2 The LORD is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation: he is my God, and I will

c Deut. 10. 21. Ps. 18. 2. & 22. 3. & 59. 17. & 62. 6. & 109. 1. & 118. 14. & 140. 7. Isai. 12, 2. Hab. 3. 18, 19.

dued under him, and hails his own personal liberty as fully recovered. Hath triumphed gloriously.

Heb.

prepare him dan habitation; my e father's God, and I fwill exalt him.

d Gen. 28. 21, 22. 2 Sam. 7. 5. Ps. 132. 5. e ch. 3. 15, 16. f 2 Sam. 22. 47. Ps. 99. 5. & 118. 28. Isai. 25. 1.

Heb. 9ozzi ve-zimrath Yah, my strength and my song is Jah; one of the distinguishing titles of the gaoh gaah, excelling he excel- Most High, a contraction of 'Jehovah," leth, or, he is exceedingly exalted. Gr. occurring here for the first time in the end sws yap dedufadral, for he is glori- Scriptures, and seldom met with except ously glorified. The leading idea of in the poetical books. We find it Ps. the Hebrew term in this connexion is, 68. 4, 'Extol him that rideth upon the that of displaying grandeur, preemi-heavens by his name Jah.' It enters nence, magnificence. It is perhaps primarily applied, in a physical sense, to corporeal objects which grandly raise and rear themselves up, as towering trees and swelling waves (Ezek. 47. 5); and thence, in mental relations, denoting elation, self-exaltation, whether in a good or bad sense. As used here in reference to God there can be no mistake as to its import. Chal. 'He hath exalted himself above the excellent ones, and excellence is his.

The

horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. Heb. ramah, violently cast, precipitated, projected; a bold and emphatic mode of expression, implying far more than if he had merely said that he suffered them to sink into the sea. The expression is strikingly paralleled in Neh. 9. 11, Their persecutors thou threwest into the deeps, as a stone into the mighty waters.' In like manner the use of 'horse' and 'rider' in the singular is more emphatic than that of 'horses' and 'riders' in the plural. It marks strongly the suddenness, the universality, the completeness, of the destruction. The Egyptian cavalry, numerous and formidable, covering the face of the ground, is represented as in a moment, by a single effort, by one blow, overthrown, overwhelmed, as if they had been but one horse and one rider...

also into the composition of the Hebrew phrase 33 halleluyah, i. e. ' Hallelu,' praise ye, 'Jah,' the Lord, which is retained by the Holy Spirit in Rev. 19. 1-4, 'And after these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven saying, Alleluia, &c.' intimating, probably, by the use of a Hebrew word that at the period alluded to in the prophecy, the Jewish nation shall have become united with the Christian church, and shall be heard uttering the praises of God in their own language. By confessing that God was their 'strength,' they virtually abjure from themselves the glory of the recent triumph, ascribing it solely to the almighty power of their great and gracious Deliverer. No instrument is to divide the praise with him. No power, no wisdom, is to be acknowledged but that of God alone.—— My song. That is, the subject of it.

-T My salvation. That is, the author of it.¶ I will prepare him a habitation. Chal. 'I will build him a sanctuary.' This, if the Chaldee interpretation be correct, is a prophetical intimation of the rearing of the sacred edifice of the tabernacle. Some, however maintain that the word comes from a root signifying to adorn, in which case the sense of the expression is, I will pay him becoming honor. Thus Jarchi; 'I will celebrate his beauty and

2. The Lord is my strength and song! his praise to those that shall come into

1

n

6 Thy right hand, O LORD, is be- | thou sentest forth thy wrath, which come glorious in power: thy right P consumed them as stubble. hand, O LORD, hath dashed in pie- 8 And r with the blast of thy nosces the enemy. trils the waters were gathered together, the floods stood upright as

7 And in the greatness of thine • excellency thou hast overthrown them that rose up against thee:

a Ps. 118. 15, 16. Deut. 33.26.

armor, which would effectually prevent their rising or floating; while the guilt of their sins weighed still more heavily upon them.

account in thy sight than the useless stubble which is consumed by the sweeping autumnal fire.

8. With the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered, &c. Heb.

beruah appëka, with the wind, or spirit, of thine anger; the same word in the original signifying both 'nostril' and

flating the nostrils. This has respect to the stormy wind mentioned, ch. 14, 26, 27. Thus Job, 4.9, 'By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils (1DN 1) are they consumed.' So it is said of the 'man of sin,' 2 Thes. 2. 8, that the Lord will

6. Thy right hand, &c. Another form of expression for God's omnipotence. The right hand, being naturally the strongest from being most employed, is used by an apt metaphor for the highest'anger;' from the effect of anger in indegree of power. It is to be remarked moreover, that the verb in the original is in the future-'shall dash in pieces' a remark which applies in fact to most of the verbs throughout the hymn. The phraseology is so constructed as to carry with it the implication that what had happened on this occasion to the ene-'consume him by the spirit of his mouth.' mies of God would happen in like manner in all future time, as far as utter discomfiture and signal perdition was concerned. On the other hand, in v. 14, and elsewhere, the verbs rendered in the future are in Heb. in the past, to indicate the infallible certainty of the event foretold.

