Ex. 15: The Song of Moses; Bitter Water Sweet

With the entirety of the Egyptian army now bloated and rotting corpses bobbing in the Red Sea, Moses and the Israelites revel in the vanquishing of their oppressors in song. This is lyrical worship at its simplest, and deepest.

This song sets a standard for worship in a couple of ways.

It recounts who God is - Highly exalted, our strength and defense, our salvation, a warrior, solely the LORD, majestic in power, holy, awesome, wondrous, unfailingly loving, the redeemer, a sanctuary, reigning forever.

It glories in the things that God has done or will do - Hurled horse and driver into the sea, drowned the best of Pharaoh's officers (who says worship has to be generic?), shattered the enemy, threw down (on) those who opposed him (and us), unleashed a consuming anger, piled up surging waters, covered the enemy, will guide us to His holy dwelling, will tremble the nations, will grip them with fear, power will be still as a stone, will bring His people in and plant them on the mountain of inheritance ( I claim this verse - Exodus 15:17 - right here...what an amazing thought, that God would plant us on a mountain of inheritance in the place He made for His dwelling...a beautiful sanctuary), will reign forever and ever.

It tells us who we are in Him - his subjects, those who exalt Him, benefactors of His power and victory, delivered, redeemed, protected, servants of the one and only God, purchased by Him (Ex. 15:16), We are His, and will be gathered unto Him someday.

After leaving the Red Sea, the Israelites were three days on the road into the Desert of Shur. They came to Marah, where the water was bitter. I don't know what makes water bitter, or why that's bad, but the Israelites were not happy with that. So they grumbled to Moses about it. Apparently some of them did not hear or remember the song.

So Moses passes the complaint on to God, and He pointed out a piece of wood to Moses to throw into the water, and it became sweet. You happy now, Israelites?

So the Lord then issues a ruling that if the Israelites listen carefully to God, and do what is right in His eyes, pay attention to His commands and decrees...basically do whatever He says, He will protect them from the diseases He brought upon the Egyptians. Because He is the LORD. Because He can do that.

We'll see how long this lasts.

Then the Israelites set up camp in Elim, where there were 12 springs (probably sweet) and 70 palm trees.