04.08.08 Deliverance Song
This morning Gabriella and I are picking up where we left on in the Moses story. Last week God turned water to blood, made it rain frogs and killed the oldest boys in Egypt. This week He drowned an entire army. Pretty dark stuff for a seven year old. Lots more questions came out.
Trying to make the morning a little more interesting for her, I told her a nerdy music fact - since she loves music: The oldest song we have written down is the song that Moses sang after the Israelites made it across the Red Sea.
It wasn’t interesting to her. But it is to me. (Dork)
How’s this song different from those we sing today? Are those differences theological, merely contextual, important, not so important? What do those differences say about us, about how we see God, about how we view the role of music in our faith? Just wondering.
Here’s the song of Moses from Exodus 15:
1 Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the LORD :
“I will sing to the LORD,
for he is highly exalted.
The horse and its rider
he has hurled into the sea.
2 The LORD is my strength and my song;
he has become my salvation.
He is my God, and I will praise him,
my father’s God, and I will exalt him.
3 The LORD is a warrior;
the LORD is his name.
4 Pharaoh’s chariots and his army
he has hurled into the sea.
The best of Pharaoh’s officers
are drowned in the Red Sea.
5 The deep waters have covered them;
they sank to the depths like a stone.
6 “Your right hand, O LORD,
was majestic in power.
Your right hand, O LORD,
shattered the enemy.
7 In the greatness of your majesty
you threw down those who opposed you.
You unleashed your burning anger;
it consumed them like stubble.
8 By the blast of your nostrils
the waters piled up.
The surging waters stood firm like a wall;
the deep waters congealed in the heart of the sea.
9 “The enemy boasted,
‘I will pursue, I will overtake them.
I will divide the spoils;
I will gorge myself on them.
I will draw my sword
and my hand will destroy them.’
10 But you blew with your breath,
and the sea covered them.
They sank like lead
in the mighty waters.
11 “Who among the gods is like you, O LORD ?
Who is like you—
majestic in holiness,
awesome in glory,
working wonders?
12 You stretched out your right hand
and the earth swallowed them.
13 “In your unfailing love you will lead
the people you have redeemed.
In your strength you will guide them
to your holy dwelling.
14 The nations will hear and tremble;
anguish will grip the people of Philistia.
15 The chiefs of Edom will be terrified,
the leaders of Moab will be seized with trembling,
the people of Canaan will melt away;
16 terror and dread will fall upon them.
By the power of your arm
they will be as still as a stone—
until your people pass by, O LORD,
until the people you bought pass by.
17 You will bring them in and plant them
on the mountain of your inheritance—
the place, O LORD, you made for your dwelling,
the sanctuary, O Lord, your hands established.
18 The LORD will reign
for ever and ever.”
Cynthia said:
I’m not a theologian, but this song seems to have nothing to do with man (us) and everything to do with exalting God and who He is. In my opinion, there are not too many songs today that are purely about adoring God for who He is. They were totally dependent on Him for everything. Thus, their pure song of praise.
It doesn’t seem like in our culture today that we are totally dependent on God. At least not all the time. We may say we are, but honestly don’t you think a lot of times that we have so much available to us we don’t really depend on God for everything. Then we miss the heartfelt undefiled praise to Him.
……..just my opinion.
Shaun Groves said:
You ARE a theologian. You just created a theology:
1.God is to be praised. (And you have a definition in mind for “praise” so you also have a theology of praise.)
2.Dependence is good, even necessary.
3.Availability of stuff is somehow connected to our level of dependence.
That’s a theology: of praise and possessions for starters.
Don’t sell yourself short.
Thanks for daring to answer, cct.
said:
I like how the Old Testament “greats” (Moses, Abraham, Issac, etc.) “got” how the only one worthy to be praised was God. He was our only salvation, our reason for existence; GOD. The disciples had Jesus Himself with them in their presence and it took them a lot longer to “get it.” God has revealed Himself to man from the very beginning. How come it’s so hard for us to get that today?
Beth
Thomas said:
Maybe we see ourselves as gods. In our eyes we create life and end life. We saves live we abort lives. We control our environment and nothing is supposedly out of our reach. We are taught early on by society that if we succeeded that it is because of our own effort and if we fail it is because of everybody else. Society more or less teaches us that we are the alpha the omega the beginning and the end.
Then again, I can be wrong.
Thomas
Chris said:
Where is the chorus? and the bridge?
Just kidding (I couldn’t resist).
I do think there are still “worship” songs today that follow a pattern of minimizing the “us” and maximizing “Him” through praise - in fact I think that many are among my favorites.
And although the Israelites were certainly more materially dependent on God than we are today (I do tend to be more self relient than I should be), keep in mind that pretty soon after they sung this song of praise they were grumbling and making golden calves.
It probably is pretty common throughout human history for people to swing back and forth between heartfelt worship/dependence on God and grumbling/self centeredness/make an idol.
Just my $0.02 - some good things to think about.....
Shaun Groves said:
Yep. Chris. Howard Hendricks (teacher at a seminary down in Dallas I heard speak once) used to say something like “Anyone you think is balanced is probably just passing through the middle at the moment on their way to the other extreme.”
Dreamer said:
Odd, I went to some workshop where this guy talked about how contemporary Christian songs praised God too much. It didn’t make sense to me. With God, is there really a “too much”? I don’t think so. It wasn’t “too much” for Him to save the Hebrews! To sacrifice His only Son for us. The least we can do is sing a song to praise him, right?
(Sorry, I just get really upset whenever I think about anyone saying it’s possible to praise God “too much")
MamasBoy said:
The song is about God saving a community from slavery by killing their oppressors. It was written to commemorate and celebrate their deliverance. Today, songs are often very individualistic and symbolic, rarely having as their topic the historical experience of God’s people. That’s not bad (David did it a lot). It’s just very different from this song.
Also, the song seems to glorify violence. That’s something people today are very uncomfortable with in songs about God. Our culture sees God as all merciful and incapable of killing someone or damning them to an eternal hell. We sanitize our songs like we sanitize our lives (e.g., most Americans eat lots of meat, but many of them can’t imagine killing an animal themselves). To read the psalms regularly is to regularly read about violence and prayers for violence to beset one’s enemies. I don’t know many people who think about that and try to reconcile it with Christian thought. It’s very difficult for American Christians to relate to such desires today, having never been slaves and living very comfortable lives devoid of the sacrifice and hardship so commonplace for the ancients.
That’s my knee-jerk reaction.
MB