050. Moses--Song of Deliverance

Moses--Song of Deliverance

Exo 15:1-2. Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation: he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation; my Father’s God, and I will exalt him. To no one man has the world been so much indebted for rational pleasure and useful knowledge, as to the inspired author of these sacred books. Moses, as he is the most ancient, so he is by far the best writer that ever existed. Never in one and the same character were united talents so various, so rare, and so valuable. He may without hesitation be pronounced, the most eloquent of historians, the sublimest of poets, the profoundest of sages, the most sagacious of politicians, the most acute of legislators, the most intrepid of heroes, the clearest sighted of prophets, the most amiable of men. The qualities of his heart seem to strive for the mastery with those of the understanding: so that it is difficult to determine whether, as the reputed son of Pharaoh’s daughter, as a voluntary exile from the splendor of a court, as the sympathizing friend of his afflicted brethren, as the bold protector of virgin innocence, as the contented shepherd of Jethro’s flock, as the magnanimous assertor of Israelitish liberty, or finally, asking in Jeshurun, ruling the thousands of Israel with meekness and wisdom--he most challenges our admiration and praise. Had the world never been favored with his works, or were it now to be deprived of that precious treasure, the loss were inconceivably great. Who does not shudder at the thought? What a fearful gap in the history of mankind! What a blow to take, what a blank in science, what an impoverishing of the public stock of harmless pleasure, what an injury to the dearest, the best, the everlasting interests of mankind! The venerable man, who has for so many evenings past condescended to delight and instruct us by the relation of events the most singular, interesting, and important, assumes this night a new character; and in strains the sweetest and boldest that bard ever sung; in verses the loftiest that the imagination of poet ever dictated, rouses, warms, transports the mind. We forget the distance of three thousand years. We feel ourselves magically conveyed to the banks of the Red Sea. We join in the acclamations of the redeemed of the Lord, as this song of Moses swells upon our ear. “Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. For the horse of Pharaoh went in with his chariots, and with his horsemen into the sea, and the Lord brought again the waters of the sea upon them; but the children of Israel went on dry land in the midst of the sea. The depths have covered them: they sank into the bottom as a stone.” Exo 15:1;Exo 15:19;Exo 15:5. How wonderfully suited to each other, the event and the celebration of it! In fulfilling the promise made in the conclusion of the last Lecture, and executing the business of the present, three objects are proposed. First, to attempt a vindication of the history of the passage of the Red Sea, from some objections which have been made to the credibility or miraculousness of it. Secondly, to make a few criticisms on the sacred hymn which was composed on the occasion, and now, in part, read in your hearing; in the view of pointing out a few of its more striking beauties. And, thirdly, to make a few remarks on sacred poesy in general, tending to evince its superior excellency; and to point out the delicacy and difficulty of attempting to amplify or imitate what the inspired poets have written, as helps to devotion. In the first I shall, without ceremony or apology, borrow the assistance of the pious and learned author of Dissertations, historical, critical, theological, and moral, on the most memorable events of the Old and New Testament history,--James Saurin, late minister of the French church at the Hague.[*]Tom. i. Disc. xlix. In the second, I shall submit to be instructed by an ingenious, pious, and eloquent professor of rhetoric in the university of Paris, who has made choice of this passage, expressly for the purpose of exemplifying the majesty, beauty, and simplicity of the Scripture style.[*]Rollin Bel. Let. Tom. ii. Eloq, de Liv. Sacr. And in the third, I shall do little more than transcribe from an elegant, penetrating, and instructive moralist of our own age and country.[*]Johnson’s life of the poet Waller. To return:

If we collect the several circumstances of this wonderful piece of history, it will readily be acknowledged, that there is here presented to the mind, one of the greatest, or rather a series of the greatest miracles, which the hand of Omnipotence ever wrought in behalf of any nation. It is not therefore to be wondered at if the enemies of revelation have endeavored to sully their luster, and impeach their credibility.

Three methods have been employed for this purpose--To ascribe these events to natural causes--To put them on a footing with others related in profane history, and to represent them as contradictory and inconsistent. Three bulwarks of infidelity; as many grounds of triumph for truth.

