Dr Paul Allen

  Exodus 15:19–21  “Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing. And Miriam sang to them: ‘Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea’ ” (vv. 20–21). The Song of Moses did not belong only to Moses, but all the people of Israel sang it, as indicated in Exodus 15:1. But how did Moses teach it to the whole company of Israelites, which numbered six hundred thousand men, plus their wives and children, plus many people who had joined the nation in leaving Egypt (see 12:37–38)? Today’s passage gives us at least part of the answer. After mentioning what happened to Pharaoh’s army at the Red Sea one more time, Moses says that the women, led by his sister Miriam, sang and danced (15:19–20). Specifically, Moses says that Miriam sang the song to the women of Israel (v. 21), and the sense here is that she was teaching them the song by singing it

The Bible isn’t a songbook, but did you know there are at least 185 songs in the Bible? Battles, coronations, funerals, cities being sacked, and seas splitting up—you can find songs in the Bible for all kinds of occasions. Granted, 150 of these songs are in the book of Psalms , which actually is a songbook. But you can find 35ish more songs, chants, dirges, and hymns scattered across the Old and New Testaments . (I say 37ish because some of those songs are very similar to Psalms, and other pieces of poetry may or may not have been sung.) I’ve pulled those non-Psalms together in one place for your reference. Your worship leader will probably give you a high five if you share this with them. =) We’ll kick things off with a few stats about the songs in the Bible, then examine each of the non-psalms one by one. And just in case you’re curious, you’re welcome to check out the piece I wrote on the different kinds of Psalms . Only 185? Well … You may read through these and notice a few

Miriam depicted on the right (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Noah damning Ham Русский: Ной проклинает Хама (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Illustration by James Tissot Copyright de Brunoff 1904 Source: http://www.cts.edu/ImageLibrary/tissot.cfm (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Some people insist that the Bible meant for the races to remain pure, therefore prohibiting any kind of interracial marriage. Usually two biblical texts are drawn upon to support that view. One is the fact that Noah had three sons, Shem , Ham , and Japheth . As you recall, Shem received a patriarchal blessing, and an enlargement of that was given to Japheth. Ham, because he looked upon his father’s nakedness, was cursed. “Cursed be Canaan” was the malediction that Noah pronounced on Ham and his descendants.  Some have neatly contrived from the three sons of Noah , three survivors of the flood, that this is the historic basis for the three basic generic types of human beings: the Caucasian, the Negroid , and the Mongoloid. Th