וראו בניו גבורתו שבחו והודו לשמו

A Study of *Shirat Hayam**

By Gedalyah Berger

Shirat hayam probably has the honor of being the most oft-skipped part of our daily tefillah. Unfortunately, therefore, despite admiring it in some abstract fashion as a masterpiece of Jewish artistic achievement, and its composition as an event of major importance in Jewish history, many never quite grasp its structure or meaning, much less its significance in the context of the ge'ulah of Sefer Shemot. Let us, then, examine the shirah, with an eye towards understanding, in broad strokes, its content, its poetry, and the reasons for its prominence.

For textual as well as thematic reasons, it is clear that the song consists of four main stanzas: 1) Pesukim 1-3; 2) Pesukim 4-6; 3) Pesukim 7-11; 4) Pesukim 12-16. Note the similarity in form among the final lines of each of these groups:

יי איש מלחמה יי שמו. (3)

ימינך יי נאדרי בכח \ ימינך יי תרעץ אויב. (6)

מי כמכה באלים יי \ מי כמכה נאדר בקדש. (11)

עד יעבר עמך יי \ עד יעבר עם זו קנית. (16)

Each consists of a pair of twinned clauses. As we shall see, these lines not only provide a textual basis for the structure of the shirah, but also prominently exhibit the themes of their respective stanzas.

Section #1 - The Preamble

אשירה ליי כי גאה גאה \ סוס ורכבו רמה בים.

עזי וזמרת י-ה ויהי לי לישועה \ זה א-לי ואנוהו \ א-להי אבי וארממנהו.

יי איש מלחמה יי שמו.

I will sing to Hashem, for he has triumphed gloriously;

Horse and driver He has hurled in to the sea.

Hashem is my strength and might; He is become my deliverance.

This is my God and I will enshrine Him;

The God of my father, and I will exalt Him.

Hashem, the Warrior - Hashem is His name. (1-3)

These opening pesukim comprise an introduction, explaining, in general terms, the motivation and purpose of the Jews' song to God. Before they begin their shirah lashem, they explain why they are singing - "ki ga'oh ga'ah, sus verokhevo ramah vayam. 'Ozi vezimrat ya-h vayhi li lishu'ah." That is, because God destroyed the Egyptians, thus providing salvation for the Jews. What is their goal? "Zeh E-li ve'anvehu, Elokei avi va'aromemenhu." They aim to promulgate the glory of Hashem, the true God.

Pasuk 3 bridges between this preamble and the body of the shirah. On the one hand, it summarizes the two points made until now - the victory by God which motivates the song ("Hashem ish milchamah"), and the aim of publicizing shem shamayim ("Hashem shemo"). On the other hand, the Jews do not here speak about why they are going to sing and for what purpose, but begin to actually perform what they set out to accomplish.

Sections #2 and #3 - Keri'at Yam Suf Revisited

The next two stanzas, which begin the main body of the shirah, both consist principally of a recounting of the events of keri'at Yam Suf.

First: (4-5)

מרכבת פרעה וחילו ירה בים \ ומבחר שלשיו טבעו בים סוף.

תהמת יכסימו ירדו במצולת כמו אבן.

Pharaoh's chariots and his army He has cast into the sea,

And the pick of his officers are drowned in the Sea of Reeds.

The deeps covered them; they went down into the depths like a stone.

These lines represent the Jews' most elementary reaction; they focus on the defeat of the hated enemy. That Egypt's army lies dead at the bottom of the sea is a source of great relief. Indeed, while the context is of course a song of praise to Hashem, He is not mentioned here explicitly;[1] in fact, only one verb in these lines represents even an action of God (yarah) - all of the other verbs are either passive or refer to actions of others (tubbe'u, tehomot yekhasyumu, yaredu). The gut response of the people is celebration of the military victory, with the knowledge and appreciation that God served as their warrior.

The following stanza tells the same story, but from a strikingly different perspective:

וברב גאונך תהרס קמיך \ תשלח חרונך יאכלמו כקש.

וברוח אפיך נערמו מים \ נצבו כמו נד נזלים \ קפאו תהמת בלב ים.

אמר אויב ארדף אשיג \ אחלק שלל תמלאמו נפשי \ אריק חרבי תורשמו ידי.

נשפת ברוחך כסמו ים \ צללו כעופרת במים אדירים.

In Your great triumph You break Your opponents

You send forth Your fury, it consumes them like straw.

At the blast of Your nostrils the waters piled up,

The floods stood straight like a wall;

The deeps froze in the heart of the sea.

The foe said, "I will pursue, I will overtake,

I will divide the spoil; My desire shall have its fill of them.

I will bare my sword - My hand shall subdue them."