First, these events, which we ascribe entirely to the almighty power of God, have been accounted for from the common and natural operation of cause and effect. Eusebius has preserved and transmitted to us a fragment from an ancient author, Artapanes,[*]Euseb. Prepar. lib. ix. chap. xxvii. to this purpose: “Those of Memphis, one of the chief cities of ancient Egypt, allege, that Moses perfectly understood the country; that he had accurately observed the ebbing and flowing of the sea, and took advantage of the retreat of the tide to lead the people over. But they of Heliopolis relate the matter differently, saying, that while the king was pursuing the Israelites, Moses, by the command of Heaven, struck the waters with a rod, upon which they immediately separated, and left a spacious and safe passage for that great multitude; and, that the Egyptians attempting to follow them the same way, were dazzled and confounded by preternatural fires, lost their way, and by the reflux of the sea, were overtaken in the midst of the channel, and thus all perished either by water or by fire.”

Now, granting to this quotation all the force that unbelief can give it, this evidently appears upon the face of it, that Moses has vouchers of his divine legation, even in Egypt, even among the idolaters themselves. If the Memphites accuse our historian of endeavoring to make a natural pass for a miraculous event, the Heliopolitans acknowledge that it was preternatural, and ascribe it to an immediate interposition of Heaven. And this concession is important, when we consider that it comes from the mouth of an enemy.

Again the supposition of the Memphites must be rejected by all those who pay any regard to the authority of Moses, and of the other sacred writers. He himself indeed admits, that the effect was forwarded by the assistance of a strong east wind. And whatever he ascribes to that, may seem so far to derogate from the greatness of the miracle. But it is no less true, that he throws out nothing like an insinuation that the passage of the vast host of Israel was produced by the intervention of second causes. And all the inspired authors, who, after him, have mentioned it or alluded to it, acknowledge only a supernatural agency. Thus Joshua, who was an eye-witness and a party deeply concerned in the event. “For the Lord your God dried up the waters of Jordan from before you, until ye were passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up from before us, until we were gone over that all the people of the earth might know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty: that ye might fear the Lord your God forever.”[*]Jos 4:23-24 Thus, Psa 66:6,--“He turned the sea into dry land; they went through the flood on foot; there did we rejoice in him.” And Psa 78:13,--“He divided the sea, and caused them to pass through, and he made the waters to stand as an heap.” And Psa 106:9,--“He rebuked the Red Sea also, and it was dried up: so he led them through the depths as through the wilderness.” And Heb 11:29,--“By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land: which the Egyptians essaying to do were drowned.” So that Moses, Joshua, David, and Paul, have but one and the same opinion on this subject. But farther, the essence of a miracle does not always consist in counteracting or suspending the laws of nature. One of the most contemptible of the adversaries of religion has weakly imagined,[*]Spinosa Tract. Theol. Polit. cap. vi. that by a single objection he was able to invalidate one of the bulwarks, and shake one of the pillars of revelation. “These miraculous effects,” says he, “are referred, by the confession of Scripture historians themselves, to the operation of second causes. It was by warming the body of a child, that Elijah brought him to life again. It was by applying clay, or dust mingled with spittle, to the eyes of a blind man, that Jesus Christ restored him to sight. It was by a wind, that Moses brought locusts upon Egypt, and obtained a passage through the Red Sea.” To this it is replied--That the most common and natural things become miracles, when they present themselves precisely at the time and in the manner prescribed by Him who commands their appearance, for the confirmation and establishment of a certain doctrine. What so natural and common, for example, as to see the sun shining one moment in full, and unobstructed glory, and the next darkened and concealed by clouds? But if a person publishing a new doctrine as divine, should undertake to prove his mission by changing the appearance of the bright orb of day, at his pleasure, and by showing him either in unclouded majesty, or eclipsed and shorn of his beams, according as he gave the word; and should we behold this very ordinary natural phenomenon actually and uniformly obeying the mandate, would not such an event, however natural in itself, become preternatural and miraculous from its circumstances? Thus, there might be occasion for the influence of the wind, to favor and facilitate the passage of Israel. But, how was it possible for their leader, by mere human sagacity, to discover that a wind from such a quarter, springing up exactly at such, an hour, should harden the bottom of the deep?

But, supposing the philosophy of Moses sufficiently accurate to assure him, that at such a time he might in safety march over his cumbersome retinue; could it inform him also that Pharaoh and his captains would certainly be mad enough to follow him through that dangerous route? Could it assure him that the rashness of the tyrant, and the law which regulated the flowing of the sea, would exactly keep time, so as effectually to produce the destruction of his whole army? The flux and reflux of the tide were known to Moses; but, was it entirely unknown to the Egyptians? What, in so great an army, led by the sovereign in person, in a land renowned for natural knowledge, was there no man astronomer enough to know, that the difference of a few hours is everything in a case of this sort; that to be in such a spot, at such a time, was inevitable destruction? Incredible! impossible!

