13 You divided the sea by your strength. You broke the heads of the sea monsters in the waters.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Thou hast divided the sea by thy power. The prophet now collects together certain kinds of deliverances highly worthy of remembrance; all of them, however, belonging to the first deliverance by which God emancipated his people from the tyranny of Egypt. We will find him afterwards descending to the general commendation of the goodness of God which is diffused through the whole world. Thus from the special grace which God vouchsafes to his Church, he passes on to speak of the good-will which he displays towards all mankind. In the first place, he says, Thou hast divided, or cleaved, the sea. Some think that the following clause is subjoined as an effect of what is stated in the first clause, -- God, by drying up the sea, having caused the whales and other great fishes to die. I am, however, of opinion, that it is to be taken metaphorically for Pharaoh and his army; this mode of expression being very common among the prophets, especially when they speak of the Egyptians, whose country was washed by a sea abounding with fish, and divided by the Nile. Pharaoh is, therefore, not improperly termed Leviathan, [1] on account of the advantages of the sea possessed by his country, and because, in reigning over that land with great splendor, he might be compared to a whale moving up and down at its ease in the midst of the waters of the mighty ocean. As God put forth his power at that time for the deliverance of the people, to assure the Church that he would always be her protector and the guardian of her welfare, the encouragement afforded by this example ought not to be limited exclusively to one age. It is, therefore, with good reason applied to the descendants of that ancient race, that they might improve it as a means of confirming and establishing their faith. The prophet does not here recount all the miracles which God had wrought at the departure of the people from the land of Egypt; but in adverting to some of them, he comprehends by the figure synecdoche, all that Moses has narrated concerning them at greater length. When he says that leviathan was given for food to the Israelites, and that even in the wilderness, [2] there is a beautiful allusion to the destruction of Pharaoh and his host. It is as if he had said, that then a bountiful provision of victuals was laid up for the nourishment of the people; for when their enemies were destroyed, the quiet and security which the people in consequence enjoyed served, so to speak, as food to prolong their life. By the wilderness, is not meant the countries lying on the sea coast, though they are dry and barren, but the deserts at a great distance from the sea. The same subject is prosecuted in the following verse, where it is declared, that the fountain was cleaved or divided, that is, it was so when God caused a stream of water to gush from the rock to supply the wants of the people. Finally, it is added, that mighty rivers [3] were dried up, an event which happened when God caused the waters of the Jordan to turn back to make a way for his people to pass over. Some would have the Hebrew word 'ytn, ethan, which signifies mighty, to be a proper name, as if the correct translation were rivers of Ethan; but this interpretation is altogether without foundation.
1 - Calvin supposes that the whale is the animal here referred to, and this was the opinion for a long time universally held. But from a comparison of the description given by Job of the Leviathan (Job 41) with what is known of the natural history of the crocodile, there can be little doubt that the crocodile is the Leviathan of Scripture. This is now very generally agreed upon. "Almost all the oldest commentators," says Dr Good, "I may say unconditionally all of them concurred in regarding the whale as the animal" intended by the Leviathan. "Beza and Diodati were among the first to interpret it the crocodile.' And Bochart has since supported this last rendering with a train of argument, which has nearly overwhelmed all opposition, and has brought almost every commentator over to his opinion." -- Dr Good's New Translation of Job "With respect to the Leviathan," says Fry, "all are now pretty well agreed that it can apply only to the crocodile, and probably it was nothing but a defective knowledge of the language of the book of Job, or of the natural history of this stupendous animal, which led former commentators to imagine the description applicable to any other." -- Fry's New Translation and Exposition of the Book of Job This Egyptian animal, the crocodile of the Nile, as we have formerly observed, (p. 38, note,) was anciently employed as a symbol of the Egyptian power, or of their king. Parkhurst remarks that in Scheuchzer's Physica Sacra may be seen a medal with Julius Caesar's head on one side, and on the reverse a crocodile with this inscription, -- Ægypte Capta, Egypt Taken. This strengthens the conclusion that the crocodile is the animal intended by the name Leviathan. Both the etymology of the name Leviathan, and to what language it belongs, according to Simonis, are unknown. But according to Gesenius it signifies "properly the twisted animal." It is affirmed by the Arabic lexicographers quoted by Bochart, (Phaleg Lib. 1, cap. 15,) that Pharaoh in the Egyptian language signified a crocodile; and if so, there may be some such allusion to his name in this passage, and in Ezekiel 29:3, and 32:2, where the king of Egypt is represented by the same animal, as was made to the name of Draco, when Herodicus (in a sarcasm recorded by Aristotle, Rhet Lib. 2, cap. 23) said that his laws, -- which were very severe, -- were the laws ouk anthropou alla drakontos, non hominis sed draconis. -- Merrick's Annotations "The heads of Leviathan" may denote the princes of Egypt, or the leaders of the Egyptian armies.
