The Lord’s Eternal Reign

Exodus 15:1–18 gives us the Song of Moses, which celebrates the Lord’s rescue of Israel through His parting of the Red Sea, perhaps the greatest display of God’s power during the exodus event. Having rejoiced in what the Lord did, anticipating His yet future settlement of Israel in Canaan, Moses concludes his hymn by stating, “The Lord will reign forever and ever” (v. 18).

To understand why Moses ends the song this way, we must remember the first question Pharaoh asked Moses and Aaron when they implored him to release the Israelites. “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go?” the Egyptian king said to God’s appointed spokesmen (5:2). As we have noted, the plagues and the Red Sea crossing showed God’s desire to answer this question and in so doing to reveal Himself as the Lord to the Egyptians (see 14:4). The miracles that our Creator performed through Moses answered Pharaoh because they demonstrated His superiority over Egypt’s gods, over Egypt’s king, and even over nature itself. Exodus 15:18 just makes explicit what has already been evident—Yahweh, the covenant Lord of Israel, is the one true God who reigns over all things and whose will cannot be thwarted when He acts to bring it to pass. He is the mightiest ruler in all creation, not the king of Egypt or the emperor of any other world power (Pss. 47:2; 115:3; Rev. 15:3).

God displayed His kingship when He saved Israel from Egypt with His mighty hand and established them as His people according to His law. We can even say that by these acts He “became king” (see Deut. 33:5), not in that He was not sovereign before the exodus but in that the exodus revealed Israel’s God as the only true God and King over all, giving people no excuse for rejecting His reign. Before the exodus, God was not fully acknowledged as King in Egypt or even in Israel, but His power has forced every generation since to recognize Him as Lord, leaving without excuse all who will not submit to His hand.

For those who love the Lord, it is good news indeed that He is and has become King. That is because His kingdom is forever, as we see in today’s passage. The kingdoms of men will rise and fall, but through Christ, our citizenship is in an eternal kingdom of blessedness (Phil. 3:20). Matthew Henry comments, “It is the unspeakable comfort of all God’s faithful subjects, not only that he does reign universally and with an incontestable sovereignty, but that he will reign eternally, and there shall be no end of his dominion.”