EXODUS 15
This chapter introduces a new feature — the first song in Scripture. Before this righteousness had been known, and approach to God in the savour of the burnt offering, and calling upon Jehovah’s Name in a life of pilgrim character. Perfect security from divine judgment under the blood of the lamb had also been known. But there had been no song, no celebration in praise, no outbreak from full hearts to bear witness that God was glorified in the affections of His people. We see here the blessedness of hearts which were filled with God. A people who have gone out from the world, and seen the complete destruction of the enemy’s power, and who know that God is for them, and that they are with Him on the ground of the death and resurrection of Christ, can in their affections claim God as their own — “This is my God, and I will glorify him”. God is glorified in the affections of a free people, and His complete triumph is celebrated.
Moses sings, and the children of Israel sing with him. Christ as the Risen One celebrates the victory of God, and the full fruit of redemption, and every believer is entitled to sing with Him. See Psalm 40: 1 - 3; Psalm 22: 22. Every one who has believed on God as the One who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead is entitled to sing this song. And in principle it covers everything; it celebrates the destruction of all enemies. Not only “Pharaoh’s chariots and his army hath he east into the sea”, but “all the inhabitants of Canaan melted away”. There is not an enemy left to hinder God from doing His pleasure with His redeemed people. It will be publicly seen in a coming day, but it is a reality now. In the morning “Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the sea-shore”. Faith’s “morning” comes in with the resurrection of Christ; the public “morning” will come in with the rising of the Sun of righteousness — the appearing of Christ. But God is now the strength, song, and salvation of His people. If He is our strength the wilderness path is provided for; if He is our song the heart is replenished with joy; and if He is our salvation no evil can touch us — that is, in a moral sense. There may be persecution, but we are assured of preservation morally.
We are not properly in the good of the gospel until we believe on God as the raiser up of the Lord Jesus, and He is so before our hearts that we cannot help [p. 72] singing. Christ is the true Moses; He is the Deliverer and the Singer. I may be conscious that I am the poorest and the feeblest of the flock of God, but if God is before me as known in the power of redemption, as known in the Lord Jesus Christ, I am entitled to sing every word of this song in company with Christ. The heart is liberated from thoughts of self; it is all what Jehovah has done; it is “thy”, “thou”, “thee”. If they refer to themselves it is as “the people that thou hast redeemed”, “thy people”, “the people ... that thou hast purchased”. How it lifts the heart to God! We are subjects of mercy; our deliverance is purely the fruit of divine love and wisdom, and of the actings of divine power. We have been purchased, redeemed, led forth, and God has done it all. We might well break forth in song!
What we get here is not exactly worship, but a celebration of God by those who can claim Him — and, as it were, take possession of Him — as their God. “This is my God”. It is only a people who are clear of Egypt who can take up such language. They have forsaken Egypt, but they have got God. What a happy and glorious exchange! They have seen the enemy’s power broken; they have seen Jehovah victorious, redeeming, saving, guiding; they are with God on the ground, typically, of the death and resurrection of Christ; and they can say with triumph, “This is my God”.
It was the day of their espousals, when Jehovah took them to Himself as His people, and they took Him as their God. Seven hundred years afterwards He could say, “I remember for thee the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou [p. 73] wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land not sown” (Jeremiah 2: 2). Jehovah cherished it in His memory. And we see in Isaiah 12: 2 that when He recovers His people and brings them back to Himself they will again sing this song, “Jehovah is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation”. This agrees with Hosea 2: 15: “And she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt”. The thought of this raises the question as to whether we can sing now as we once did.
It is not certain whether verse 2 should read, “I will glorify him” or “I will make him a dwelling”. As a matter of fact the way in which He chose to be glorified was by having a sanctuary that He might dwell among them; so that there is not much difference, morally, between the two readings.
“Thou by thy mercy hast led forth the people that thou hast redeemed” (verse 13). We saw in the previous chapter that the people had to go out by the divinely appointed way; they had to “go forward”. But here it is all seen as Jehovah’s leading forth by mercy. It is, indeed, wonderful mercy that leads forth from such a world a redeemed people. It is a great exercise to be true to one’s baptism. In many cases even those who are baptized as believers only look at their baptism as obedience to an ordinance, or as a confession of faith in Christ. How few realize that the death of Christ is a way out for them from this world, and that they are committed to it in baptism! We are, alas! accustomed to see baptized persons worldly, but when this is so it becomes quite clear that they have not “obeyed from the heart the form of teaching into which ye were instructed”
([p. 74] Romans 6: 17). But there comes a moment, often long after our baptism, when we desire to know what it means, and to be true to it. Baptism is “the form of teaching”, but to learn what it means there must be heart obedience. Then we see that a way has been opened up for us through the death of Christ to go out of the world so as to be entirely for God, and to be connected with another system of things altogether. It is the way and leading of His mercy.
