Chapter Overview
Summary
Exodus 15 preserves the Song of the Sea (vv. 1–18) — one of the oldest poetic compositions in the Hebrew Bible and, in its LXX form, a substantial contributor to NT eschatological vocabulary. Revelation 15:3 names the heavenly victory-song of the martyrs 'the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb.' The chapter's Marah bitter-water narrative (vv. 22–26) supplied patristic writers with a cross-typology: the wood that sweetens the waters prefigures the Cross that heals humanity.
Notable Variants
The major LXX divergence at 15:3 rendering 'the LORD is a warrior' as kyrios syntribōn polemous ('the LORD who crushes wars') — an antimilitaristic interpretive move; the 'holy dwelling' at 15:13 (hagion katalyma) that shapes NT temple-theology; the 'LORD shall reign forever' at 15:18 quoted at Revelation 11:15 and 19:6; the 'I am the LORD your healer' at 15:26 (iōmenos se) that underlies NT healing-vocabulary.
Structural Notes
LXX Exodus 15 preserves MT's 27-verse structure. Vv. 1–18 are the Song proper; vv. 19–27 are the narrative continuation.
Then Moses and the sons of Israel sang this song to the LORD. They said: "I will sing to the LORD, for He has triumphed gloriously; the horse and its rider He has hurled into the sea.
The Song's opening ('I will sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously') is rendered asōmen tō kyriō — the exact phrase Revelation 15:3 uses for the heavenly song of the Lamb. The LXX's 'horse and rider' (hippon kai anabatēn) tracks MT.
The LORD is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation. This is my God, and I will praise Him, my father's God, and I will exalt Him.
Masoretic (WLC)
עָזִּי וְזִמְרָת יָהּ וַיְהִי־לִי לִישׁוּעָה
The LORD is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation
Septuagint (LXX)
βοηθὸς καὶ σκεπαστὴς ἐγένετό μοι εἰς σωτηρίαν
He became helper and shelterer for me, for salvation
Isaiah 12:2 and Psalm 118:14 (LXX 117:14) cite this same verse formulaically. The LXX renders the Hebrew's 'strength and song' pair with 'helper and shelterer' (boēthos kai skepastēs), losing the song-word but emphasizing divine protection.
The eis sōtērian ('for salvation') phrase is the LXX's ubiquitous rendering of yeshua. This verse is one of the foundational LXX texts for the NT's sōtēria theology.
'This is my God, and I will praise him' (houtos mou theos, kai doxasō auton) supplies the NT's standing doxology formulae.
The LORD is a warrior; the LORD is His name.
Masoretic (WLC)
יְהוָה אִישׁ מִלְחָמָה יְהוָה שְׁמוֹ
The LORD is a warrior; the LORD is His name
Septuagint (LXX)
κύριος συντρίβων πολέμους κύριος ὄνομα αὐτῷ
The Lord who crushes wars; the Lord is his name
One of the LXX's most striking interpretive moves in the Pentateuch. The Hebrew ish milchamah ('man of war, warrior') is rendered syntribōn polemous ('crushing wars') — inverting the image: the LORD is not a warrior but the one who breaks the very enterprise of war.
The LXX's choice reflects a Hellenistic Jewish antimilitaristic theological tendency, also visible at LXX Isaiah 2:4 ('beat their swords into plowshares'). The 'peace' God of LXX Exodus 15:3 sits in deliberate counterpoint to the Hebrew's warrior-divinity.
Justin Martyr (Dialogue with Trypho 49) and Origen both cite this LXX reading to emphasize Christ as prince of peace, not as a martial figure. The Christian pacifist tradition has roots in this LXX rendering.
Revelation 19:11 ('the one called Faithful and True ... in righteousness judges and makes war') works with the Hebrew-warrior image against the LXX's peace-maker image — an inner-NT tension with two ancient translations behind it.
Pharaoh's chariots and his army He cast into the sea, and his chosen officers sank in the Sea of Reeds.
Pharaoh's chariots cast into the sea tracks MT. The LXX's 'Sea of Reeds' (eis thalassan erythran) continues the 'Red Sea' convention from 10:19 and 13:18.
The deep waters covered them; they went down into the depths like a stone.