You made Your wind blow, the sea covered them;

They sank like lead in the majestic waters. (7-10)

Here the Divine qualities of keri'at Yam Suf come to the fore. Whereas the previous section was introduced by "Hashem ish milchamah," comparing God to a human warrior, this section begins with "Uvrov ge'onekha taharos kamekha / teshalach charonekha yokhelemo kakkash." This Warrior throws neither stones nor arrows; He hurls His fury alone to annihilate His enemy. Moreover, the Jews now sing of the miracles which God performed: "Uvruach appekha ne'ermu mayim / nitzevu khemo ned nozelim / kafe'u tehomot belev yam." The sudden, spectacular splitting of the sea, the wondrous walls of water - these are the work not of an ish milchamah, but of the supernatural Divine. The shift in perspective is particularly emphasized in pasuk 10, which is a virtual repetition of pasuk 5 except

for two important, telling words:

Not "The deeps covered them," but "You made Your wind blow, the sea covered them." God's involvement takes center stage.

The middle verse of this third stanza, which is also the midpoint of the entire shirah, clearly stands out. After God has split the sea, the Egyptians sound a battle cry:

אמר אויב ארדף אשיג \ אחלק שלל תמלאמו נפשי \ אריק חרבי תורישמו ידי.)9)

These clichיd cheers of certain victory parody the overconfidence of the Egyptians. Their sorry aplomb and self-centeredness is illustrated by the repetition and alliteration of the א's, the letter which introduces a first-person verb. "I will...I will...I will...My desire...I will...My hand." They think "timla'emo nafshi" and "torishemo yadi," but in reality "yokhelemo kakkash" (7) and "tivla'emo aretz" (12). The Egyptians are indeed a mighty army, yet they are truly no match for the Almighty. An effortless Divine puff quickly makes us (and them) forget their swords and their spoils.

The pesukim which we have so far discussed consist of only indirect praise of God. Benei Yisra'el simply recount the events of keri'at Yam Suf in a style and tone which ring with gratitude and tribute. But we have yet to address the stanzas' concluding pesukim, those which defined our structure from the very beginning. These lines close each stanza with a pure accolade, one which addresses God and His uniqueness directly:

מי כמכה באלים יי \ מי כמכה נאדר בקדש \ נורא תהלת עשה פלא. (11)

Note that the shem Havayah, previously absent, appears prominently in these encomia.

These verses serve another function as well - they close the stanzas by explicitly emphasizing their respective themes. Pasuk 6 celebrates God's military might; He is powerful and He "shatters the foe." God's anthropomorphic "right hand" recalls once again the analogy of an ish milchamah. Pasuk 11 has a different focus: "Ne'dar bakodesh," the Divine, as opposed to "ne'dari vakoach," is the key element here. Benei Yisra'el contrast God not with the Egyptian enemy - "yeminekha Hashem tir'atz oyev" - but with other gods - "mi khamokhah ba'elim Hashem"; His activity is not tir'atz oyev, but 'oseh fele. The common word ne'dar reminds us once again that both sections describe the same events, albeit from different angles and with different emphases.

With all of the above in mind, we can better appreciate these two stanzas together, as a progression from thanks for military victory to wonder and awe at God's transcendent might:

מרכבת פרעה וחילו ירה בים \ ומבחר שלשיו טבעו בים סוף.

וברב גאונך תהרס קמיך \ תשלח חרונך יאכלמו כקש.

וברוח אפיך נערמו מים \ נצבו כמו נד נזלים \ קפאו תהמת בלב ים.

אמר אויב ארדף אשיג \ אחלק שלל תמלאמו נפשי \ אריק חרבי תורשמו ידי.

נשפת ברוחך כסמו ים \ צללו כעופרת במים אדירים.

מי כמכה באלים יי \ מי כמכה נאדר בקדש \ נורא תהלת עשה פלא.

Section #4 - The Future

Pasuk 12 begins the fourth stanza by once again relating the same event - the death of the Egyptians - but the formulation draws us into a new theme which closes the body of the shirah:

נחית בחסדך עם זו גאלת \ נהלת בעזך אל נוה קדשך.

אז נבהלו אלופי אדום \ אילי מואב יאחזמו רעד \ נמגו כל ישבי כנען.

Until now the sea and water have been central, but now "natita yeminekha tivla'emo aretz." In this stanza, the Jews look back on yetzi'at Mitzrayim and keri'at Yam Suf and see in them the beginning of the fulfillment of God's promise that they will conquer and inhabit the eretz zavat chalav udvash. "In Your love You lead the people You redeemed; In Your strength You guide them to Your holy abode." "Even" is for the second time used here as a simile, but this time it refers not to the Egyptians' sinking ("yaredu vimtzolot kemo aven" (5)) but to the other nations' stony silence ("yiddemu ka'aven" (16)). The suffering Egyptians of yesterday are no longer the focus; tomorrow's terrified nations of Kena'an now take center stage. One by one they hear the news of God's miracles at the sea, one by one they begin to tremble in anticipation of the arrival of His chosen children. Once again, the final, twinned-stich pasuk invokes the shem Havayah and finally states the stanza's theme explicitly - "'Ad ya'vaor 'ammekha Hashem / 'Ad ya'avor 'am zu kanita." Standing in the desert between Egypt and Canaan, they look not back at their recent crossing of the Red Sea, but forward toward their promised crossing of the Jordan River.

Section #5 - Postscript

תבאמו ותטעמו בהר נחלתך \ מכון לשבתך פעלת יי \ מקדש יי כוננו ידיך.

