Shabbat Shirah: The Sabbath of Song

The Song of the Sea

Beshalach tells how Pharaoh pursued Israel to the sea, how Moshe stretched out his hand, how “the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground” (Exodus 14:22), and how the waters returned on Egypt’s chariots. The narrative ends: “and the people feared Hashem, and believed Hashem, and his servant Moshe” (14:31). Then comes the song:

Then sang Moshe and the children of Israel this song unto Hashem, and spake, saying, I will sing unto Hashem, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.

The song moves from the past to the future. It begins with the overthrow of Pharaoh (15:1–12), turns to the journey through the wilderness and the fear that falls on the nations (15:13–16), and ends with Israel planted in the Land and Hashem enthroned in His sanctuary:

Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place, O Hashem, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the Sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established. Hashem shall reign for ever and ever.

Its center is a question that Israel has asked ever since: “Who is like unto thee, O Hashem, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?” (15:11). The words Mi chamocha are said every morning and evening in the blessing after the Shema, together with “Hashem shall reign for ever and ever.” The whole song is recited daily in Pesukei DeZimra, the psalms of the morning service. It is also read in the synagogue on the seventh day of Pesach, which tradition identifies as the day the sea was split (see the readings for Pesach).¹ On Shabbat Shirah the whole congregation hears it in its place in the Torah’s story.

Another line is also central: “Hashem is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation: he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation” (15:2). The Hebrew zeh Eli ve’anvehu can also be read as “This is my God, and I will beautify Him.” The Sages derived from it the principle of hiddur mitzvah, performing commandments beautifully (b. Shabbat 133b). The Mekhilta adds that a maidservant at the sea saw what the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel never saw, because the people could point and say “This is my God.”²

Miriam and the timbrels

When Moshe and the men finish, the women begin:

And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aharon, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances. And Miriam answered them, Sing ye to Hashem, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.

Miriam is the first woman in Scripture called nevi’ah, “prophetess,” and the Talmud counts her among Israel’s seven prophetesses (b. Megillah 14a). Where did slaves fleeing in haste find timbrels? The Mekhilta answers that the righteous women of that generation were so sure Hashem would do wonders that they packed their drums in Egypt.³ It is a midrash, but its lesson is clear. Those who trust Hashem prepare to praise Him before the deliverance has come.

Written like a wall of bricks

In a Torah scroll the Song of the Sea is written in a special layout. Short phrases alternate with blank spaces across thirty lines, so that each line’s words sit over the gaps in the line above. The Talmud describes it:

All the songs are written in the form of a half-brick over a whole brick, and a whole brick over a half-brick.

The same passage contrasts the list of Haman’s sons in the Book of Esther, which is written “half-brick over half-brick and whole brick over whole brick,” like a wall with no overlap that is bound to collapse, “so that they should never rise from their downfall.”⁴ The song of the redeemed, by contrast, is written like a well-built wall, every phrase supported by those around it. Maimonides gives the exact form of the thirty lines in his laws of the Torah scroll.⁵

The custom of standing for the song is widespread in both Ashkenazi and Sephardi communities. Israel sang it at the moment of redemption, and the congregation rises as if standing again on the far shore. Many readers chant it to a special festive melody, and in many synagogues the congregation sings some of the verses aloud.

“Then Moshe will sing”: the song and the resurrection

The Torah’s first word in the song is unusual. Az yashir Moshe (אז ישיר משה) uses a form that normally means “then Moshe will sing.” Rashi explains it on the level of plain meaning: “then it entered his heart to sing.”⁶ The Talmud hears in it a promise:

Rabbi Meir said: From where is the resurrection of the dead derived from the Torah? As it is said, “Then Moshe and the children of Israel will sing this song to Hashem.” It does not say “sang” but “will sing.” From here the resurrection of the dead is derived from the Torah.

Moshe and Israel, who sang once on the shore, will stand again and sing again. The song of the first redemption is also a prophecy of the last.

The Sages also set a limit on the celebration. When the angels wished to sing as the Egyptians drowned, Hashem rebuked them: “The work of My hands is drowning in the sea, and you would sing before Me?”⁷ Israel, which was saved, must sing. But Hashem takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 33:11), and Jewish custom also expresses restraint at the downfall of enemies, for example by saying only half-Hallel on the last days of Pesach.⁸

The ten songs

The Mekhilta, the early rabbinic commentary on Exodus, counts ten songs in Israel’s history.⁹ They are:

1. The song on the night of the Exodus (Isaiah 30:29).
2. The Song of the Sea (Exodus 15).
3. The Song of the Well (Numbers 21:17).
4. Moshe’s song, Ha’azinu (Deuteronomy 31:30).
5. Yehoshua’s song at Givon (Joshua 10:12).
6. The Song of Devorah and Barak (Judges 5:1).
7. David’s song of deliverance (2 Samuel 22:1).
8. The song at the dedication of the Temple (Psalm 30:1).
9. The song of Yehoshafat’s army (2 Chronicles 20:21).
10. The song of the age to come: “Sing unto Hashem a new song” (Isaiah 42:10; Psalm 149:1).

The Mekhilta also notices a point of grammar. The first nine are each called shirah (שירה), a feminine noun. The midrash compares them to a woman who gives birth and then must give birth again, because every redemption in this world was followed by new suffering. The last is called shir (שיר), a masculine noun, because the redemption of the age to come will be followed by no further bondage. Every song we sing now is a song between deliverances. The final song will be the last.

