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Exodus 15:3
“The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is his name.”
Worship was the response of Israel once the Lord saved them from the Egyptian army at the Red Sea, as we see in the Song of Moses (Ex. 15:1–18). This song is full of references to what God did to Egypt in defeating Pharaoh and his forces, pointing to the need of the people to remember exactly what the Lord had done. Indeed, remembering our Creator and His acts of salvation is vital, for in the history of God’s people, trouble always comes when professing believers forget our Maker’s works of redemption (see Deut. 32:15–18; 1 Sam. 12:9). Singing songs of praise that recount what the Lord has done helps us not to forget Him and encourages us to press forward in faith. The Song of Moses, then, was one means for the Israelites to remember God and to keep from going back to Egypt—to slavery—when life became difficult. Today, we can sing praises to the Lord filled with reminders of what God has done for us in Christ Jesus so that we can avoid falling back into slavery to sin when we face hard times on our way to glory. Augustine of Hippo exhorts us, “Let us not turn back to Egypt in our hearts, but with him as our protector and guide let us wend our way through the other trials and temptation of the desert toward the kingdom.”
The Song of Moses continues in today’s passage with a celebration of the Lord as “a man of war” (Ex. 15:3). Here we find a recognition that God certainly kept His earlier promise to fight for Israel if they trusted in Him at the Red Sea (14:14). Furthermore, this is not the only place in Scripture where we read of God as a “man of war.” The motif of the Lord as a Divine Warrior is very important in Scripture. Psalm 18, for example, speaks of God’s going to war as David was rescued from his enemies. In Isaiah 25–27, we read of God’s punishing “Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent” with the sword in the day of Israel’s full restoration.
According to the ancient Near Eastern worldview, when earthly nations went to battle, the gods worshiped by those nations battled each other as well. They were not entirely wrong. Occasionally, Scripture gives us a glimpse of the war between angels and demons that goes on behind the scenes when God’s people are involved in conflict against their foes, including the world, the flesh, and the devil (Dan. 10:10–14; Eph. 6:12). What good news, then, to know that God, the perfect Divine Warrior, fights for us just as He did for Israel at the Red Sea and is victorious over the enemy (Col. 2:13–15).
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Spiritual warfare is real, but we can make it more complicated than it actually is by speculating excessively about it. The simple truth is that God fights for us, and if we trust in Him, living lives of repentance and obedience, we will see Him tear down opposition to the gospel. Trusting the Divine Warrior, we use the weapons of prayer and proclamation of the Word to win our battles against the world, the flesh, and the devil.
For Further Study
- Joshua 5:13–15
- 2 Kings 19
- Mark 1:35–39
- Ephesians 6:10–20