V. The Wilderness Wanderings (15:22-18:27) A. God's Provision for Israel in the Desert (15:22-27) After the destruction of the pharaoh's army in the sea, the Israelites continued their journey eastward into the Desert of Shur. Shur was a large semi-desert region east of the Egyptian border frontier. After three days without finding water, they arrived at Marah. There the Lord began to provide for the people, and the people learned to depend on his provision. There is an important narrative lesson in the incident of the bitter waters. When the people were helpless and thirsty, Moses called out to the Lord for help. The Lord answered Moses by giving him an “instruction” on how to make the water sweet. When they followed the “instruction,” the water became sweet and their thirst was satisfied (v.25). In the Hebrew text, the word “instruction” means divine instruction. There is then a lesson about God's instructions to Israel in this incident: God's people mus...

They say that when Leonardo DaVinci painted his famous Last Supper he had little difficulty with any of it except the faces. Then he painted the faces in without too much trouble except one. He did not feel himself worthy to paint the face of Jesus. He held off and kept holding off, unwilling to approach it but knowing he must. Then in the impulsive carelessness of despair, he just painted it quickly and let it go. “There is no use,” he said. “I can’t paint Him.” I feel very much the same way about explaining the holiness of God. I think that same sense of despair is on my heart. There isn’t any use for anybody to try to explain holiness . The greatest speakers on this subject can play their oratorical harps, but it sounds tinny and unreal, and when they are through you’ve listened to music but you haven’t seen God. Tozer, A. W., & Fessenden, D. E. (2003–). The attributes of God: A jouney into the Father’s heart (Vol. 1, pp. 157–158). Camp Hill, PA: WingSpread.

There Is One God.   Scripture is abundantly clear that there is one and only one God. The three different persons of the Trinity are one not only in purpose and in agreement on what they think, but they are one in essence, one in their essential nature. In other words, God is only one being. There are not three Gods. There is only one God. One of the most familiar passages of the Old Testament is Deuteronomy 6:4–5 (NIV): “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” When Moses sings,     “Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods?       Who is like you, majestic in holiness,       terrible in glorious deeds, doing wonders?” (Ex. 15:11) the answer obviously is “No one.” God is unique, and there is no one like him and there can be no one like him. In fact, Solomon prays “that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is Go...

The Bible is a factual survey of his work in this world—past, present, and future, with explanatory comments from prophets, psalmists, wise men, and apostles. Its main theme is not human salvation, but the work of God vindicating his purposes and glorifying himself in a sinful and disordered cosmos. He does this by establishing his kingdom and exalting his Son, by creating a people to worship and serve him, and ultimately by dismantling and reassembling this order of things, thereby rooting sin out of his world. It is into this larger perspective that the Bible fits God’s work of saving men and women. It depicts God as more than a distant cosmic architect, or a ubiquitous heavenly uncle, or an impersonal life-force. God is more than any of the petty substitute deities that inhabit our twentieth-century minds.  He is the living God, present and active everywhere, “glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders” (Exod. 15:11 KJV). He gives himself a name—Yahweh (Jehovah...

Also, both Moses’s prophecy in Exod. 15:17–18 and God’s promise in 2 Sam. 7:10–16 (an allusive development itself of the Exod. 15 passage) affirm that the kingdom and the temple will be established “forever,” which did not happen with Solomon. ...Beale, G. K. (2011). A New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New (p. 73). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. ----------- Exodus 15:17–18 also equates “the mountain of Your inheritance” with “the place, O LORD, which You have made for Your dwelling, the sanctuary,” from where “the LORD shall reign forever and ever.” Additionally, it is clear that the eschatological temple was to be situated on a mountain (Ezek. 40:2; Rev. 21:10). Third, both Isa. 2:2–3 and Mic. 4:1–2 portray the mountain on which the temple sits as growing: it “will be raised above the hills.” Although this is not as explicit as Daniel’s rock that becomes a mountain and fills the earth, it is not far from that picture. Both portray a g...

John Sailhamer masterfully points out the trend of the Pentateuch to foreshadow the works of king David. This of course help us discern how it points to Christ and his fulfillment of God's total redeeming work. --------------------------- The poetic imagery that dominates the song is that of the Lord as a mighty warrior, e.g., “The LORD is a warrior; the LORD is his name” (v.3). The weapon of this warrior is not only his great strength, but also the mighty waters of the sea, with which he shattered the enemy. There are images here reminiscent of the struggle portrayed in Ge 3:15. As is the case throughout the poetry of the Bible, God's power is depicted most graphically with reference to his control over his creation. Thus the view of God in Ge I can be seen clearly in this poem. In the poem, God is depicted as one of the judges of Israel, like Samson (Jdg 13ff.) delivering the nation from the oppression of the Philistines (15:14). or like Ehud (Jdg 3:12ff.) sending trem...