Finally, it is altogether inconceivable that the space of three or four hours, the utmost that an ebb merely natural could have afforded them, was sufficient for the transition of such an astonishing multitude as that which Moses conducted. The learned Calmer has so fully demonstrated this point,[*]Dissert. sur le Passage de la Mer Rouge. as to enforce the conclusion, that no degree of human knowledge could have disclosed to Moses a foresight of the events which proved so propitious to him. Not therefore to the superiority of genius, but to a power divine, the praise is to be ascribed. And to the same principle we must recur in order to explain the mighty difference which Providence puts between the Israelites and the Egyptians, in the midst of the Red Sea.

Attempts have been made to debase the dignity of this great event, by reducing it to the level of similar appearances recorded by profane historians. That degenerate son of Israel, Josephus, first started this objection. These are his words; “this,” speaking of the passage of the Red Sea, “I have related with all the circumstances, as I find them in our sacred authors. Nobody ought to think it an incredible thing, that a people which lived in the innocence and simplicity of the first ages, might have found a way through the sea to save themselves. Whether it was that the sea itself opened it for them, or whether it was done by the will of God: since the same thing happened long after to the Macedonians, when they passed through the sea of Pamphylia, under the conduct of Alexander, when God thought fit to make use of that people for the destruction of the Persian empire, as it is affirmed by all the historians who have written the life of that Prince. However, I leave all men to judge of this matter as they think fit.” Thus far Josephus.[*]Antiq. Jud. lib. ii. cap. vii. Antiquities 2.347 The other instances which some presume to be put in competition with this, are the approach of Scipio with his army to the attack of New Carthage, by means of an extraordinary ebb at the change of the moon, recorded by Livy;[*]Lib. xxvi. cap. xlv. a similar ebb of the river Euphrates, related by Plutarch, in his life of Lucullus; and, a flood altogether as singular, upon the coast of Holland, in the year 1672. which kept up for twelve whole hours, and was apparently the means of preserving that republic from the consequences of a joint attack of the fleets of England and France. It is handed down to us in the life of the famous admiral De Ruyter, who had the command of the Dutch squadron at that time. Neither your time nor patience admitting of an inquiry into the truth of these several facts, we satisfy ourselves with observing, that admitting them to be true, not one of them is any way worthy to be compared with the Mosaic account of the passage across the Red Sea. The pointed and particular prediction of Moses; the rod employed, and the instantaneousness of the effect; the facility and speed of the passage; the rashness of the Egyptians; their tragic end; everything in short concurs to render this an unparalleled event. And nothing but an immoderate desire of depreciating the miracles of the sacred history, could have attempted to diminish this celebrated transit into a comparison with any of the other events which are alluded to. The third objection is, to the truth of the history; pretended to be taken from the history itself. The time allotted by Moses, by his own account, for the congregation, consisting of so many myriads, to pass over, is considered by the objectors as much too short for the purpose. But in order to support it, they are obliged to go into uncertain, fanciful, and unsupported conjectures, about the breadth of the Red Sea at the place where the passage was opened. They make the breadth of that passage just what it suits their own arbitrary conjecture and calculation. They must needs constrain a great multitude, in very peculiar circumstances, unaccustomed to discipline, stimulated by fear, and borne on the wings of hope, to move with the leisure and deliberation of a regular army. They will not deign to acknowledge the power and grace of the Most High in every part of the transaction. They overlook the description given of that people, Psa 105:37, as a people full of strength and vigor, and “not one sickly among them.” They forget what God himself soon after says of them, “You have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagle’s wings, and brought you unto myself.” We conclude, that as the case taken all together was singular, unprecedented, and followed by nothing like it; so the particular circumstances of it are likewise singular and unexampled, and will, with every candid person, bear out Moses, the sacred historian, against the charge of being inconsistent with himself.

We proceed to the second object which we proposed, namely, to point out a few of the more striking beauties of the sacred song, which was composed and sung in grateful acknowledgment of that great deliverance which we have been contemplating. What will undoubtedly give it a high value in the estimation of many is, that it is the most ancient morsel of poetry which the world is in possession of: being three thousand three hundred and thirty-seven years old, that is, six hundred and forty-seven years before Homer, the most ancient and the best of heathen bards, lived or sung. But its antiquity is its slightest excellency. The general turn of it is great, the thoughts nobly simple, the style sublime, the expression strong, the pathos sweet, the figures natural and bold. It abounds throughout with images which at once strike, warm, astonish, and delight. The occasion of it you well know. The poet’s view is to indulge himself in transports of joy, admiration, and gratitude, and to inspire the people with the same sentiments. Accordingly he thus impetuously breaks out,

