by the Lord, that if they would yield obedience to his commandments, they should be free from the diseases the Egyptians had been afflicted with, Ex 15:26, and the chapter is concluded with their coming to Elim, where they found twelve wells of water, and seventy palm trees, and there encamped, Ex 15:27.