The 'they went down into the depths like a stone' image tracks MT. The LXX's abyssos ('deep') is the word that Revelation 9:1, 9:11, 11:7, 17:8, 20:1, 20:3 uses for 'the abyss.'
Your right hand, O LORD, is majestic in power. Your right hand, O LORD, shatters the enemy.
'Your right hand, O LORD' (hē dexia sou kyrie) — the divine right-hand image that recurs at Psalm 110:1 (LXX 109:1) and its many NT citations (Mark 14:62, Acts 2:33–34, Heb 1:3, etc.).
In the greatness of Your majesty You overthrow those who rise against You. You send out Your fury; it consumes them like stubble.
The 'fury consuming like stubble' tracks MT. The LXX's hōs kalamē ('like straw') is a standard LXX metaphor for rapid divine consumption of opposition (Nah 1:10, Obad 1:18).
At the blast of Your nostrils the waters piled up; the floods stood upright like a heap; the deep waters congealed in the heart of the sea.
The 'blast of your nostrils' and piled-up waters tracks MT. The LXX's epagē ('congealed') preserves the Hebrew's solidification image — the waters became 'wall-like' (teichoi, as at 14:22).
The enemy boasted, 'I will chase them down, I will catch them, I will divide the plunder; my appetite will be gorged on them. I will unsheathe my sword — my own hand will destroy them.'
The enemy's boast ('I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide plunder') tracks MT. The staccato first-person futures embody Pharaonic hubris — the very arrogance the Song mocks.
You blew with Your wind; the sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters.
'You blew with your wind' (pneumati sou) tracks MT. 'Sank like lead' (edysan hōsei molybdos) preserves the Hebrew's plummeting-metal image.
Who is like You among the gods, O LORD? Who is like You — majestic in holiness, awesome in splendor, working wonders?
Masoretic (WLC)
מִי־כָמֹכָה בָּאֵלִם יְהוָה
Who is like You among the gods, O LORD?
Septuagint (LXX)
τίς ὅμοιός σοι ἐν θεοῖς κύριε
Who is like you among the gods, O Lord?
The incomparability-of-the-LORD formula ('who is like you among the gods?') becomes the template for NT monotheistic acclamations. Revelation 13:4 ('who is like the beast?') is Revelation's grotesque inversion — the dragon parodies the LXX-Exodus acclamation.
Micah 7:18's mi-kha-el wordplay ('who is a god like you?') and the archangel Michael's name (mi-ka-el) trace to the same Hebrew formula. Revelation 12:7 ('Michael and his angels fought against the dragon') explicitly plays on the 'who is like God?' theme.
You stretched out Your right hand; the earth swallowed them.
'You stretched out your right hand; the earth swallowed them' tracks MT. The LXX's katepien gē ('the earth swallowed') echoes the Korah-rebellion narrative at Numbers 16:32, pre-figuring divine earth-swallowing judgment.
In Your faithful love You have led the people whom You have redeemed. In Your strength You have guided them to Your holy dwelling.
'In your chesed' rendered 'in your righteousness' (dikaiosynē) is a non-standard LXX equivalence here — chesed is more usually eleos. The verse's emphasis on divine guidance to 'your holy dwelling' (eis katalyma hagion sou) prepares for the temple theology of chapters 25–31.
The peoples have heard; they tremble. Anguish has seized the inhabitants of Philistia.
The nations' trembling tracks MT. The 'inhabitants of Philistia' is the LXX's Phylistieim (Philistines).
Now the chiefs of Edom are dismayed; trembling seizes the leaders of Moab; all the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away.
The Edomite chiefs, Moabite leaders, and Canaanite panic tracks MT. The three-nation-listing anticipates the conquest narratives of Numbers and Joshua.
Terror and dread fall upon them. Because of the greatness of Your arm they are still as a stone, until Your people pass over, O LORD, until the people whom You have purchased pass over.
'Terror and dread' (tromos kai phobos) and the nations standing 'still as a stone' tracks MT. The LXX's ektēsō ('you have purchased') for Hebrew qanita preserves the acquisition-redemption theology.
You will bring them in and plant them on the mountain of Your inheritance, the place, O LORD, You have made for Your dwelling, the sanctuary, O Lord, that Your hands have established.
