Bible chapter guide

Exodus 15

Moses and Israel sing to the LORD who has thrown horse and rider into the sea, and Miriam leads the women with tambourines. Three days into the wilderness the water at Marah is bitter until a tree makes it sweet; then they camp at Elim with its twelve springs and seventy palms.

Summary written for the Labs; read the chapter itself for the full text.

What happens in this chapter

On the far shore Moses and Israel sing to the LORD who has thrown horse and rider into the sea. The song retells the night as the blast of God's nostrils piling up the waters, then looks ahead to the nations trembling and to the mountain and sanctuary where God will plant his people. Miriam the prophetess, Aaron's sister, takes a timbrel and leads the women in dancing, with the song's first line as her refrain. Moses then leads them into the wilderness of Shur, where after three days without water they reach Marah and find it bitter, until the LORD shows Moses a tree that makes it sweet and calls himself the LORD who heals them; then they camp at Elim, by twelve springs and seventy palm trees.

What the lab shows, and where to look

Two stops in the Exodus lab cover this chapter. The song of Moses and Miriam is set on the far shore in the morning: the timbrel is drawn as the tof, a hand-held frame drum known from clay figurines, while dress and dance are artistic. Marah and Elim follows, first the bitter spring and then Elim, where the lab counts out twelve springs and seventy palms as the text gives them. Where either place was is not known; the map moves them with the route theory you choose, and the traditional sites on the west of Sinai are marked speculative. Miriam herself has a card in the Biblical Family Tree.

Questions people ask

Was it the Red Sea or the Sea of Reeds?

The Hebrew is Yam Suph, and suph means reeds or papyrus, the same word used for the reeds where the baby Moses was hidden. The Greek Septuagint translated it 'the Red Sea', and KJV, the Chinese Union Version and most English and Chinese Bibles follow it. But Yam Suph also names the Gulf of Aqaba (1 Kings 9:26) and apparently the Gulf of Suez (Numbers 33:10), so the name alone does not tell us where the crossing was.

Strongly supported

Is the Song of the Sea one of the oldest parts of the Bible?

Many scholars think so. Its Hebrew has old grammatical forms and a style close to other early poems such as the Song of Deborah in Judges 5. That points to great age but cannot date it precisely, and the lab marks the claim as plausible.

Plausible

Where were Marah and Elim?

The text places Marah three days into the wilderness of Shur and gives Elim twelve springs and seventy palms, but nothing that can be mapped with certainty. Tradition points to the brackish spring of Ain Hawarah and the palm-filled Wadi Gharandel on the west side of Sinai; on the Aqaba route they would lie in Arabia instead. All of these are guesses.

Speculative

See it in the Labs

Follow the Exodus route in 3D, from the Red Sea to Sinai

People in this chapter

Miriam

Places

Theory: the Bitter Lakes or the Gulf of Suez Marah Elim

Also in this chapter

Yam Suph: 'the sea of reeds'The song of Moses and Miriam

How sure can we be?

Textually stated
A strong east wind blew all night, the waters were divided, and Israel went through on dry ground with the water a wall on their right and on their left.
Exodus 14:21–22, echoed in Exodus 15:8 ('the floods stood upright as an heap').
Textually stated
Miriam led the women with timbrels and dancing, singing 'Sing ye to the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously'.
Exodus 15:20–21.
Textually stated
Moses threw a tree (or piece of wood) the LORD showed him into the water, and it became sweet.
Exodus 15:25.
Textually stated
Elim had twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees.
Exodus 15:27 and Numbers 33:9.
Strongly supported
Egyptian chariots of the New Kingdom were light, two-wheeled, drawn by a pair of horses and carried a driver and a fighter.
Known from surviving chariots (Tutankhamun's) and temple reliefs. Exodus 14:7 and 15:4 speak of chosen chariots and captains.
Strongly supported
"Red Sea" / 「紅海」 or "Sea of Reeds"?: KJV and the 和合本 both follow the Greek with "Red sea" / 「紅海」, as most English and Chinese Bibles do; some modern translations put "Sea of Reeds". The same Hebrew name is used for the Gulf of Aqaba (1 Kings 9:26) and apparently the Gulf of Suez (Numbers 33:10), so the name alone does not locate the crossing.

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King James Version (KJV) Chinese Union Version, 1919 (Wikisource)