That Benei Yisra'el will eventually be rooted in Eretz Kena'an is now to them a foregone conclusion. The striking use of past tense here reveals their perspective as they sing these lines; God has already prepared His place for the arrival of His people and His Shekhinah.

The confidence evident in these pesukim contrasts starkly with that of the Egyptians in the third stanza. Whereas the Egyptians were self-assured, the Jews here garner their confidence from faith in God. They trust not that their swords will be victorious, but that Hashem will keep the promise he made to their nation. They look forward not to dividing spoils, but to residing in the shadows of the Mikdash Hashem.

Finally, the Jews end their song by joyously exclaiming the eternity of Hashem's rule. This simple coronation - "Hashem yimlokh le'olam va'ed" - fulfills at long last the promise of "Velakachti etkhem li le'am, vehayiti lakhem lelokim,"[2] a promise which dates back to the berit milah with Avraham.[3],[4]

Shirat Hayam - A Watershed Phase of the Ge'ulah

Benei Yisra'el make progress on two fronts in their process of redemption when they sing shirat hayam. The first relates to their perspective on the events of the preceding few months. Until now they seem to have been so caught up in the frantic excitement of the makkot and their flight from Egypt that they have never taken a sober step back to see the larger picture. They have lived day by day, appreciating God's assistance at each moment of crisis but never really taking notice of to where the events were leading.[5] Shirat hayam begins with the Jews in a similar state of mind; their initial reaction, as we saw in the second stanza, is simply gratitude for this latest in a long series of Egyptian losses.

But there is something very special about this particular victory: it is the final one. With the closing of the sea, God has put Egyptian bondage behind Benei Yisra'el forever. And as they sing their thanks, this fact begins to sink in. For the first time, they are able to sit back, take a deep, relaxed breath, and begin to absorb the magnitude of the sequence of events that has been developing, to see yetzi'at Mitzrayim in its proper context. By the time they reach the fourth stanza of their song, it has occurred to them that all those speeches they had heard about returning to their long-ago homeland, the eretz zavat chalav udvash of Avraham, Yitzchak and Ya'akov, are now reality a few weeks away.[6] The transition from "Markevot Par'oh vecheilo yarah vayam" (4) to "'Ad ya'avor 'ammekha Hashem, 'ad ya'avor 'am zu kanita" (16) that occurs during shirat hayam is a significant cognitive and emotional leap for Benei Yisra'el.

Finally, let us return to the first half of the very first pasuk, which introduces our shirah and which we have yet to examine:

This pasuk presents a striking first in Sefer Shemot - the conjunction "Moshe and Benei Yisra'el." Until this point, Moshe has been sounding all of the rallying cries, and the Jews, unless they had something to complain about, have kept rather quiet.[7] Indeed, the Torah tell us that the Egyptians admired Moshe greatly - "Ha'ish Mosheh gadol me'od be'eretz Mitzrayim be'einei 'avdei Far'oh uv'einei ha'am"[8] - but tells us nothing similar regarding the Jews. Until now. Immediately preceding shirat hayam, we are informed, "Vayire'u ha'am et Hashem, vaya'aminu bashem uvmosheh 'avdo."[9] At last, Moshe and the nation he leads are able to join together in praise of Hashem, Mosheh uvnei Yisra'el. The singular verb yashir, as well as the singular forms throughout the shirah, emphasize this meeting of minds.

Unfortunately, this coalescence of Moshe and Benei Yisra'el does not last. Only three pesukim after they finish singing, the Jews begin complaining again;[10] their relationship with Moshe is never again the same. To a great extent, then, certainly for the generation of the yotze'ei Mitzrayim, those few minutes during which the Jews sang shirat hayam on the shores of Yam Suf constituted the pinnacle of harmonious accord among Moshe, Benei Yisra'el, and Hashem.

* Many thanks to Rabbi Dr. Mordechai Cohen of Yeshiva University for the original motivation to write on this topic, as well as for his overall contribution to my appreciation and understanding of Tanakh.

All references are to Shemot 15 unless otherwise noted. Translations are from Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures, Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1985 (except that we have used "Hashem" instead of "the Lord").

[1] He is mentioned in the closing couplet, to which we will return shortly.

[2] Shemot 6:7.

[3] See Bereshit 17:7.

[4] It is likely that in our nusach hatefillah we repeat the pasuk "Hashem yimlokh le'olam va'ed" in order to make this final section parallel to all of the others, which in the original text end with twinned clauses.

[5] Note their reaction when Moshe presented them with God's grand plan for the redemption, the famous chamesh leshonot shel ge'ulah - "Vehotzeti etkhem...vehitzalti etkhem...vega'alti etkhem...velakachti etchem...veheveti etkhem" (Shemot 6:6-8): "Velo shame`u el Mosheh mikotzer ruach ume`avodah kashah" (ibid. 9).

[6] If not for the chet hameraggelim and the subsequent punishment, the trip to Eretz Yisra'el would have taken only a couple of months.

[7] See Shemot 5:20-21 and 14:11-12, and supra note 5.

[8] Shemot 11:3.

[9] ibid. 14:31.

[10] ibid. 15:24.