The haftarah: Devorah’s song

The haftarah sets a second song beside the first. Ashkenazim read Judges 4:4–5:31, the prose story of Devorah, Barak and Yael and then the song. Sephardim and many Mizrahi communities read only the song, Judges 5:1–31.¹⁰

The parallels are deliberate. Sisera’s chariots, like Pharaoh’s, are swept away by water, “The river of Kishon swept them away” (Judges 5:21). A prophetess leads the singing, as Miriam did. Devorah begins as Moshe began: “I, even I, will sing unto Hashem; I will sing praise to Hashem God of Israel” (5:3). Her song ends with a blessing on those who love Hashem: “let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might. And the land had rest forty years” (5:31). Devorah is “a mother in Israel” (5:7) and a judge who sat under a palm tree to give judgment (4:5). Her story shows that Hashem’s victories often come through people the powerful overlook.

Bread for the birds

A well-loved custom of this Shabbat is putting out food for the birds. Folk tradition gives several reasons. Birds sing every morning, and so they are invited to “join” in the song. Another story, a legend of uncertain source, tells that when Datan and Aviram scattered manna on Shabbat to prove Moshe wrong, the birds ate it up so that the people would find nothing, and they are rewarded for it on this Shabbat.

Halacha adds a caution. The Shulchan Aruch rules that one may not put food on Shabbat before animals that are not dependent on us, such as wild birds, because there is no need to take that trouble on Shabbat for them.¹¹ For this reason the Magen Avraham and the Mishnah Berurah criticize scattering grain for wild birds on Shabbat itself. Others, such as the Aruch HaShulchan, defend the custom as a long-standing Jewish practice.¹² Many families avoid the question by putting out the crumbs on Friday before Shabbat or on Saturday night. It teaches children Hashem’s care for His creatures: “your heavenly Father feedeth them” (Matthew 6:26).

Shabbat Shirah often falls near Tu BiShvat, the new year of the trees on 15 Shevat. The song itself ends with planting, “Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them” (Exodus 15:17), and the prophets imagined creation joining Israel’s praise: “the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands” (Isaiah 55:12).

The Messianic witness: “The song of Moshe and the song of the Lamb”

The Brit Hadashah (the New Testament) takes up the Song of the Sea at its climax. In John’s vision, those who have overcome stand beside a sea of glass mingled with fire:

And they sing the song of Moshe the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Hashem God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. Who shall not fear thee, O Hashem, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee.

The scene is a new Exodus. The redeemed stand by a sea, as Israel did, holding “the harps of God” (15:2). The song is still the song of Moshe. It has not been replaced by a different hymn. It is joined to “the song of the Lamb,” because the Lamb, Yeshua, whom Messianic believers see as the Pesach lamb of a greater redemption (1 Corinthians 5:7), has accomplished what Moshe began. The praise itself is addressed to Hashem alone, “for thou only art holy.” The song ends with the nations coming to worship, as the Song of the Sea foresaw the nations hearing and trembling (Exodus 15:14). Here the Mekhilta’s tenth song and John’s vision meet.

The first disciples were a singing community. Paul urged believers to speak “to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Master” (Ephesians 5:19). In the jail at Philippi, beaten and in stocks, “at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them” (Acts 16:25). Like Miriam’s women with their timbrels, they sang before the deliverance came, and the doors were opened.

The prophetic horizon: a new song at the second Exodus

Isaiah promised that Hashem would lead a second Exodus, and that it too would have its song. He writes of a day when Hashem “shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea,” making a highway for the remnant of His people “like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt” (Isaiah 11:15–16). The next chapter is that day’s song, and it quotes the Song of the Sea word for word:

Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for Hashem is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation. Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.

Exodus 15:2 returns in the mouth of the redeemed of the last days. Isaiah adds, “In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah; We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks” (Isaiah 26:1). The psalms of the kingdom call the whole earth to join: “O sing unto Hashem a new song: sing unto Hashem, all the earth” (Psalm 96:1); “O sing unto Hashem a new song; for he hath done marvellous things: his right hand, and his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory” (Psalm 98:1).

That is where Shabbat Shirah points. Moshe will sing, the dead will rise, Israel will be gathered and planted in the mountain of Hashem’s inheritance, and the nations will join the song of Moshe and the song of the Lamb. Then the final song, the shir that has no further exile after it, will be sung, and “Hashem shall reign for ever and ever.”

Keeping Shabbat Shirah

Some general suggestions:

• Stand for the Song of the Sea when it is read in the synagogue, and follow the brickwork layout in a printed tikkun or chumash.
• Sing at the Shabbat table. Learn a melody for Mi chamocha or Az yashir, or sing psalms of praise (Psalms 96, 98, 150).
• Read the haftarah together, and tell children the story of Devorah, Barak and Yael.
• Feed the birds with the halachic caution: put out the crumbs before Shabbat begins or after it ends.
• Learn the ten songs of the Mekhilta, one for each hour of a Shabbat afternoon.
• Prepare your timbrel. Like Miriam’s women, make a habit of praising Hashem for deliverances you are still waiting for.

“I will sing unto Hashem, for he hath triumphed gloriously.”