First Semichorus. 1. I will sing unto Jehovah, for he hath triumphed gloriously; ' The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea: This is my God, and for him I will prepare an habitation;⚫ The Elohim of my fathers, and him will I extol. 3. Jehovah is mighty in conflict, Jehovah is his name. First Semichorus. 4. He cast the chariots of Pharaoh and his host into the sea; He drowned his chosen captains in the sea of Suph." 5. The billows covered them." They sank into the deep as a stone. Second Semichorus. 6. Thy right hand, O Jehovah! is glorious in strength; First Semichorus. 8. When by the breath of thy mouth the waters were heaped together, The waves stood like a mass, The billows were congealed in the midst of the sea; 9. The enemy said, "I will pursue, I will overtake, I will seize the prey, I will glut my vengeance, I will draw my sword, my hand shall lay hold upon them :" 10. Thou didst blow with thy breath, the sea covered them, They sank as lead in the mighty waters. Second Semichorus. 11. Who among the gods shall be' like unto thee, O Jehovah, Who'shall be' like unto thee, glorified in thy sanctuary? Terrible the songs of praise proclaim thee,' acting wondrously; 12. Thou stretchest forth thine hand, the earth swalloweth 13. Thou shalt lead in thy tender love this people whom thou hast redeemed, Thou shalt guide them in thy strength towards the habitation of thy sanctuary. 14. The nations shall hear and be afraid, Pangs shall seize upon the inhabitants of Palestine: 15. Then shall the chiefs of Edom be confounded, Second Semichorus. Through the greatness of thine arm, they shall be still as a stone, Until thy people have passed over—O, Jehovah, Until the people whom thou hast purchased have passed over. 17. Thou wilt bring them, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, The place which thou, O Jehovah, hast made for thee to dwell in ; The sanctuary which thy hands, O Lord, have prepared. Full Chorus. 18. Jehovah shall be king, for ever and ever. The testimony of this inspired song to the fact of a second advent, may not appear to my readers to be very strong; and yet, I think, the final chorus can be considered as anticipating nothing else than that reign of Jehovah, which is still the theme of unaccomplished prophecy. This is the first mention we have found of kingly power, as ascribed to God, over the children of men; but, in the subsequent Scriptures, the allusion is very frequent ; always, however, I believe, when men in the flesh are the subjects considered, in reference to the rule and authority of the Redeemer that is to come. He took to himself, indeed, no royal state or authority at his first coming; but, as we shall see hereafter, many oracles ascribe to him this character at his second coming. With these Scriptures, I consider this before us to be parallel: and if I have been successful in my exposition of this sacred ode, the second of the responsive parties were taught to intermingle in their song all along, the anticipation of greater mercies to come, and the destruction of mightier foes than Pharaoh and his armies. Not, indeed, by overwhelming waters, as this first oppressor of the church had been destroyed; but by anger bursting forth in flaming fire, and consuming them as chaff by the earth opening her mouth, and swallowing them up alive and subsequent Scriptures will show, that we have not supposed an untrue event to be the subject of this part of the song. In this view, we shall see a particular force in the reference to this song in the fifteenth chapter of Revela→ tion; where those that obtain the victory over the last enemy, are said to "sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb. Saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou KING OF SAINTS *!" We are to notice also, in this song, the magnificent language in which God's taking possession of the mountains of Zion, for the habitation of his sanctuary, is described: and we may suspect that this does not merely refer to the tabernacle of Moses, or to the temple of Solomon; but relates to: some circumstances of the everlasting reign. SECTION IL. Moses' Song of Remembrance. No Scripture, however, will afford us a better opportunity of taking a transient glance at the summary of Jewish. affairs, and of ascertaining their bearings upon the intro *Ver. 3. duction of the final mercies of redemption, than the song taught by the divine command to the Israelites, which we find recorded in the thirty-second chapter of Deuteronomy. On God's foreknowledge, as we read in the former chapter, that the Israelites would prove an apostate race, and bring upon themselves all the calamities threatened. in the law, that specified the conditions of the covenant by which they were to hold the land of Canaan, in that provisionary grant of it, which they were then to receive in virtue of what we have called the second covenant, made with Abraham; on God's foreknowledge of this, he commanded Moses: "Write ye this song for you, and teach it to the children of Israel; put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the children of Israel. For when I shall have brought them into the land that I sware unto their fathers, that floweth with milk and honey; and they shall have eaten and filled themselves, and waxen fat; then will they turn to other gods, and serve them, and provoke me, and break my covenant. And it shall come to pass, that when many evils and troubles are befallen them, that this song shall testify against them as a witness; for it shall not be forgotten out of the mouth of their seed: for I know their imaginations which they go about, even now, before I have brought them into the land which I sware. Moses, therefore, wrote this song the same day, and taught it to the, children of Israel." The song, which we shall often have occasion to refer to under the title of "Moses' Song of Remembrance," begins with a remarkable proem, that may be justly said to consecrate the beauties of poetry to the service of religion: 1. Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak, And attend, O earth, to the words of my mouth; |