“Thou hast guided them by thy strength unto the abode of thy holiness” (verse 13). We are brought to God, to the place where His holiness dwells. This seems to involve the gift of the Spirit — God dwelling by His Spirit in His people — and it also involves the setting up of the tabernacle. The people were to be identified with a new and divine system where God’s holiness dwelt. What a contrast to Egypt! God’s strength guides His people there; it is all a question of the power of God. The more simply we take this in the better, for then we are taken up with the actings of God. He is before the soul, and this is always blessed. God is for His people — victorious, redeeming, guiding — and the end reached is that they are brought to the abode of His holiness. That closes the first section of the song.
Then in verse 14 we pass over to the end of the wilderness, and the land. All the enemies there are subdued, and melt, and become still as a stone. Everything is celebrated as if it were accomplished. The Authorized Version rather spoils it by putting it in the future tense, but it is really, “The peoples heard it, they were afraid: a thrill seized the inhabitants of Philistia. Then the princes of Edom were amazed; the mighty men of Moab, trembling [p. 75] hath seized them; all the inhabitants of Canaan melted away”. It was not until forty years afterwards that they came to the actuality of it, as seen in the book of Joshua, but it was already known to faith as a reality. It is all “by the greatness of thine arm”. We must have the power of God before us, or we shall regard as impossible the purposes of His love. Here we see a people of value — a people purchased that they might be set in the choicest place. And I believe we get here for the first time the thought of God having an inheritance — a portion for Himself. It is not only that man is to have wonderful things, but God is going to have wonderful things too! He has that before Him which will be for His own delight, and sufficient to satisfy every desire of His love.
“He brought them to his holy border, this mountain, which his right hand purchased” (Psalm 78: 54). God acquires a portion for Himself in planting His people “holy and blameless before him in love; having marked us out beforehand for sonship through Jesus Christ to himself” (Ephesians 1: 4, 5). God will have the enjoyment of all that His love and wisdom and power have brought about by planting His saints in it. As heirs of God we inherit His wealth, and as we are planted in it we become His inheritance. Think of the greatness of it! I am afraid that we get accustomed to hearing these marvellous things, and do not consider how great they are. God is going to have the perfect satisfaction of His love. He will have that in His saints which He can take possession of for His pleasure and joy throughout eternal ages. No power in the universe can hinder Him from doing it. In the faith and affections of His saints it is recognized as accomplished, and [p. 76] celebrated in songs of praise. If you have never yet begun to sing, begin now!
There are four thoughts brought together in the closing verses of this song: (1) The mountain of Jehovah’s inheritance; (2) His dwelling; (3) The sanctuary; (4) The kingdom. These four thoughts give a complete presentation of what comes about as the fruit of the divine victory. “The mountain” suggests what is great and high. To Moses the promised land was “that goodly mountain and Lebanon” (Deuteronomy 3: 25). The people are purchased, and the mountain which they are to possess is purchased too (Psalm 78: 54). The mountain of God’s inheritance is His portion in His saints. What it has cost Him to establish His thoughts in Christ! He has One Man before Him holy and without blame, in sonship’s place. The mountain of God’s inheritance is set forth livingly in the risen and glorified Man at His right hand, and it is His thought and purpose to plant His saints in that mountain. He would have our roots to go down deep into His love which has purposed such a place and portion for us that He might have His eternal pleasure in us.
The next thought is that of Jehovah’s dwelling place. He purposes to dwell in His people so as to be known there, and in order to set forth what He is in them. The mountain of His inheritance speaks of what the saints are to Him, but He dwells in them so as to be known in testimony in a world which is alienated from Him. He dwells in His people so as to be known in the fulness of His grace.
Then “the Sanctuary, Lord, that thy hands have prepared” marks the character of the place where He can be approached; it is so holy that only His hands [p. 77] could prepare it. There is nothing there but that which is the product of divine workmanship. We are not always in the sanctuary, though it is always our privilege to draw near, even to enter the holiest; but there should always be about us a character suited to those who have sanctuary privilege.
