15 The Song of Moses

15:1 Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying,

“I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider[1] he has thrown into the sea. ²The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him. ³The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is his name.

⁴“Pharaoh’s chariots and his host he cast into the sea, and his chosen officers were sunk in the Red Sea. ⁵The floods covered them; they went down into the depths like a stone. ⁶Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power, your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy. ⁷In the greatness of your majesty you overthrow your adversaries; you send out your fury; it consumes them like stubble. ⁸At the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up; the floods stood up in a heap; the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea. ⁹The enemy said, ‘I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil, my desire shall have its fill of them. I will draw my sword; my hand shall destroy them.’ ¹⁰You blew with your wind; the sea covered them; they sank like lead in the mighty waters.

¹¹“Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders? ¹²You stretched out your right hand; the earth swallowed them.

¹³“You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed; you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode. ¹⁴The peoples have heard; they tremble; pangs have seized the inhabitants of Philistia. ¹⁵Now are the chiefs of Edom dismayed; trembling seizes the leaders of Moab; all the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away. ¹⁶Terror and dread fall upon them; because of the greatness of your arm, they are still as a stone, till your people, O Lord, pass by, till the people pass by whom you have purchased. ¹⁷You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain, the place, O Lord, which you have made for your abode, the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established. ¹⁸The Lord will reign forever and ever.” ¹⁹For when the horses of Pharaoh with his chariots and his horsemen went into the sea, the Lord brought back the waters of the sea upon them, but the people of Israel walked on dry ground in the midst of the sea. ²⁰Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing. ²¹And Miriam sang to them:

“Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.”

Bitter Water Made Sweet

²²Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea, and they went into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days in the wilderness and found no water. ²³When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter; therefore it was named Marah.[2] ²⁴And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” ²⁵And he cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a log,[3] and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet.

There the Lord[4]made for them a statute and a rule, and there he tested them, ²⁶saying, “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, your healer.”

²⁷Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they encamped there by the water.

[1] Or its chariot; also verse 21 [2]Marah means bitterness [3] Or tree [4] Hebrew he

16 Bread from Heaven

16:1 They set out from Elim, and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. ²And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, ³and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

⁴Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not. ⁵On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily.” ⁶So Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, “At evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, ⁷and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against the Lord. For what are we, that you grumble against us?” ⁸And Moses said, “When the Lord gives you in the evening meat to eat and in the morning bread to the full, because the Lord has heard your grumbling that you grumble against him—what are we? Your grumbling is not against us but against the Lord.”

⁹Then Moses said to Aaron, “Say to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, ‘Come near before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling.’” ¹⁰And as soon as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. ¹¹And the Lord said to Moses, ¹²“I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel. Say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’”

¹³In the evening quail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning dew lay around the camp. ¹⁴And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. ¹⁵When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?”[5] For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat. ¹⁶This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Gather of it, each one of you, as much as he can eat. You shall each take an omer,[6] according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent.’” ¹⁷And the people of Israel did so. They gathered, some more, some less. ¹⁸But when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much as he could eat. ¹⁹And Moses said to them, “Let no one leave any of it over till the morning.” ²⁰But they did not listen to Moses. Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them. ²¹Morning by morning they gathered it, each as much as he could eat; but when the sun grew hot, it melted.

²²On the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers each. And when all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, ²³he said to them, “This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord; bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay aside to be kept till the morning.’” ²⁴So they laid it aside till the morning, as Moses commanded them, and it did not stink, and there were no worms in it. ²⁵Moses said, “Eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord; today you will not find it in the field. ²⁶Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is a Sabbath, there will be none.”

²⁷On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, but they found none. ²⁸And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? ²⁹See! The Lord has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Remain each of you in his place; let no one go out of his place on the seventh day.” ³⁰So the people rested on the seventh day.

³¹Now the house of Israel called its name manna. It was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. ³²Moses said, “This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Let an omer of it be kept throughout your generations, so that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.’” ³³And Moses said to Aaron, “Take a jar, and put an omer of manna in it, and place it before the Lord to be kept throughout your generations.” ³⁴As the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron placed it before the testimony to be kept. ³⁵The people of Israel ate the manna forty years, till they came to a habitable land. They ate the manna till they came to the border of the land of Canaan. ³⁶(An omer is the tenth part of an ephah.)[7]

[5] Or “It is manna.” Hebrew man hu [6] An omer was about 2 quarts or 2 liters [7] An ephah was about 3/5 bushel or 22 liters