Song of the sea

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The Song of the Sea (Hebrew: שירת הים‎) also known as Az Yashir Moshe is a poem which appears in Exodus at Exodus 15:1b-18. The text describes the destruction of the Egyptian army at the Red Sea, and the future conquest of Canaan by the Israelites. It is a Jewish prayer. It is recited daily in the morning shacharit services.

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[edit] Origin

A Sefer Torah rolled to the Song of the sea.
A Sefer Torah rolled to the Song of the sea.

The origin of this prayer comes from the text in Parshat Beshalach. Az Yashir Moshe is the song that the Israelites sang after they crossed the Red Sea safely. The original text is written in Exodus 15:1-18. It is one of only two sections of the Sefer Torah that is written with a different layout to the normal simple columns, as can be seen in the picture. The alternating words are supposed to represent bricks in a wall, as a representation of the walls of water on either side of the path through the sea. (The other section written differently is Moses' song at the end of the Sefer Torah in Ha'azinu.)

[edit] Meaning

This is a song of praise to God. It deals with his power. It also praises God for the miracle he has just performed for them.

[edit] Translation

Some of the prayer means this:

This song was sung by Moshe and the Children of Israel this song to God. And it said: "I will sing to God, for highly exalted. The horse and his rider have drowned in the sea. God is my song, and strength, And He is my salvation; This is my God and I will glorify him, my father's God and I will exalt him.

[edit] Ketuba of Yom Vayosha

The Ketubá del Seten Dia de Pesah (Ladino), or כתובה ליום השביעי של פסח (Ketuba Le-yom Ha-shebi`i shel Pesah) is a liturgical poem in Ladino, describing Pharaoh's defeat in the Sea of Reeds. Some Sephardic Jewish communities, at least in Turkey, sing this poem on the 21st of the Jewish month Nisan, the Seventh Day of Passover, known as Yom Vayyosha, "The Day of the Song of the Sea". According to Jewish tradition, this is the day on which Pharaoh's army was drowned in the Sea of Reeds, and the Israelite people sang the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15) in gratitude for this victory.

Presumably, this text is called a ketuba ("marriage contract") because the relationship between God and the Jewish people is traditionally described as a marriage, and the Splitting of the Sea is considered to be an important event leading to that marriage, which ultimately took place 42 days later, at Mt. Sinai.

A tune for the Ladino Poem (along with the entire text itself) can be found in Isaac Levy's Anthology of Sepharadic Hazzanut (Antologiya shel Hazzanut Sefaradit, 1965), vol. on the Three Festivals, p. 409, #335. [1]

[edit] Non-traditional interpretations

According to the documentary hypothesis, it is a once independent text that was embedded into the Jahwist source, and thus into the Torah. The date of the text is uncertain, and it may in fact be an original source for the more verbose tale that appears elsewhere in the text. The text also appears to have been included in the Elohist source, although after these texts were redacted together, only the first two lines of the Elohist copy remain, immediately after the lines from the Jahwist copy, the duplication being unnecessary.

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ Isaac Levy's Anthology of Sepharadic Hazzanut (Antologiya shel Hazzanut Sefaradit, 1965), vol. on the Three Festivals, p. 409, #335.
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