The Song of the Sea and the History of Ancient Israel and Judah

For more on this issue, see Baruch Schwartz, “The Song at the Sea: What Does It Celebrate,” TheTorah (2014); Dov Bear, “Does God Split the Sea in the Song of the Sea,” TheTorah (2014).

The Song’s placement is meant as a concrete dramatization of the verse in the earlier narrative:

^{שמות יד:לא} וַיִּירְאוּ הָעָם אֶת יְ־הוָה וַיַּאֲמִינוּ בַּי־הוָה וּבְמֹשֶׁה עַבְדּוֹ.

^{Exod 14:31} ...The people feared YHWH and they trusted YHWH and his servant Moses.

^{שמות יד:כט} וּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל הָלְכוּ בַיַּבָּשָׁה בְּתוֹךְ הַיָּם וְהַמַּיִם לָהֶם חֹמָה מִימִינָם וּמִשְּׂמֹאלָם.

^{Exod 14:29} But the Israelites had marched through the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left.

In fact, the standard source division of chapter 14 implies that the non-P source itself pictures Egyptians being drowned by a giant wave. See TABS Editors, “What Really Happened at the Sea?” TheTorah (2015).

The lateness of this Psalm makes it unlikely that the author was unaware of the association between the exodus and the victory at the Sea as presented in Exodus 14–15. More likely, the Psalmist refrained from mentioning the Sea tradition because it mitigated the dramatic effect of the exodus that took place in wake of the plague of the firstborn. The Psalm nonetheless underscores the essential tension between the idea that the exodus took place with the plague of the firstborn and the idea that it took place at the Sea.

Frank Moore Cross believed that the depiction of the crossing of the Jordan in Joshua 3–4 is based on an ancient ritual at Gilgal in which the exodus at the Sea was reenacted and celebrated. See Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), 103–105. This speculation, in my view, has no textual support.

It may also be noted that this text, like our Song, fails to mention the military conquest of the land. See section 5 for more discussion on this.

For more on the original independence of the wilderness wandering tradition, see my, “Exodus: Not the Only Tradition about Israel’s Past,” TheTorah (2015).

True, this sentence works with the passage in the narrative:

^{שמות יד:ט} וַיִּרְדְּפוּ מִצְרַיִם אַחֲרֵיהֶם וַיַּשִּׂיגוּ אוֹתָם חֹנִים עַל הַיָּם...

^{Exod 14:9} Egypt chased after them and caught up with them encamped by the Sea...

Nevertheless, the similarity in formulation may indicate that the narrative of Exodus 14 is aware of and interpreting the Song. Another example of this would be

^{שמות טו:יב} נָטִיתָ יְמִינְךָ תִּבְלָעֵמוֹ אָרֶץ.

^{Exod 15:12} You put out Your right hand, the earth swallowed them.

This could have influenced the depiction of Moses using his staff to split the Sea in the narrative of Exodus 14.

I will add that, in contrast with Exodus 14:9, which states that the Egyptians caught up with them, the Israelites of the Song are never “caught” because the Sea devours the attackers the moment the pursuit begins (verses 9–10).

And it was told the king of Egypt that the people fled: and the heart of Pharaoh and of his servants was turned against the people, and they said, Why have we done this, that we have let Israel go from serving us? And he made ready his chariot, and took his people with him…”

Ibn Ezra writes (Exod 15:16):

"תפל עליהם" שב אל אדום ואל מואב, אעפ”י שהזכיר למעלה כנען

“Let fall upon them” applies to Edom and Moab, even though Canaan was mentioned above.

See Onkelos and Rashbam (ad loc.); William H. C. Propp, Exodus 1—18, Anchor Bible 2 (New York: Doubleday, 1998), 538.

For a very helpful discussion see Lars E. Axelsson, The Lord Rose up from Seir: Studies in the History and Traditions of the Negev and Southern Judah, CB Old Testament Series 25 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1987), 125-142.

In my, “The Grain and Pomegranates of Mei Merivah,” TheTorah (2015), I argued that the non-P text also envisioned that the conquest was meant to begin in the south.

See, for example, Genesis 2:15, which states that God places Adam in the garden to work it and guard it.

For an extensive discussion and evaluation of scholarship on the Song of the Sea within the context of Ugaritic literature see Stan Rummel, “Narrative Structures in the Ugaritic Texts,” Ras Shamra Parallels 3 (1981), 236–260.

