Exodus 15:3

"Jehovah is a man of war: Jehovah is his name."

This verse concludes the first stanza of the hymn which may be divided thus: (1) God's Identity (Exodus 15:1-3); (2) God's Mighty Act in the Red Sea (Exodus 15:4-16a); and (3) A Prophecy of what God will do Later (Exodus 15:16b-18). For Israel, this great song was somewhat like that which the "Star Spangled Banner" is to Americans. The sabbath upon which the Jews read it was called the Sabbath of the Song. and a very great deal of the subsequent Scriptures either used it as a theme or made definite and frequent references to the Red Sea triumph. Nehemiah 9:9ff; Psalms 77:16ff; 78:11ff; Psalms 105; Psalms 106:7ff; and Habakkuk 3:8ff are examples.

"Jehovah is a man of war ..." This is profoundly true, and yet there is a partial and limited understanding of it which is profoundly wrong. Israel failed to understand that the war in which Jehovah was and is eternally engaged is by no means an exclusively carnal and military operation. "This is not a war against people; it is the continuing battle against evil."[17] The weapons of our warfare are not carnal (2 Corinthians 10:4); we do not struggle against fleshly armies, but "against the world rulers of this darkness, and against the spiritual hosts of wickedness" (Ephesians 6:12), and our armor is not that of the policeman or the soldier, but "the whole armor of God," which is the Word of God (Ephesians 6:10-17). The great tragedy of historic Israel was their misunderstanding of this. The mighty Leader, God, promised the Messiah was not to be (as they thought) a great soldier who would rid the nation of the Romans, slay all their enemies, and reincarnate the abominable Solomonic Empire, but the glorious Sufferer, the Servant of God, who would die on Calvary for the sins of humanity! Some of the more perceptive among the Rabbis attempted to teach Israel the true understanding of this, but the circumstances made it most difficult. Erkhin captured the note of sorrow in the glorious hymn celebrating God's victory:

"The ministering angels wanted to sing a hymn. But the holy One, blessed is He, said to them, `Do you wish to sing a hymn when the work of my hands has been drowned in the sea?'"[18]

The delay of the hymn of praise until after the victory was explained as follows by another Jewish writer:

"In this vein, God said to the ministering angels, `Now, when the work of my hands is drowned in the sea, there is no cause for rejoicing. It had to be done, for evil cannot go unpunished, but it is painful for Me and it would be wrong to sing praise now. Only after the operation is complete and the wicked have been destroyed, may you rejoice at the victory won for justice and righteousness"[19]

Inadequate and fanciful as these observations are, they do speak of the tragedy of that awful scene in the Red Sea. The very fact of Israel's being indeed God's Chosen Race, seemed to blind the whole nation eventually to any understanding of the epic truth that it was the intention of God from the very first that the blessing of ALL the families of the earth should be accomplished through Israel, and that it was not their salvation alone that fulfilled the purpose of God. (See Genesis 12:3).