Exodus 15:14-17

14-17. Fifth strain . The Egyptians were conquered, but other foes yet lay between the Israelites and the promised inheritance . The Canaanites filled the land, and Philistia barred one gate of entrance, while Moab and Edom held the other . It is a noteworthy mark of the genuineness of this prophecy that Canaan and Phllistia, Edom and Moab, are all spoken of in the same terms; yet, while the Canaanites were exterminated, Israel passed by Edom, (Numbers 20:18, etc . ,) while Moab and Philistia were rival nations through all the centuries of the Hebrew commonwealth and monarchy . A poet would naturally have written thus at the time of the exodus, when he had simply the general revelation that Israel would triumph over all these enemies; but after the conquest of Canaan some distinction would naturally have been made between nations which were exterminated and those which never lost their independence .

The theme of this last stanza is introduced with wonderful boldness and vigour, hurling out the words without article or connective.

Palestina Palestuth, Philistia; the meaning of the word Palestine or Palestina throughout the Bible. This was the dwelling-place of the Philistines, the long, fertile plain, about fifteen miles wide, which skirts the Mediterranean from the coast to the foot-hills of the mountains of Judah, and now, as probably then, an enormous wheat field. The name was afterwards extended to the whole of Canaan. Note Acts 8:40.

Edom Idumea, Mount Seir, and the adjacent desert; the mountainous and desert country east of the Arabah, stretching from the head of the eastern gulf of the Red Sea to the Jordan valley; separated by the brook Zered from Moab, which skirts the eastern shore of the Dead Sea .

Till thy people pass through Through the desert to the Land of Promise . The strain closes with a beautiful parallelism and climax .

Thou shalt… plant them in the mountain Israel, like a fruitful tree, is to be planted in God’s mountain-land, God’s dwelling-place, God’s sanctuary, country, home, altar. ( Murphy.) How calm the close! How delightful to repose under the vine and fig tree, to rest in the peaceful home, to cling to the sacred altar, after this tempest of emotions! And then from the whole congregation bursts forth the grand chorus,

Jehovah shall reign for ever and ever And the hearts of the vast host are all lifted heavenward and left before the Throne.

The saints on “the sea of glass” will sing the “song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb.” Revelation 15:3. The birth-song of ransomed Israel is, in its deeper meanings, the birth-song of the spiritual Israel of all ages of the great redemption from the darkness and death of sin. The profound and far-reaching spiritual significance of these Old Testament events will be fully felt when “God’s mystery is finished;”

when type and antitype, prophecy and history, law and gospel, will blend in one blaze of light. Christ is in all the Old Covenant as Moses is in all the New; the “Song of Moses” is the “Song of the Lamb.” “The word is nigh” us, though it comes to us across so many centuries, for it is a word from Jehovah, and not to Israel alone, but to mankind to me and thee.