^{שמות יט:ד} אַתֶּם רְאִיתֶם אֲשֶׁר עָשִׂיתִי לְמִצְרָיִם וָאֶשָּׂא אֶתְכֶם עַל כַּנְפֵי נְשָׁרִים וָאָבִא אֶתְכֶם אֵלָי.

^{Exod 19:4} You saw what I did in Egypt, how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to me.

The similarity in conception to Shirat Hayam is so close that many have interpreted the “mountain” of Shirat Hayam as Sinai. Some have interpreted the Song’s reference to the temple of YHWH as an allusion to the tabernacle constructed at Sinai. While this is a legitimate reading of the Song in its present literary context in Exodus, it is very difficult in terms of the meaning of the Song in its original context.

God was never thought to have “planted” Israel, that is, give them a rooted presence, at Sinai. This metaphor is apt only if we understand the mountain as a reference to the land in which Israel settles. And the Song’s depiction of the Temple as God’s firmly established inheritance hardly accords with the mobile tabernacle, which moves with Israel from station to station. Finally, the account of the construction of the tabernacle at Sinai belongs to the late Priestly stratum of the Pentateuch and is much later than Shirat Hayam.

Umberto Cassuto comes close to articulating this idea in his Commentary on Exodus, 322. See also William H. C. Propp, Exodus 19–40, Anchor Bible 2A (New York: Doubleday, 2006), 376. For the ancient tradition of Sinai as divine Mountain see Moshe Weinfeld, “The Tribal League at Sinai,” in Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross, ed. Patrick D. Miller, Jr., Paul D. Hanson, and S. Dean McBride (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 303–314.

^{תהלים צב:יג} צַדִּיק כַּתָּמָר יִפְרָח כְּאֶרֶז בַּלְּבָנוֹן יִשְׂגֶּה. ^צב:יד שְׁתוּלִים בְּבֵית יְ־הוָה בְּחַצְרוֹת אֱלֹהֵינוּ יַפְרִיחוּ. ^צב:טו עוֹד יְנוּבוּן בְּשֵׂיבָה דְּשֵׁנִים וְרַעֲנַנִּים יִהְיוּ.

^{Ps 92:13} The righteous flourish like the palm tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. ^92:14 They are planted in the house of YHWH; they flourish in the courtyards of our God. ^92:15 In old age they still produce fruit;
they are always green and full of sap.

See the thorough analysis in Lea Mazor, “הקשר הדו-כיווני בין גן העדן והמקדש” [The Correlation between the Garden of Eden and the Temple], Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 13 (2002 [5762]): 5-42.

See Lawrence E. Stager, “Jerusalem and the Garden of Eden,” Eretz Israel 26 (1999): 183–194.

See the highly insightful analysis in Graham H. Davies, “The Ark in the Psalms,” in Promise and Fulfilment : Essays Presented to Professor S. H. Hooke in Celebration of His Ninetieth Birthday, 21st January, 1964, ed. F.F. Bruce, (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1963), 51–61.

This refers to the loss of the ark from the Shiloh Temple to the Philistines (cf. 1 Sam. 4).

Note the parallel between strength and splendor as seen in the previous quote. Perhaps נָחִיתָ בְחַסְדְּךָ indicates that חַסְדְּךָ also alludes to the ark. See, e.g.:

^{תהלים מח:י} דִּמִּינוּ אֱלֹהִים חַסְדֶּךָ בְּקֶרֶב הֵיכָלֶךָ.

^{Ps 48:10} In Your temple, God, we meditate upon Your faithful care.

Many see some kind of ritual procession in which the ark is brought into the Temple in texts such as Psalm 24:7-10 and 68:16-19, 25-30. Since, as I argue, the Song alludes to the ark guiding the people to God’s נְוֵה קָדְשֶׁךָ, “sacred pasture” (verse 13), which appears to be more or less equivalent to the divinely constructed Temple of verse 17, and since the Song concludes with the enthronement of God as king in verse 18, it seems quite possible that it too reflects a ritual procession of the ark into the Temple. Presumably, this ritual would have been a reenactment of the first time Israel came to the Temple-Mountain guided by the ark.

The term עַם, used throughout the song, often refers to a clan or family-based tribal unit rather than a full blown גוֹי, “nation,” which may fit better with Judah (a single tribe and smaller polity) than with Israel. See Ephraim A. Speiser, “‘People’ and ‘Nation’ of Israel,” in Oriental and Biblical Studies: Collected Writings of E. A. Speiser, ed., J. J. Finkelstein and Moshe Greenberg (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1967), 160-170. The reference to “the God of my ancestor” in verse 2 may strengthen the likelihood that the Song refers to a clan or tribal unit.

