Like waves crashing on the shore, the Israelites’ Song of the Sea (Exodus 15:1-19) declares repeatedly their wonder at the miracle of deliverance from the Egyptian army. The song reads like an ecstatic expression of awe, unable to contain its emotion, repeatedly referencing the same event as if trying to process what just happened.
“The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea,” it says (v. 1). “Pharaoh’s chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea” (v. 4). “The sea covered them: they sank as lead in the mighty waters” (v. 10). And finally, “The horse of Pharaoh went in with his chariots and with his horsemen into the sea, and the Lord brought again the waters of the sea upon them; but the children of Israel went on dry land in the midst of the sea” (v. 19). You can imagine the children of Israel shaking their heads as they sang those words, thinking, “What just happened?”
Under the waves, the song has a chiastic structure. It opens and closes with a testimony of God in the third person and with imagery of horses and their riders in the sea. In between, we see two groups of enemies up close. The Egyptian army makes five threats: “I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my lust shall be satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them” (v. 9). And the inhabitants of Canaan melt with fear when they hear of the miracle (v. 14-16). In the center, the main message of the song is framed as a rhetorical question:
Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?
Exodus 15:11
The wonder at this miracle continued to ripple centuries later. Isaiah appealed to the event as a precedent for the future gathering of Israel:
Awake … O arm of the Lord …
Art thou not [He] which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?
Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.
Isaiah 51:9-11
The Book of Mormon prophet Jacob quoted this passage after his people miraculously crossed the ocean to arrive in their own promised land (2 Nephi 8:9-11).
Today, I will echo the wonder of the children of Israel, as I remember the miracles God has wrought through the ages and in my own life.