2 - Calvin reads, "thy people in the wilderness." But thy has nothing to represent it in the original, which literally is, "to a people, to those of the wilderness." Those who adopt this rendering are not agreed as to what is to be understood by the expression. Some think it means the birds and beasts of prey, who devoured the dead bodies of Pharaoh and the Egyptian army, when cast upon the coast of the Red Sea by the tides. See Exodus 14:30. If such is the meaning, these birds and beasts of prey are called "the people of wilderness," as being its principal inhabitants. That m, am, people, is sometimes to be thus interpreted in Scripture is evident from Proverbs 30:25, 26, where both the ants and the conies are styled a people But as the desert on the coast of which the Egyptians were thrown up was inhabited by tribes of people who lived on fishes -- even on those of the largest kind, which they found cast upon the shore by the tides -- and were from thence called Ichthuophagoi, or fish-eaters; some interpreters suppose that these are "the people of the wilderness" here mentioned; and that as Pharaoh and his host are represented under the figure of the Leviathan and other monsters of the deep, so these people, in allusion to their common way of living, are figuratively said to have preyed on their dead bodies, by which is understood their enriching themselves with their spoils.
3 - It is rivers in the plural, from which it would appear that the Jordan was not the only river which was dried up, to give an easy passage to the Israelites. The Chaldee specifies the Arnon, the Jabbok, and the Jordan, as the rivers here referred to. With respect to the Jordan, see Joshua 3:16. As to the miraculous drying up either of the Arnon or the Jabbok, we have no distinct account in Scripture. But in Numbers 21, after it is mentioned, verse 13, that the Israelites "pitched on the other side of Arnon," it follows, verses 14, 15, "Wherefore, it is said in the book of the wars of the Lord, What he did in the Red Sea, and in the brooks of Arnon, and at the stream of the brooks that goeth down to the dwelling of Ar, and lieth upon the border of Moab." From this it would appear that God wrought at "the brooks of Arnon, and at the stream of the brooks that goeth down to the dwelling of Ar," miracles similar to that which was wrought at the Red Sea, when it was divided to open up a passage for the chosen tribes.
Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength - Margin, as in Hebrew, "break." That is, he had by his power "broken up" the strength of the sea so that it offered no resistance to their passing through it. The allusion is evidently to the passage through the Red Sea, Exodus 14:21.
Thou brakest the heads of the dragons - Margin, "whales." On the meaning of the word used here - תנין tannı̂yn - see the notes at Isaiah 13:22; notes at Job 30:29. It refers here, undoubtedly, to crocodiles or sea monsters. The language here is used to denote the absolute power of God as manifested over the sea when the people of Israel passed through it. It was as if by slaying all the mighty monsters of the deep that would have resisted their passage, he had made their transit entirely safe.
In the waters - That reside in the waters of the sea.
Thou didst divide the sea - When our fathers came from Egypt.
Thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters - Pharaoh, his captains, and all his hosts were drowned in the Red Sea, when attempting to pursue them.
Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the (i) dragons in the waters.
(i) That is, Pharaoh's army.
Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength,.... This and the following instances from hence to Psalm 74:18 are proofs of God's working salvation in the midst of the earth; some of them seem peculiar to the people of Israel, and others are benefits common to mankind in general; which the church makes use of to encourage her faith and hope, in expectation of salvation, and deliverance out of her present distressed and melancholy circumstances. This seems to refer to the Lord's dividing of the Red sea into parts by a strong east wind, while Moses lifted up his rod and stretched out his hand as he was ordered, as a token of the divine power, and so the children of Israel passed through it as on dry land, Exodus 14:21, and he that did this can make way for his redeemed ones to return to Zion with everlasting joy, Isaiah 51:10. Some render the words, "thou hast broken the sea by thy strength" (g); subdued and conquered it, and so hast the dominion over it, rulest the raging of it, settest bounds to it, and hast ordered its proud waves to go so far and no farther; and thus the Arabic version, "thou hast made it to stand"; and the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions, "thou hast confirmed it": but our version is best, which refers it to the work of God at the Red sea, and with which the Targum agrees; and Aben Ezra observes, that some refer it to the dividing of the Red sea:
thou breakest the heads of the dragons in the waters: or great whales, as the word is rendered in Genesis 1:21, by which are meant Pharaoh and his generals, his captains and chief men, who were destroyed in the waters of the Red sea; comparable to dragons for their strength, for their cruelty to the children of Israel, and for their wrath and malice against them; and so, for the same reason, another Pharaoh, king of Egypt, in later times, is called the great dragon, that lies in the midst of his rivers, Ezekiel 29:3 and the king of Babylon or of Egypt, Isaiah 27:1. So the Targum paraphrases it:
"thou hast broken the heads of dragons, and hast suffocated the Egyptians in the sea.''
Rome Pagan is compared to a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, which have been broken and destroyed, Revelation 12:3, and Rome Papal has the power, seat, and great authority of the dragon; and though the Romish antichrist has two horns like a lamb, he speaks as a dragon, who also has seven heads and ten horns, and which ere long will be broke in pieces, see Revelation 13:1, in the faith of which the church might be strengthened, by considering what God had done to the heads of the dragon in the Red sea; to which may be added that Satan is called a dragon, Psalm 91:13, whose head was bruised, and his principalities and powers spoiled, by Christ at his death, and will be utterly destroyed at his second coming.
(g) "contrivisti", Pagninus, Montanus; "disrupisti", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Gejerus, Michaelis; "rupisti", Cocceius.
Examples of the "salvation wrought" are cited.
divide the sea--that is, Red Sea.
brakest . . . waters--Pharaoh and his host (compare Isaiah 51:9-10; Ezekiel 29:3-4).
Dragons - He means Pharaoh and his mighty men.
*More commentary available at chapter level.