Biblica - Vol 92 (2011) Leuchter, Mark, Eisodus as Exodus: The Song of the Sea (Exod 15) Reconsidered. (2011)

This study continues a line of inquiry from the author’s previous essay regarding the 12^th century BCE battle traditions embedded in the Song of Deborah (Judg 5) as the basis for a nascent Exodus ideology surfacing in the Song of the Sea (Exod 15). Exod 15 is identified as developing an agrarian ideal into a basis for national identity: Israel’s successful struggles against competing Canaanite military forces echoing earlier Egyptian imperial hegemony is liturgized into a myth where YHWH defeats the Egyptian foe and then settles his own sacred agrarian estate.