When He directed His lance towards the Red Sea, which stood in the way of His redeemed, the waters immediately fell as it were into pangs of travail (יחילוּ, as in Habakkuk 3:10, not ויּחילו), also the billows of the deep trembled; for before the omnipotence of God the Redeemer, which creates a new thing in the midst of the old creation, the rules of the ordinary course of nature become unhinged. There now follow in Psalm 77:18, Psalm 77:19 lines taken from the picture of a thunder-storm. The poet wishes to describe how all the powers of nature became the servants of the majestic revelation of Jahve, when He executed judgment on Egypt and delivered Israel. זרם, Poel of זרם (cognate זרב, זרף, Aethiopic זנם, to rain), signifies intensively: to stream forth in full torrents. Instead of this line, Habakkuk, with a change of the letters of the primary passage, which is usual in Jeremiah more especially, has זרם מים עבר. The rumbling which the שׁחקים

(Note: We have indicated on Psalm 18:12; Psalm 36:6, that the שׁהקים are so called from their thinness, but passages like Psalm 18:12 and the one before us do not favour this idea. One would think that we have more likely to go back to Arab. sḥq, to be distant (whence suḥḳ, distance; saḥı̂ḳ, distant), and that שׁהקים signifies the distances, like שׁמים, the heights, from שׁחק equals suḥḳ, in distinction from שׁחק, an atom (Wetzstein). But the Hebrew affords no trace of this verbal stem, whereas שׁחק, Arab. sḥq, contundere, comminuere (Neshwn: to pound to dust, used e.g., of the apothecary's drugs), is just as much Hebrew as Arabic. And the word is actually associated with this verb by the Arabic mind, inasmuch as Arab. saḥâbun saḥqun (nubes tenues, nubila tenuia) is explained by Arab. sḥâb rqı̂q. Accordingly שׁהקים, according to its primary notion, signifies that which spreads itself out thin and fine over a wide surface, and according to the usage of the language, in contrast with the thick and heavy פני הארץ, the uppermost stratum of the atmosphere, and then the clouds, as also Arab. a‛nân, and the collective ‛anan and ‛anân (vid., Isaiah, at Isaiah 4:5, note), is not first of all the clouds, but the surface of the sky that is turned to us (Fleischer).)

cause to sound forth (נתנוּ, cf. Psalm 68:34) is the thunder. The arrows of God (חצציך, in Habakkuk חצּיך) are the lightnings. The Hithpa. (instead of which Habakkuk has יחלּכוּ) depicts their busy darting hither and thither in the service of the omnipotence that sends them forth. It is open to question whether גּלגּל denotes the roll of the thunder (Aben-Ezra, Maurer, Bttcher): the sound of Thy thunder went rolling forth (cf. Psalm 29:4), - or the whirlwind accompanying the thunder-storm (Hitzig); the usage of the language (Psalm 83:14, also Ezekiel 10:13, Syriac golgolo) is in favour of the latter. On Psalm 77:19 cf. the echo in Psalm 97:4. Amidst such commotions in nature above and below Jahve strode along through the sea, and made a passage for His redeemed. His person and His working were invisible, but the result which attested His active presence was visible. He took His way through the sea, and cut His path (Chethb plural, שׁביליך, as in Jeremiah 18:15) through great waters (or, according to Habakkuk, caused His horses to go through), without the footprints (עקּבות with Dag. dirimens) of Him who passes and passed through being left behind to show it.

Psalm 78:5 Parallel Commentaries

for he

Psalm 81:5 This he ordained in Joseph for a testimony, when he went out through the land of Egypt: where I heard a language that I understood not.

Psalm 119:152 Concerning your testimonies, I have known of old that you have founded them for ever.

Psalm 147:19 He shows his word to Jacob, his statutes and his judgments to Israel.

Deuteronomy 4:45 These are the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments, which Moses spoke to the children of Israel...

Deuteronomy 6:7 And you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way...

Deuteronomy 11:19 And you shall teach them your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, when you lie down...

Isaiah 8:20 To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

Romans 3:2 Much every way: chiefly, because that to them were committed the oracles of God.

1 John 5:9-12 If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he has testified of his Son...

testimony. The word testimony is used for the ark, and for the law, written on tables of stone, put within the ark, and covered with the mercy seat. This testified the Lord's gracious presence with his people, and seemed to point out to them both the way of access and acceptance, and the standard or rule of their duty.

Exodus 25:16,21 And you shall put into the ark the testimony which I shall give you...

Exodus 40:3,20 And you shall put therein the ark of the testimony, and cover the ark with the veil...

that they

Psalm 78:3,4 Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us...

Genesis 18:19 For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD...

Isaiah 38:19 The living, the living, he shall praise you, as I do this day: the father to the children shall make known your truth.

Ephesians 6:4 And, you fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.