The last thought is the kingdom, “Jehovah shall reign for ever and ever”. This is the basis on which all rests. Everything which is the fruit of the divine victory has for its foundation the rights and supremacy of God — His authority and power. This gives stability to all. The whole power of His eternal kingdom is put forth to destroy the enemy, and to secure the accomplishment of the purposes of His love. “Now to the King of the ages, the incorruptible, invisible, only God, honour and glory to the ages of ages. Amen” (1 Timothy 1: 17).
When we come to Miriam, and “all the women” who “went out after her with tambours and with dances”, we get the side of response so far as it was made good in the state of the people. It was a true response, so far as it went, but it is noticeable that it did not go beyond celebrating the complete victory of Jehovah; it did not go on to the fruits of the victory. I think the subjective state of the people came out in this; they did not rise to the greatness of what was celebrated in the song. Christ sings the triumph of God, and all the precious fruits of that triumph, but on our side we often do not have much before us the fruits that have been secured for God. Believers are glad to think of the complete victory of God, because it makes them feel safe and sure. But if we do not know something of the fruits of that victory we shall fail under every test of the wilderness. We [p. 78] shall soon have to taste something that is bitter — something that goes across the grain of our natural likings — and we cannot face that if we have not some sense in our souls of the positive fruits of divine victory for which we are secured. The fact that the enemy is laid low is a blessed deliverance, but it does not in itself give power to face the difficulties and exercises of the wilderness. But there are wonderful and positive fruits of victory to be known in the wilderness as brought to the abode of God’s holiness, and there are still more wonderful fruits to be known and enjoyed in the land, and God gives the light of all this at the very outset to be power in the affections of His people.
We need to cherish in our affections all that the gospel makes known to us of the precious thoughts of God. The gospel confers blessed divine wealth upon us; it gives us the knowledge of the complete victory of God, but it also enriches us with the light of all that is the fruit of that victory in positive blessing. To be really in the enjoyment of this leaves nothing in the heart but song — the spontaneous outburst of a heart that cannot contain itself. And it gives a knowledge of God that would prepare it for every testing of the wilderness. You may depend upon it that the secret of wilderness failure — murmurings, turning back to Egypt, etc. — is that the love of God and the precious fruits of His victory are not known or cherished in the affections of His people. The weakness and worldliness that are often manifest show how little the gospel is known in its true blessedness and power. Joshua and Caleb did not break down in the wilderness, because what was celebrated in the song was cherished in their hearts. They knew how Jehovah had triumphed, and they were in the [p. 79] light of all that would be the fruit of that triumph. “If Jehovah delight in us, he will bring us into this land”, was the language of their hearts.
All that we have had before us is the gospel, and I think we can see that if it were in the hearts of God’s people they would be prepared to learn the truth of the assembly. If saints really had the blessing of the gospel I think it would ensure their going on to the truth of the assembly. And I believe, on the other hand, that the full truth of the gospel will only be found with those who are, in some measure at least, in the truth of the assembly.
“And Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water” (verse 22). The people are now seen, in type, under the Lordship and Leadership of Christ. It is by divine leading that they are brought into testing. We may see this in the Lord Himself; He “was carried up into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted of the devil” (Matthew 4: 1). Mark says, “The Spirit drives him out into the wilderness”; this suggests that it was not a voluntary movement on His part. It is never right to go of our own will into testing; to do so would be to betray self-confidence. We are rather to pray, “Lead us not into temptation”. But Luke puts it very beautifully: He “was led by the Spirit in the wilderness forty days, tempted of the devil”. He was not only carried or driven there, but He was led in the Spirit all the time He was there. It was Man in the power of the Holy Spirit all the time, and therefore no failure.
The people, under divine leading, go three days in [p. 80] the wilderness and find no water. It was a trying experience, but God was setting Himself to teach them, at the very outset, an entirely new manner of life. “Newness of life” is what baptism has in view — a life sustained, not by natural resources or circumstances, but by confidence in God. All things are not smooth and easy in the way by which God leads His people. We are naturally inclined to suppose that if redeemed and under the favour of God, and walking under the Lordship and leading of Christ, all will go very smoothly. But it is not so. You may find something that you have been accustomed to all your life withdrawn — some natural source of comfort and refreshment fails you altogether. You feel it deeply — God means you to feel it — but it brings home to you how much you have been dependent on things which are not God. He is saying, I have shown you plainly that I am for you; I have destroyed every power that sought to hinder My blessing you; I have purchased and redeemed you for Myself; I have told you what My love and favour will do for you. Now I want you to be altogether dependent upon Me for everything; I want to take the place of every natural resource in the confidence of your heart.