Exo 15:1. “I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.” Here the tremendous majesty of God the deliverer, and the lively gratitude of the people saved, the leading object of the piece, are placed instantly and powerfully in sight; and they are never dropped for one moment, to the end. ., in the singular number, is much more energetic and affecting than we in the plural would have been. The triumph of Israel over the Egyptians did not resemble the usual triumphs of nation over nation; where the individual is overlooked and lost in the general. No; everything here is peculiar and personal. Every Israelite for himself reflects with joy on his own chains now forever broken in pieces. He seems to exult over his own tyrant-master now subdued under him, and hails his personal liberty now effectually secured. For it is natural to the heart of man, in extreme danger, to refer everything to himself, and to consider himself as all in all. “The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea:” for the same reason the horse is much more forcible than horses would have been; it marks strongly the suddenness, the universality, the completeness of the destruction. The Egyptian cavalry, numerous, formidable, covering the face of the ground, is represented in a moment, by a single effort, at one blow, overthrown, overwhelmed, as if they had been but one horse and one rider.

Exo 15:2. “Jehovah is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation: he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation; my father’s God, and I will exalt him.” Is it lawful to say that the poet employs the most exquisite art, in representing this great deliverance, in every part and every view of it, as the work of Jehovah: the great “I am that I am:” that name of God, by which he chose to be known to Israel through the whole of those memorable transactions? my strength, that is, the source or cause of my strength: and it points out the great God as the courage and force of Israel, without the necessity of their exerting any of their own. “My song,” that is, the subject of it. No instrument divides the praise with him. No power, no wisdom is employed but his own. He planned, arranged, executed every thing by himself. “He is become my salvation.” The fine writers of Greece or Rome would probably have said, “He hath saved me.” But Moses says much more; the Lord hath undertaken himself to work deliverance for me: he hath made my salvation his own, his personal concern, and is become to me everything I can want.

“He is my God.” Every word is emphatic. “He,” in opposition to the gods of Egypt, which cannot hear, nor see, nor save. “My God:” all-attentive to my interest and safety, as if he had no creature but me to care for: and therefore my God: for I acknowledge not, I never will acknowledge, any other. “My father’s God.” This repetition is most beautifully tender and pathetic. He whose greatness I adore, is not a strange God, unknown till now; a protector for a moment. No, he is the ancient patron of my family, his goodness is from generation to generation. I have a thousand domestic proofs of his constant, undiminished affection; and he is now making good to me only that which he solemnly promised to my forefathers. And how has he effected this?

“The Lord is a man of war.” An ordinary writer would probably have represented the Almighty here as the God of armies: and as such discomfiting the host of Pharaoh. But Moses does more; he brings him forth as a champion, a soldier; puts the sword into his hand, and exhibits him fighting his battles, the battles of Israel.

Exo 15:4-5 contain a very fine display and amplification of the simple idea suggested in the first, “the horse and his rider.”

“Pharaoh’s chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea: his chosen captains are also drowned in the Red Sea, the depths have covered them, they sank into the bottom as a stone.” Image rises and swells above image. Pharaoh’s chariots, his hosts, his chosen captains--cast into the sea, drowned in the Red Sea--covered with the depths, sunk to the bottom, at once, as a stone. Notwithstanding their pride and insolence, they can make no more resistance to the power of Jehovah, than a stone launched from the arm of a strong man into the flood.

Every writer but a Moses must have stopped short here; or flattened his subject, by repeating or extending the same ideas. But the seraphic poet, upborne by an imagination which overleaps the boundaries of the world, and an enthusiasm which cannot rest in any creature, springs up to the Creator himself, in these rapturous strains.