'The mountain of your inheritance' and 'sanctuary that your hands have established' tracks MT. The Song anticipates the temple centuries before it is built — a prophetic telescoping that Hebrews 12:22 ('Mount Zion … the heavenly Jerusalem') continues.
The LORD will reign forever and ever."
Masoretic (WLC)
יְהוָה יִמְלֹךְ לְעֹלָם וָעֶד
The LORD will reign forever and ever
Septuagint (LXX)
κύριος βασιλεύων τὸν αἰῶνα καὶ ἐπ᾽ αἰῶνα καὶ ἔτι
The Lord reigning through the age and upon the age and still
The Song's climactic acclamation — 'The LORD shall reign forever and ever' — is the single most-quoted Exodus-15 text in the NT. Revelation 11:15 ('the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord … and he shall reign forever and ever,' basileusei eis tous aiōnas tōn aiōnōn) and Revelation 19:6 ('the Lord our God the Almighty reigns,' ebasileusen kyrios ho theos ho pantokratōr) both echo this LXX Exodus 15:18.
The LXX's elaborate temporal formula — 'through the age and upon the age and still' — emphasizes the temporal limitlessness of divine kingship. The formula echoes in LXX Daniel 7:14 ('his dominion is an eternal dominion which shall not pass away') and underlies NT eschatological kingship language.
For the horses of Pharaoh went with his chariots and his horsemen into the sea, and the LORD brought the waters of the sea back over them, but the sons of Israel walked on dry ground through the midst of the sea.
The narrative summary of Pharaoh's army's destruction closes the Song proper.
Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing.
Miriam the prophetess (hē prophētis) and the women with tambourines tracks MT. Miriam's prophetic title is the first in the Hebrew Bible applied to a woman.
Miriam sang to them: "Sing to the LORD, for He has triumphed gloriously; the horse and its rider He has hurled into the sea."
Miriam's brief refrain echoes the Song's opening — forming an inclusio that frames the entire poem with the horse-and-rider image.
Then Moses led Israel onward from the Sea of Reeds, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur. They traveled three days in the wilderness and found no water.
The three-day wilderness march and water-scarcity tracks MT.
When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter. Therefore it was named Marah.
Marah's bitter waters and the place-name etymology tracks MT. Hebrew merah ('bitter') is preserved as a transliterated place-name (Merra) in LXX.
The people grumbled against Moses, saying, "What shall we drink?"
Israel's grumbling tracks MT. The verb egongyzon ('they grumbled') recurs through Exodus, Numbers, and 1 Corinthians 10:10 ('neither grumble as some of them did, and were destroyed by the Destroyer').
He cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became sweet. There the LORD made for them a statute and a rule, and there He tested them.
Masoretic (WLC)
וַיַּרְאֵהוּ יְהוָה עֵץ
the LORD showed him a piece of wood
Septuagint (LXX)
ἔδειξεν αὐτῷ κύριος ξύλον
the Lord showed him a tree / piece of wood
The 'wood' (xylon) that sweetens the bitter waters was read typologically in patristic Christianity as the Cross. Tertullian (Against Marcion 3.18), Origen (Homilies on Exodus 7), and others all develop the Marah-wood/Cross typology.
The NT's use of xylon for the cross (Acts 5:30, 10:39, 13:29, Gal 3:13, 1 Pet 2:24) makes the typology textually viable: the 'wood' that heals bitter waters is the same LXX word the NT uses for the wood on which Christ hangs.
He said, "If you will diligently listen to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in His eyes, and give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, your healer."
'I am the LORD who heals you' (egō kyrios ho iōmenos se) tracks MT. The iōmenos participle recurs at LXX Isaiah 53:5 ('by his wounds we are healed,' iathēmen) and is inherited by the NT's healing-vocabulary (Matt 8:17 — which cites LXX Isaiah 53 — and 1 Peter 2:24).
Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they camped there by the water.
Elim's twelve springs and seventy palm trees tracks MT. The numbers twelve (tribes) and seventy (elders / nations / Sanhedrin) carry typological weight that NT reception picks up (Jesus appoints 12 and 70 at Luke 9–10).