But there is something more than the mere absence of water. At Marah they find bitter water — something that goes right across the grain of every natural desire. There is something that involves suffering; instead of refreshment it is bitterness. We naturally like to be able to think well of ourselves; that is pride. We like others to think well of us; that is vanity. We like things to be agreeable, and according to our taste. These things are in every one of us; they are the very make-up of our flesh. And the fact [p. 81] that it is so renders it necessary that we should drink bitter water. Is God going to minister to all that? Certainly not; He is going to disappoint and reduce all that, that we may live practically in the life of Christ.
“The people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink?” I suppose many of us have known what it was to come to Marah. I think I did the day after I was converted; I had a test which no one but myself knew anything about, and it made manifest to me how little I was prepared to suffer in the flesh. When we have bitter water to drink, the flesh rises in murmurings; we think it is hard. That is the time to cry to God. “And he cried to Jehovah; and Jehovah showed him wood, and he cast it into the waters, and the waters became sweet”. I take the wood to represent Christ as here in flesh for the will of God. He suffered in the flesh, and we are to arm ourselves with the same mind. “He that has suffered in the flesh has done with sin, no longer to live the rest of his time in the flesh to men’s lusts, but to God’s will”, (1 Peter 4: 1, 2).
A new principle of life is brought in which is a perfect contrast to everything that was natural to us. The bitterness of the waters of Marah is that something comes in which crosses our natural tastes, inclinations, and likings. But when we have Christ before us as the One who came to do God’s will, and never pleased Himself or sought His own glory, One who obeyed because it was sweet to Him to obey, the heart is attracted to Him, and according to the inner man we delight in Him. Do you not love to think of that life of holy obedience of Him who suffered for us in the flesh? That is the only life for a redeemed [p. 82] people, and God would lead us by His grace first to admire it in Christ, then to accept it as the true character of that “newness of life” in which we are to walk, and finally to adopt it in practical subjection and obedience to His will. The bitter waters then become sweet.
A new kind of humanity has appeared in this world in the Person of Christ; we see Man here absolutely for God’s will, and after the new man we delight in Him, and it becomes our desire to be here only for the will of God. We get a new mind — the mind not to gratify the flesh, but to suffer in it and thus cease from sin. A saint who is naturally a proud or vain man — and which of us is not? — will always be so as to what he is naturally, and in the ways of God he will have to drink bitter water in many a humiliation. But then the saint gets away in mind and spirit from what he is naturally by entertaining the thought of Another Man. Christ comes in and gets a place in his affections, and he becomes minded to follow and promote what is of Christ. He cannot find any true satisfaction in doing his own will, or in fostering what is of the flesh, but he does find profound satisfaction in doing the will of God, and submitting to the discipline which checks the working of his flesh so that the life of Jesus may be manifest in him.
It is a question at Marah of what trying experiences are to our own spirits. Are they simply vexatious, and causes of discontent and murmuring? Or do we regard them in the light of what Christ was here, and accept them as the divine way with us, which — though humbling to us — are allowed to promote what is of Christ, and to set us more simply in the path of God’s will? If we accept them thus the bitter waters [p. 83] become sweet. There is an inward satisfaction for the heart and spirit found on an entirely new line in relation to the will of God.
“There he made for them a statute and an ordinance; and there he tested them”. God’s intention is that Christ should become His “statute and ordinance” for us; we are to walk in His steps and even as He walked; and this tests our hearts as to what we are really after. We are called now to be “children of obedience”; we are “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by sanctification of the Spirit, unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1: 2). It has been said that “obedience is the only exercise — save praise — of life to God” (J. N. D.). We see the praise side of life to God in the song, and the exercises of Marah are with a view to our learning the obedience side.
On that line we escape all the diseases of Egypt. Jehovah is the Healer of an obedient people. The diseases of Egypt are the consequences of man doing his own will, but if we have come under the teaching of grace, and its blessed influence, we learn to live “soberly, and justly, and piously in the present course of things” (Titus 2: 12).
Then an obedient and healed people can enjoy Elim. Twelve and seventy are numbers connected with ministry, for the Lord sent out first the twelve and then another seventy also. It speaks of the Lord’s administration of spiritual blessing to His people — the refreshment and shelter which, under normal conditions, are enjoyed in the kingdom of God.