“Thy right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in thy power: thy right hand, O Lord, hath dashed in pieces the enemy. In the greatness of thine excellency thou hast overthrown them that rose up against thee.” When the heart is full of an object, it turns it round, as it were on every side, returns to it again and again; never tires in contemplating it, till admiration is lost in astonishment.--Moses after this effusion of joy and praise returns again to the matter of fact: but not in the language of more description, as in the 4th verse; but in a continuation of his bold animated address to God himself; which gives it a life and fervor superior to anything human. As if the strength of one element had not been sufficient to destroy God’s enemies every element lends its aid. The deep opens its mouth, the fire consumes, the wind rages; all nature is up in arms, to avenge the quarrel of an incensed God. The poet ennobles the wind, by making God the principle of it; and animates the fire, by making it susceptible of fear. In the same style of address to God, he throws himself as it were into the person and character of the enemy, previous to their defeat, and pours forth their sentiments of threatening and slaughter; the more strongly to mark their disappointment, by contrasting the folly and impotence of man, with the power and justice of God. “The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil: my lust shall be satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.” You see here vengeance hastening to its object, regardless of opposition. The words, unconnected with a conjunction, seem to hurry on like the passion that prompts to them. And in what does it issue?--“Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them.” And the picture is finished with this happy stroke, “They sank as lead in the mighty waters.” But I feel I have undertaken a task far beyond my ability, and the limits of your time. And therefore break off with another borrowed remark, namely, that whatever grandeur and magnificence we may discover in this song, as it stands in such a place and connection, its beauty and force must greatly rise upon us, were we permitted to penetrate through the mysterious sense concealed behind the veil of this great event. For it is certain, that this deliverance from Egypt covers and represents salvation of a superior and more extensive nature. The Apostle of the Gentiles teaches us to consider it as a type of that freedom which the Christian obtains by the waters of baptism and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, from the yoke of the prince of this world. And the prophet, in the book of Revelation, makes it to shadow forth the final and great deliverance of the redeemed, by introducing the assembly of those who overcome the beast, holding the harps of God in their hands, and singing “the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints! Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? For thou only art holy; for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest.”[*]Rev 15:3-4 Now, as the Scriptures declare that the wonders of this second deliverance shall infinitely surpass the first, and shall entirely obliterate the remembrance of it; we may easily believe that the beauties of the spiritual sense of this divine poem may totally eclipse those of the historical.

Having endeavored imperfectly to unfold some of the excellencies of this ancient sacred composition, I should proceed, as I proposed, to point out the delicacy of attempting, and the difficulty of succeeding, in imitating or extending devotional poetry; but your time and patience, perhaps, will be better employed in hearing me read to you a short passage, containing the sentiments of an excellent modern critic[*]Dr. Samuel Johnson. on the subject; with which I shall conclude this exercise.

“It has been the frequent lamentation of good men, that verse has been too little applied to the purposes of worship; and many attempts have been made to animate devotion by pious poetry. That they have very seldom attained their end is sufficiently known; and it may not be improper to inquire why they have miscarried.

“Let no pious ear be offended, if I advance, in opposition to many authorities, that poetical devotion cannot often please. The doctrines of religion may, indeed, be defended in a didactic poem; and he who has the happy power of arguing in verse, will not lose it because his subject is sacred. A poet may describe the beauty and grandeur of nature, the flowers of spring, and the harvests of autumn, the vicissitudes of the tide, and the revolutions of the sky, and praise the Maker for his works, in lines which no reader shall lay aside. The subject of the disputation is not piety, but the motives to piety; that of the description is not God, but the works of God.

“Contemplative piety, or the intercourse between God and the human soul, cannot be poetical. Man admitted to implore the mercy of his Creator, and plead the merits of his Redeemer, is already in a higher state than poetry can confer.

“The essence of poetry is invention; such invention as, by producing something unexpected, surprises and delights. The topics of devotion are few, and being few are universally known; but few as they are, they can be made no more; they can receive no grace from novelty of sentiment, and very little from novelty of expression.

“Poetry pleases by exhibiting an idea more grateful to the mind than things themselves afford. This effect proceeds from the display of those parts of nature which attract, and the concealment of those which repel the imagination; but religion must be shown as it is; suppression and addition equally corrupt it; and such as it is, it is known already.

“From poetry the reader justly expects, and from good poetry always obtains, the enlargement of his comprehension, and elevation of his fancy; but this is rarely to be hoped for by Christians from metrical devotion. Whatever is great, desirable, or tremendous, is comprised in the name of the Supreme Being. Omnipotence cannot be exalted; infinity cannot be amplified; perfection cannot be improved.

“The employments of pious meditation are faith, thanksgiving, repentance, and supplication. Faith, invariably uniform, cannot be invested by fancy with decorations. Thanksgiving, the most joyful of all holy effusions, yet addressed to a being without passions, is confined to a few modes, and is to be felt rather than expressed. Repentance trembling in the presence of the judge, is not at leisure for cadences and epithets. Supplication of man to man may diffuse itself through many topics of persuasion, but supplication to God can only cry for mercy.

“Of sentiments purely religious, it will be found that the most simple expression is the most sublime. Poetry loses its luster and its power, because it is applied to the decoration of something more excellent than itself. All that verse can do is to help the memory and delight the ear; and for these purposes it maybe very useful; but it supplies nothing to the mind. The ideas of Christian theology are too simple for eloquence, too sacred for fiction, and too majestic for ornament; to recommend them by tropes and figures, is to magnify by a concave mirror the sidereal hemisphere.”