is mentioned first among the foes
who shall be terrified (ver. 14, R.V.), because Moses still expected the
invasion to break first on them. But the unbelieving fears of Israel
changed the route, so that no later poet would have set them in the
forefront of his song. Thus also the terror of the Edomites is
anticipated, although in fact they sturdily refused a passage to Israel
through their land (Num. xx. 20). All this authenticates the song, which
thereupon establishes the miraculous deliverance that inspired it.

The song is divided into two parts. Up to the end of the twelfth verse
it is historical: the remainder expresses the high hopes inspired by
this great experience. Nothing now seems impossible: the fiercest tribes
of Palestine and the desert may be despised, for their own terror will
suffice to "melt" them; and Israel may already reckon itself to be
guided into the holy habitation (ver. 13).

The former part is again subdivided, by a noble and instinctive art,
into two very unequal sections. With amplitude of triumphant adoration,
the first ten verses tell the same story which the eleventh and twelfth
compress into epigrammatical vigour and terseness. To appreciate the
power of the composition, one should read the fourth, fifth, and sixth
verses, and turn immediately to the twelfth.

Each of these three divisions closes in praise, and as in the "Israel in
Egypt," it was probably at these points that the voices of Miriam and
the women broke in, repeating the first verse of the ode as a refrain
(vers. 1 and 21). It is the earliest recognition of the place of women
in public worship. And it leads us to remark that the whole service was
responsive. Moses and the men are answered by Miriam and the women,
bearing timbrels in their hands; for although instrumental music had
been sorely misused in Egypt, that was no reason why it should be
excluded now. Those who condemn the use of instruments in Christian
worship virtually contend that Jesus has, in this respect, narrowed the
liberty of the Church, and that a potent method of expression, known to
man, must not be consecrated to the honour of God. And they make the
present time unlike the past, and also unlike what is revealed of the
future state.

Moreover there was movement, as in very many ancient religious services,
within and without the pale of revelation.[28] Such dances were
generally slow and graceful; yet the motion and the clang of metal, and
the vast m