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Echoes of Revelation
Revelation never quotes the Old Testament outright, yet no New Testament book refers to it more. See both texts side by side, why they don’t match, and what John does with them.
Revelation 15:3, the song of Moses the servant of God
The victors sing the song of Moses, the song Israel sang after crossing the sea, now joined to the song of the Lamb.
Revelation 15:3, in every translation this tool compares.
A national anthem sung after a new victory carries the memory of the first one. After the Red Sea, Moses and Israel sang to God for throwing Pharaoh's horses and riders into the water. John hears the victors sing the song of Moses, God's servant, joined to a song for the Lamb. The old rescue from Egypt and the new rescue by the Lamb are praised together.
A song sung by a sea after God beats an enemy, and the name of Moses. Exodus 14:31 calls Moses the Lord's servant just before the song begins. Revelation names the song of Moses, God's servant. Both groups of singers praise God, not themselves.
John names the song but does not quote it. Beale shows that the words that follow come from other Old Testament texts. Exodus 14:31 in Greek calls Moses God's attendant (therapon); John calls him God's slave or servant (doulos). He adds the song of the Lamb, which no one had sung before. And the singers stand by a sea in heaven, not on the shore of Egypt. Deuteronomy 32, the other song of Moses, may be in view as well.
John says the exodus has happened again on a larger scale. Israel escaped Pharaoh; the church escapes the beast. Beale reads the Lamb's victory as the thing the Red Sea rescue pointed toward. For believers under Rome the point is plain: the God who drowned Pharaoh's army will not fail them.
Not a quotation of the song. John names the song of Moses, yet the words the singers sing come from other Old Testament texts, not from Exodus 15.
Beale calls the song in 15:3-4 an imitation of the song Moses sang after the Red Sea victory (Exodus 15:1-18). The title servant of God, he says, comes from Exodus 14:31, which stands right before that song. He reads the and between the two songs as explanatory, so there is one song: the saints praise the Lamb's victory as what the Red Sea pointed to. Deuteronomy 32 is also called a song of Moses (Deuteronomy 31:19, 22, 30; 32:44), and Beale includes it, since it ends with God avenging the blood of his servants (32:43). Jewish writings linked the song of Exodus 15:1 to a new song in the age to come (Midrash on Psalms) and even to the singers' resurrection (b. Sanhedrin 91b). The Greek of Revelation reads ten oden Mouseos tou doulou tou theou; Exodus 15:1 in the Greek translation has ten oden tauten, this song. Keener thinks Exodus 15:1-18 is almost surely meant. The ESV Study Bible says the song of Moses is fulfilled in the song of the Lamb, and the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible adds the Passover lamb of Exodus 12. The grade is drawn here: John names the song outright.
Heiser reads Beale and McDonough: this song answers, in the last days, the song Moses sang in Exodus 15, and naming it settles that the scene is set at the Red Sea of a new exodus. He uses it to tie the bowls to the plagues on Egypt that follow in chapter 16.
Beale includes Deuteronomy 32 in the allusion, since it is also called a song of Moses and it describes judgment. Keener grants that Deuteronomy 32 was used in Jewish worship but thinks the context points to Exodus 15. Wright says the song owes something to Deuteronomy 32 while the focus stays on the exodus. Beale reports De Moor's proposal of an Aramaic song of the Lamb about David and Goliath and finds it intriguing but unproven. Beale takes the and between the songs as meaning even, so the two are one song. MacArthur reads two songs for two rescues: Israel freed from Egypt through Moses, and sinners freed from sin through Christ.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 15:3a
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 15:3-4
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Revelation 15:3-4
- ESV Study Bible, note on Revelation 15:3-4
- N. T. Wright, Revelation for Everyone, comment on Revelation 15:1-8
- Septuagint, Exodus 15:1 and 14:31, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 15:3
- Michael S. Heiser, Revelation 15-16: The Seven Angels, Seven Plagues, Seven Bowls of God's Wrath, video lecture (Naked Bible Revelation series)
- John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on Revelation 15:3