7. Overthrow them that rose up against thee. Heb. TP kameka, thy risers up. So near is the relation between God and his people, that he accounts what is done to them as done to himself.

Thou sentest forth thy wrath. Like a dreadful projectile, thou didst direct thy wrath against the foes of Israel, scattering desolation and death. It quitted the guiding pillar of fire, like a flash of lightning or like the blighting blast of the desert, and as either withers the grass or shrinks up the standing corn, so did they fall prostrate before it, and perished under the stroke of divine vengeance. They were of no more

Nothing can be grander than the image here employed. It implies that the gathering together of the mighty waters was an immediate act of the divine pow er; the poet representing the Deity as emitting from his inflated nostrils the wind which produced an effect never before, nor since, witnessed by man.

- The depths were congealed. A strong poetical expression not to be understood literally, but denoting that the waters maintained themselves in an upright position, with as much stability as if they had been converted to a wall of ice. The whole verse presents a beautiful gradation of sense. The waters were not only arrested in their channel and ceased to flow, but were gathered together; and not only were they gathered together, but they were fixed for the time in a condition entirely contrary to their natural tendency, and made to stand upright like a wall of masonry, or as firm. ly as if they had been solidly congealed.

fearful in praises, b doing wonders?

b Ps. 77. 14.

12 Thou stretchedst out e thy right hand, the earth swallowed them.

e ver. 6.

all the false and factitious gods of worthy. Even in those displays of his Egypt. A contrast is presented between perfections, which are matter of joyful the omnipotence of the former and the praise to his people, he is dreadful and impotence of the latter What were the terrible to his enemies; and the conmightiest of men whose breath was in sideration of this fact should chasten their nostrils; what were all the ani- and solemnize the tone of all our laudamal and reptile divinities to which that tory ascriptions. Though, we honor besotted people offered adoration, that him with praises on our tongues, we they should be so much as named in should do it with an humble awe upon comparison with the great and glorious our spirits.¶ Doing wonders. Heb. God of the Hebrews, the Being of be- oseh pelë, doing that which beings, the infinite, the almighty, the is wonderful. Gr. nowy repara, doing ——¶ Glorious in holiness. Heb. signs or prodigies. On the import of Gr. the original term & pele, see Note on Judg. 13. 18, from which it will appear that it denotes that which is preemi

eternal!

.nedar bakkodesh נאדר בקדש

dedošaoμevos ev åyııs, glorified in the holy ones, i. e. among the saints and

angels; or, in the holy things; i. e. innently marvellous or miraculously wonholiness. God is glorious in that holi- derful. How justly the poet ascribes ness and immaculate purity which con- this character to Jehovah, the whole stitute his perfection. It is an attri- scope of the inspired history is a conbute which especially elicits the praises tinued proof. Indeed the entire series of the angelic hosts in heaven, Is. 6. 3, of providential dispensations in the and which shone conspicuous on the world is a tissue of works of wonder. present occasion. His holiness, his ha- But the children of Israel in their prestred of sin, his wrath against obstinate ent circumstances would naturally have transgressors, never appeared more re-their eye more especially upon that sucsplendently glorious than in the des- cession of miraculous judgments which truction of Pharaoh in the Red Sea. had visited and desolated the land of The unsanctified heart may not respond Egypt, and so prepared the way for to this character of the divine holiness, their deliverance. We find a striking but to the soul which has been en- echo to the sentiment of this passage lightened from above and gifted with in the parallel language of Job, ch. 5. 9, a spiritual perception of the things of 'Which doeth great things and unsearchGod, nothing appears so truly, so tran-able; marvellous things (♫♫♫ niphscendently glorious, as this perfection laoth) without number.' of the immaculate Jehovah. It is, in 12. The earth swallowed them. This fact, the crowning glory of the God- is nothing more than a poetical hyperhead, and if it do not so appear to us, bole, varying or rather strengthening we have reason to be concerned at its the prior description of the Egyptians relations to our character and destiny. being overwhelmed in the mighty wa -¶ Fearful in praises. Heb. 7ters. They were so completely subnora tehilloth, terrible, awful, merged and sunk to the bottom of the reverend, as to praises, i. è. in his sea, that they might be said to be swal praiseworthy manifestations of himself.lowed up by its deep abysses. 'Earth,' Thus the Apostle, Philip. 4. 8, 'If there however, is here to be taken in its genbe any praise ;' i. e. any thing praise- eric import as equivalent to 'globe,'