See on this, James W. Flanagan, “Judah in All Israel” in No Famine in the Land: Studies in Honor of John L. McKenzie (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1975), 101–116. And see: Daniel E. Fleming, The Legacy of Israel in Judah’s Bible: History, Politics, and the Reinscribing of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 17–57, esp. “Judah’s Appropriation of Israelite Identity” at 47–55. See also more broadly, Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: Archeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts(New York: Free Press, 2001), 149–168.

^{מלכים א ה:ה} וַיֵּשֶׁב יְהוּדָה וְיִשְׂרָאֵל לָבֶטַח אִישׁ תַּחַת גַּפְנוֹ וְתַחַת תְּאֵנָתוֹ מִדָּן וְעַד בְּאֵר שָׁבַע כֹּל יְמֵי שְׁלֹמֹה.

^{1 Kgs 5:5} Judah and Israel dwelt in safety, everyone under his own vine and under his own fig tree, from Dan to Beersheba, all the days of Solomon.

^{שמואל ב ב:ט} וַיַּמְלִכֵהוּ אֶל הַגִּלְעָד וְאֶל הָאֲשׁוּרִי וְאֶל יִזְרְעֶאל וְעַל אֶפְרַיִם וְעַל בִּנְיָמִן וְעַל יִשְׂרָאֵל כֻּלֹּה.… ^ב:י אַךְ בֵּית יְהוּדָה הָיוּ אַחֲרֵי דָוִד.

^{2 Sam 2:9} He made him king over Gilead and Asher and Jezreel and Ephraim and Benjamin and all Israel… ^2:10 but the house of Judah went after David.

See, for example, Yair Hoffman, “A North Israelite Typological Myth and a Judean Historical Tradition: The Exodus in Hosea and Amos,” Vetus Testamentum 39 (1989): 169–182. Hoffman believes that it was only after the fall of the Northern Kingdom that the exodus theme was accepted as a national myth in Judah.

Furthermore, historians who identify a tradition of an entrance into the land from the south believe this to be associated with Judean clans. See, for example, Roland de Vaux, “The Settlement of the Israelites in Southern Palestine and the Origins of the Tribe of Judah,” in Translating and Understanding the Old Testament: Essays in Honor of Herbert Gordon May, ed. H. T. Frank and W. L. Reed (Nashville: Abingdon, 1970), 108–134. Notably, none of the narrative traditions that support the picture of an entry from the south make reference to the exodus (Exodus 17:8-16; Numbers 10:29–32; 14:39–45; 21:1–3).

See Avigdor Shinan and Yair Zakovitch, “Midrash on Scripture and Midrash within Scripture,” in Scripta Hierosolymitana 31: Studies in Bible, ed., Sara Japhet (Jerusalem: Magnus Press, 1986), 273–276.

See the discussion of the proposed emendation in Propp, Exodus 1–18, 471.

For a brief discussion with some illuminating examples see Yair Zakovitch, המילון המקראי הסמוי מן העין [Invisible Biblical Dictionary] (Jerusalem: Carmel, 2014), 10–11.

See Shinan and Zakovitch, “Midrash on Scripture and Midrash within Scripture.”

Cross, Canaanite Myth, 127 [n. 54], thought that מַרְכְּבֹת פַּרְעֹה וְחֵילוֹ יָרָה בַיָּם is too bulky and must entail a late conflation of two poetic variants, פַּרְעֹה וְחֵילוֹ יָרָה בַיָּם and מַרְכְּבֹת פַּרְעֹה יָרָה בַיָּם. Perhaps it is better, however, not to attempt to improve the meter here and assume, as I do above, that no part of it was penned by the poet responsible for the main poem.

For example,

^{מלכים א ט:כו} וָאֳנִי עָשָׂה הַמֶּלֶךְ שְׁלֹמֹה בְּעֶצְיוֹן גֶּבֶר אֲשֶׁר אֶת אֵלוֹת עַל שְׂפַת יַם סוּף בְּאֶרֶץ אֱדוֹם.

^{1 Kgs 9:26} King Solomon built a fleet of ships at Ezion-geber, which is near Eloth on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom.

See also Exodus 23:31; Numbers 21:4; Deuteronomy 2:1.