Sunday, Sept. 22
Exodus 15:1-27 Read it here
This is a chapter of celebration.
While the memory of the flight from Egypt is entrusted to the rather solemn observance of Passover, this “song to the Lord” seems to be a spontaneous outpouring of joy at God’s great work.
It adds some detail to the account we read before and seems to relish the suffering of the Egyptians, which is to be expected, especially now that the people are safely on the other side of the sea.
This chapter also has one of the intriguing appearances of Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron. Unlike Moses and Aaron, she wasn’t mentioned in the original call story, but here and in several other places seems to be in a position of leadership alongside her brothers.
Tradition has it that Miriam, the only sister mentioned for Moses and Aaron, is the same sister who saved Moses’s life by placing him in a floating basket in the Nile as an infant, even though her name is never mentioned in the earlier story. If so, she would have been older than Moses by several years (and older than Aaron, who is three years older than Moses).
We again see the people grumbling about the hardships they are facing and God responding with a solution. We also see God telling the people to follow his commands. It will be later in the lifetime of Moses that we start seeing these commands put into written form as Moses gains his identity as the great lawgiver of Israel.
-Rev. Mark Fleming
Sunday meditation
Proverbs 8:22-31
“The Lord brought me forth as the first of his works, before his deeds of old; I was formed long ages ago, at the very beginning, when the world came to be. When there were no watery depths, I was given birth, when there were no springs overflowing with water; before the mountains were settled in place, before the hills, I was given birth, before he made the world or its fields or any of the dust of the earth.
I was there when he set the heavens in place, when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep, when he established the clouds above and fixed securely the fountains of the deep, when he gave the sea its boundary so the waters would not overstep his command, and when he marked out the foundations of the earth.
Then I was constantly at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence, rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind.
Prayer focus
Pray a prayer of joy and thanksgiving for all of the blessings God has given you, rejoicing always in his presence.
P.S. In today’s reading from Proverbs, wisdom is personified as a woman. Some offshoots of Judaism and Christianity, considered heretical, have gone as far as to consider Wisdom to be a goddess who is worshiped alongside or even in place of God.